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BurgerTime

Arcade

Arcade

The object of the game is to complete a number of hamburgers while avoiding enemy foods. When main protagonist, chef Peter Pepper, the player's character, walks the length of an ingredient (bun, meat patty, tomato, etc.), it falls one level. If it lands atop another ingredient, the latter in t...

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Developer
Data East

Released on
1982

Size
1–2 Players

Version
Arcade

Requirements
Arcade

Downloads
Platform

Publisher
Bally Midway

ESRB Rating
Not Rated

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Description

The object of the game is to complete a number of hamburgers while avoiding enemy foods.

When main protagonist, chef Peter Pepper, the player’s character, walks the length of an ingredient (bun, meat patty, tomato, etc.), it falls one level. If it lands atop another ingredient, the latter in turn falls one level. A burger is completed when all vertically aligned ingredients have been dropped out of the maze and onto a waiting plate. Once all burgers are completed, the game level is finished.

While making burgers, the player must avoid the antagonists, three types of enemies: Mr. Hot Dog, Mr. Pickle, and Mr. Egg. Enemies can be dodged, stunned, crushed with a falling ingredient, or dropped by luring them onto an ingredient and then causing it to fall. In this last case, the piece will fall two extra levels for every enemy caught on it. Enemies that have been crushed or dropped return to the maze after a few seconds. Dropped enemies award larger point values than crushed ones; therefore, to obtain a high score, the player must attract more than one enemy onto an ingredient just before dropping it.

Peter Pepper has pepper shots to shake on nearby enemies to stun and render them harmless for a few seconds. Extra shots are obtained by collecting bonus foods, such as coffee, an ice cream cone, or French fries, which appear in the center of the maze when a certain number of ingredients have dropped.

There are six screens of increasing difficulty, with more burgers and enemies, burgers that have more parts, and/or layouts that make it easier for Peter Pepper to be cornered and harder for him to reach the ingredients. Completing all six screens takes the player back to the first one.

BurgerTime

Overview & History

Released by Data East in 1982, BurgerTime is a culinary-themed arcade masterpiece conceptualized by Shoji Sakamoto. Originally titled Burger Man before a trademark-prompted name change, the game places players in the oversized apron of Chef Peter Pepper. Amidst a frantic, greasy labyrinth, Peter must assemble massive multi-tiered hamburgers while dodging sentient, hostile breakfast ingredients. Deceptively whimsical in its graphical presentation—featuring towering buns, beef patties, and giant lettuce leaves—the title quickly earned a reputation in arcades for its punishing difficulty, frantic pacing, and memorable sound design, ultimately securing a beloved place in early 1980s pop culture.

Gameplay Features & Mechanics

The core objective revolves around traversing a single-screen maze of ladders and platforms to step over giant burger ingredients—top buns, patties, lettuce, and bottom buns—causing them to drop down one level at a time. When a falling ingredient collides with the tier below, it knocks down those components as well, until the entire stack plummets into a waiting plate at the bottom of the screen. Standing in Peter’s way are aggressively pursuing enemies: Mr. Hot Dog, Mr. Pickle, and Mr. Egg. To survive, Peter can deploy a limited supply of pepper shaker charges to temporarily stun his foes. Alternatively, clever players can trap enemies directly on top of a falling ingredient, squishing them for bonus points and momentarily removing them from the board. As stages progress, the mazes grow increasingly complex, requiring razor-sharp spatial awareness, efficient routing, and split-second timing to clear every plate before time expires.