Mmmm... Burgertime

Burgertime is a beautifully designed game. It seems so simple: Avoid Mr. Hotdog, Egg and Pickle, while stacking up burger ingredients. But it's not simple. It's hard. Damn hard. Except in the video below this guy makes it look simple. Embarrassingly simple.

While still plugging away at the Popeye record I'll take breaks from time to time to play Burgertime. As a child I remember my mom laughing at the live actor commercial for Burgertime. I'm not sure if she knew it was for a game or not (she hated video games) but it is a definate memory I'll take to my grave. The commecial always reminded me of a cross over of a Fruit of the Loom commercials. Perhaps they were conceived by the same marketing firm.

Anyways it seems the key to this torture is to group the enemies so you can drop them with the burger pieces for big points. Sounds simple. Again, its not. Again, this video makes it seem simple.

The AI seems simple enough which is probably what makes the game so difficult: Move towards the chef. If you approach a ladder and he is above or below you take the ladder in that direction. Repeat. Perhaps the true difficulty is keeping track of that many enemies. Usually I find myself trying to force an enemy in one direction and not realizing that I'm sending another enemy either right towards me, or down a path that will eventually box me in.

Another difficulty is that you need to be aligned perfectly with ladders walk off them. This isn't so difficult at the top or the bottom of one, but if you're trying to step off in the middle of a platform good-luck.