I wouldn’t exactly call myself professional.
This week I had the unbridled joy of playing Happy’s Humble Burger Farm on Steam. Specifically I played the alpha since that is all that is out at the moment with the full game still a few miles down the road. There is also a Happy’s Humble Burger Barn game on Itch.io that I would recommend not playing if you don’t want spoiled what is likely going to be a very similar plot when the full game comes out. Or do, I’m not your boss.
Burger Farm (which I will call it going forward for brevity) is the alpha for a game that I hesitate to refer to as a horror title. It’s a horror title in the same way that Return of the Living Dead is a horror title; superficially. Sure some weird stuff happens in the alpha but the creepiness isn’t there. The original Itch.io demo was better at making you feel genuinely creeped out.
In Burger Barn you play as some schmuck starting a new job at Happy’s Humble Burger Farm on the night shift. You’re working alone and that means tending the counter, cooking the food, filling the register, and fixing whatever goes wrong at this aging burger joint. Customers order one at a time and you’ll need to balance the timer on the order with the occasional thing that needs fixing, otherwise you’ll receive an infraction. Too many infractions and…well it’s not even worth thinking about.
As it stands I actually prefer the PS1 aesthetic of the old Itch.io demo. There’s something automatically more creepy about this raw style and all of it;
Compared to the relatively cleaner aesthetic of the current iteration. It feels like a generic Unity engine game.
Cooking your fast food for hungry customers is easy as a shake, and you get to make those too. All of the sandwiches use exactly the same ingredients; one of each. The only challenge really comes from managing your time as you have to cook patties and they can burn if you leave them on the griddle too long. The most challenge appears to stem from just knowing when it’s safe to run out to unclog the toilet or turn on the parking lot light or if it’s better to wait for whatever patty you have cooking to finish.
There’s a couple of random events that may or may not take place to make you feel uncomfortable. In one session my topping tray literally just started farting out cheese slices. I’m pretty sure this was intentional.
Once you get into a rhythm the cooking part becomes pretty easy. The overarching plot becomes very obvious on night two if you are familiar with a certain movie and I won’t name the film because that would also ruin the plot.
All that said I am still very much interested in what the final game will look like. There are four nights available in the alpha and it’s a fun way to spend an hour or so.
MMO Fallout 