Play Burger Time Online

Summary

BurgerTime started life as "Hamburger" on Data East’s DECO Cassette System in Japan, then got a new name and a North‑American license from Bally Midway when it crossed the Pacific. The arcade hit was actually designed in‑house but the coding was handed off to an outside studio, a fact that explains the game’s surprisingly polished feel for a 1982 release.

You play as chef Peter Pepper, navigating a maze of platforms and ladders while stepping on giant burger parts. Each time you walk the full length of a bun, patty, lettuce, tomato or cheese, it drops one level, crushing any enemy food beneath it and nudging lower ingredients further down. The goal is to line up all the pieces so a complete burger lands on the waiting plate. Five pepper‑shaker shots let you stun the roaming Mr. Hot Dog, Mr. Pickle and Mr. Egg, and bonus items like ice‑cream or coffee grant extra points and another shot.

After its arcade success—ranking 11th in Japan’s 1982 earnings and earning a 1984 Arkie Merit—BurgerTime flooded home consoles from Intellivision to the NES, later resurfacing on the Wii Virtual Console and the Switch/PS4 Arcade Archives. G‑Mode now holds the IP, and the game’s quirky charm still shows up in modern compilations and spin‑offs such as Super BurgerTime and BurgerTime World Tour.

Storyline

In Burger Time for the NES you take on the role of Chef Peter Pepper, a lanky cook who must assemble giant hamburgers. The game’s levels are built like a maze of platforms and ladders, and Peter walks across oversized ingredients—buns, patties, lettuce and cheese—making them tumble down to stack on the buns below until a complete burger is formed. While he’s busy building his meals, anthropomorphic hot dogs, fried eggs and pickles (sometimes described as evil sausages and eggs) chase him across the screen. The chase forces the player to time his moves carefully, using ladders and platform edges to stay ahead of the relentless food foes. Each completed burger clears the stage and lets Peter move on to the next, increasingly tricky level.