BurgerTime

Famicom Disk System

Famicom Disk System

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
1988

Size
1–2 Players

Version
Famicom Disk System

Requirements
Nintendo Famicom Disk System

Downloads
Action

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 1988 exclusively for the Famicom Disk System (FDS), this magnetic floppy disk port of the arcade classic brought Chef Peter Pepper’s culinary crisis into Japanese homes with distinct audio-visual enhancements. The storyline casts you as the dedicated chef who must construct towering, multi-layered hamburgers while dodging sentient breakfast ingredients bent on your destruction. Because the FDS format allowed for rewritable media and slightly more expansive storage than standard early Famicom cartridges, Data East utilized the medium to refine the scrolling playfields and crisp chiptune soundtrack. While the core objective remained identical to the 1982 coin-op original—stomping on bun, patty, and lettuce segments to drop them onto waiting plates below—the FDS version holds a unique place in retrogaming history as a transitional piece bridging early arcade simplicity with the expanding depth of late-80s home console software.

Gameplay Features & Mechanics

BurgerTime operates on a single-screen, platform-action grid where Peter Pepper traverses a labyrinth of ladders and platforms. To assemble a burger, you must maneuver your chef across every segment of a tier, causing the ingredients to drop vertically onto the layer directly beneath them. If a falling ingredient collides with another, it pushes it down further, allowing for massive vertical chain reactions that crush enemies caught in the path. You must constantly evade pursuing antagonists: Mr. Hot Dog, Mr. Pickle, and Mr. Egg, who stalk you relentlessly across the scaffolding. Your only defensive measures are a limited supply of pepper shakers, which can be tossed to temporarily stun enemies, and quick-witted navigation across broken floor tiles to force pursuers to take alternate paths.