Burger Time (c) 1982 Data East.
Burger Time is a 1- or a 2-player game that puts you in control of chef Peter Pepper. Direct him through the maze of ladders and platforms to build his burgers. Your job is to give him guidance while building his burgers and to keep him away from his pursuing enemies - Mr. Hot Dog, Mr. Egg, and Mr. Pickle.
The enemies are very sneaky and, if given half a chance, will try to corner Peter at the end of one of the platforms or to trap him on one of the ladders he has to use to get from one level of platforms to another.
The enemies have no defense mechanisms of any kind. But they cannot be permanently eliminated either. As soon as Peter puts one enemy out of commission, another appears somewhere on the screen at the edge of one of the platforms.
However, in an emergency, Peter can slow the enemies down for short periods of time. This is accomplished by having him throw pepper on them. When hit by the pepper, the enemies will be disabled for several seconds. When they are disabled like this, Peter can walk right over them and not be caught.
As your skill level increases, the number and direction of enemies coming at Peter at any one time and the speed with which they move, is gradually increased; plus, their pursuit patterns become more and more devious while their overall accuracy is highly improved.
Bonus lives are awarded periodically throughout the game as you reach or pass certain preselected point values. Each task or event that Peter can perform or cause to happen has an assigned point value.
The object of the game is to survive as long as possible while constantly improving your skills and building as many Burgers as you can. As you do this, each following rack of the game will have more enemies, more difficult mazes, and will in general be harder to complete.

>>> TECHNICAL DETAILS
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Main CPU : M6502 (@ 1.5 Mhz)
Sound CPU : M6502 (@ 500 Khz)
Sound Chips : (2x) AY8910 (@ 1.5 Mhz)
Screen orientation : Vertical
Video resolution : 240 x 240 pixels
Screen refresh : 57.00 Hz
Palette colors : 16
Players : 2
Control : 4-way joystick
Buttons : 1 (PEPPER)

>>> TRIVIA
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Released in November 1982, the game was originally titled 'Hamburger' in Japan, but was renamed 'Burger Time' before being introduced to the United States.
Burger Time was originally made for the Deco Cassette System ('Burger Time (DC)'), an early arcade format that pulled the game data from audio cassettes. The cassette system enjoyed a brief bit of popularity, until it was discovered that the cassettes quickly wore out, rendering the game useless. Bally Midway licensed this title soon after its original release (october 1982), and redesigned the hardware to drop the cassette altogether. This version of the game sold vast quantities when compared to the original. There was also a version version of this game that bore the title 'Cook Race'.
Bryan Wagner holds the official record for this game with 11,512,500 points on September 19, 2008.
A sequel called 'Pizzatime' was planned around 1984 but was never released.
In Japan where the game was made, it is common to add a fried egg to your burger. Hence, Mr. Egg as one of the Food Foes.

>>> GAME UPDATES
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* The Bally Midway licensed version has a different attract mode.
* If you run out of pepper in the Bally Midway licensed version, a special sound effect will play, signaling this.
- SCORING -
Stacking a burger ingredient : 50 points per ingredient
Crushing Mr. Hot Dog : 100 points
Crushing Mr. Pickle : 200 points
Crushing Mr. Egg : 300 points
Collecting Ice Cream : 500 points
Collecting Coffee : 1,000 points
Collecting Fries : 1,500 points
Dropping Ingredient with 1 enemy on top : 500 points
Dropping Ingredient with 2 enemies on top : 1,000 points
Dropping Ingredient with 3 enemies on top : 2,000 points
Dropping Ingredient with 4 enemies on top : 4,000 points
Dropping Ingredient with 5 enemies on top : 8,000 points
Dropping Ingredient with 6 enemies on top : 16,000 points
and so on...

>>> TRICKS AND TIPS
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* 'Mad Dash' : J.D. Lowe, the current world record holder adds some suggestions... Something that very few players use is something I call 'Mad Dash'. If you watch as the chef is drawn on the screen, he walks up/down ladders at approx. 8 steps a second. So, in theory, if you can press the up and down arrows faster than 8 times a second, you can go faster. This is very helpful on later levels like Level 20. This does not work on going left and right, because the steps are smaller, and the computer has to draw the chef facing you again if you let go of the controller. It's a bit complicated, but like I said earlier, it can be very helpful.
* Peppers Appearances : The peppers do not appear randomly on the screen; in fact, they appear after so many ingredients have fallen to the bottom of the screen...
Level 1 - Peppers appear after 4, 8, and 12 ingredients have dropped.
Level 2 - After 5, 7, and 13 ingredients.
Level 3 - 4, 8, and 13.
Level 4 - 6, 16, 22, and 29.
Level 5 - 3, 6, and 9.
Level 6 - 3, 7, 12, and 14.
* Enemies can't turn around immediately, so you can follow them around temporarily.
* The best tactic is generally to stand halfway across a piece of food, wait for enemies to appear on the burger piece's edge, and then drop the burger piece and the enemies at once. Always lure the enemies onto the highest portion of the screen, and then drop them. This has several advantages : it clears more burger pieces, plus it means that units on lower levels may wander into the cascading pieces, killing them also.
* Leave plenty of room around yourself when going up ladders - the sprites in Burger Time are somewhat bigger than the visible characters.
* When enemies first appear, you have 1/4 sec to go through them, if you need to.
* IMPORTANT : If you get caught by an enemy while the last piece of food is falling into place, the game will NOT deduct a life from your game!

>>> GAME SERIES
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1. Burger Time (1982)
2. Peter Pepper's Ice Cream Factory (1984, Cassette DECO)
3. Super Burger Time (1990)

>>> GAME PORTS TO OTHER SYSTEMS
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* Consoles :
Colecovision (1982)
Atari 2600 (1982)
Mattel Intellivision (1982)
Nintendo Famicom (1985)
Nintendo Game Boy (1991, 'Burger Time Deluxe')
Sony PlayStation (1997, 'Arcade's Greatest Hits - The Midway Collection 2')
Sony PlayStation 2 (2005, 'Oretachi Game Center Zoku - Burger Time')
Atari 7800 (2005, 'Beef Drop')
* Computers :
PC [Booter] (1982)
PC [MS-DOS] (1982)
Apple II (1983)
Texas Instruments TI-99/4A (1983)
Commodore C64 (1984)
BBC B (1984, 'Mr. Wimpy' - Ocean)
Acorn Electron (1984, 'Mr. Wimpy' - Ocean)
Oric (1984, 'Mr. Wimpy' - Ocean)
Sinclair ZX Spectrum (1984, 'Mr. Wimpy' - Ocean)
PC [CD-Rom] (1997, 'Arcade's Greatest Hits - The Midway Collection 2')
MSX ('Mac Attack')
VTech Laser-VZ ('Hamburger Sam')
Amstrad CPC
* Others :
LCD handheld game (1982) released by Mattel.
LCD Handheld Game (1982) by Bandai.
VFD Portable Game (1983) by Bandai.

>>> OTHER GAME RESOURCES
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Game's rom.
Machine's picture.