Ludography

Where to get it

BurgerTime cover

2025 · Itizso · Platformer · Arcade

BurgerTime

1982 video game

Released
14 February 2025
Platforms
Apple IIAtari 2600Atari 7800BrowserColecoVisionFamicom Disk SystemGame BoyIntellivisionNESNintendo SwitchPlayStation 4WiiZeebo
Genres
PlatformerArcade
Developers
Itizso
Publishers
Itizso
Modes
Single-player
Perspective
Side view
Themes
Action
Engine
HTML5

About

BurgerTime (or Hamburger in Japan) is an arcade video game by Data East released in 1982. According to a former Data East programmer, the game was designed in-house but the development itself was outsourced to another company.

The player controls chef Peter Pepper, who walks across oversized ingredients in a maze of platforms and ladders, causing them to fall and stack on buns below, eventually creating complete burgers. Peter is pursued by anthropomorphic hot dogs, fried eggs, and pickles. A limited supply of pepper can be thrown at aggressors immediately in front of Peter, briefly stunning them.

Keywords

  • unofficial
  • unofficial port

Media

BurgerTime artwork 1

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The object of the game is to build a number of hamburgers while avoiding enemy foods. The player controls the protagonist, chef Peter Pepper, with a four-position joystick and a "pepper" button.

Each level is a maze of platforms and ladders in which giant burger ingredients (bun, meat patty, tomato, lettuce and cheese) are arranged. When Peter walks the full length of an ingredient, it falls to the level below, knocking down any ingredient that happens to be there. A burger is completed when all of its vertically aligned ingredients have been dropped out of the maze and onto a waiting plate. The player must complete all burgers to finish the board.

Reception

In Japan, Game Machine listed Hamburger as the 11th highest-grossing arcade video game of 1982. The magazine later listed it as the 23rd most successful table arcade unit of June 1983.

Following its North American debut at the Amusement & Music Operators Association (AMOA) show in November 1982, it was reviewed by Video Games magazine, which listed it as the show's fourth best game, while saying it was the "stupidest, silliest game ever, and that's why you couldn't get people off the Burger Time games with a crowbar!" The review praised the "music, challenging mazes, and comical" characters.

Legacy

An arcade spin-off, Peter Pepper's Ice Cream Factory (1984), and an arcade sequel, Super BurgerTime (スーパーバーガータイム) (1990), were not widely released. Super BurgerTime stars Peter Pepper Jr. and allows two players to play at once. It is fairly true to the original, but with many added features and a different style of graphics.

A console-only sequel, Diner, was created after the 1984 purchase of Intellivision from Mattel by INTV Corp. It was programmed by Ray Kaestner, the programmer of the Intellivision version of BurgerTime. In Diner, Peter Pepper must kick balls of food so that they roll off platforms and down ramps to land on a large plate at the bottom of the screen, while avoiding or crushing enemy food items that are trying to stop him.

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
Browser14 February 2025Worldwide

Title IDsone per regional release, with its latest update

PlatformTitle IDRegionLatest update
Family Computer Disk SystemDFC-BGTJapan—
NESNGT-4500Japan—
NES-BRNorth America—

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Collections19 collections

Platform libraries

Publishers

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.