Burger Time

Burger Time is a platform maze game by Data East, originally released for arcades in 1982.

You play as Peter Pepper, burger chef, and construct burgers out of giant buns, hamburger patties, lettuce, tomato and cheese slices. Walking over a burger part drops it to a lower level, until the parts finally pile up on a plate.

Peter Pepper is chased by food enemies; besides using his legs, he can fire his pepper shaker at them to briefly stop them in their tracks (pepper supply is limited). If an enemy is atop an ingredient when it falls, it will fall farther; enemies can also be squashed between falling burger parts.

Mattel produced most of the early home ports; their Intellivision port did so well it became a pack-in for the Intellivision II. An Intellivision-exclusive sequel, Diner, was released in 1987.

Data East released two obscure follow-ups for arcades. Peter Pepper's Ice Cream Factory, released in 1984, took away Peter's pepper shaker but let him crush enemies with scoops of ice cream before throwing them onto cones; it was rarely seen until it appeared with the original game on the Compilation Rerelease Data East Arcade Classics. Super Burger Time, released in 1990, had 16-bit quality graphics and some new gameplay elements like Boss Battles.

In 2008, Namco released BurgerTime Delight for mobile phones. Monkey Paw Games remade the game in 2011 as BurgerTime World Tour.

Tropes used in Burger Time include:

• Anthropomorphic Food: Hot dogs, pickles and eggs are in hot pursuit.
• Edible Ammunition: Pepper.
• Endless Game: As with most Golden Age arcade games, Burger Time just keeps looping through the same stages, and the enemies eventually get ridiculously fast.
• Level Ate: You're walking over giant hamburger parts.
• Power-Up Food: Somehow this replenishes pepper supply.
• Respawning Enemies: Enemies respawn around the edges of the screen a few seconds after getting squashed.