Burger Time Demo

Forum
team threads

Here is the most recent version!

Controls:
[Left Arrow] Move the gems left.
[Right Arrow] Move the gems right.
[Down Arrow] Accelerate gem drop.
[Space] Rotate gems.

The settings.xml file can be modified, below is a description of each element:

width - Sets the width of the grid
height - Sets the height of the grid
bun_weight - Chance of getting bun gem
beef_weight - Chance of getting a beef gem
cheese_weight - Chance of getting a cheese gem
tomato_weight - Chance of getting a tomato gem
lettuce_weight - Chance of getting a tomato gem
onion_weight - Chance of getting an onion gem
multiple_buns - If set then multiple buns can spawn in a group
remove_old_gems - set to true to remove gems which stay at a grid position for too long.
remove_time - time in milliseconds to keep a gem for.
remove_bun_gems - set to true to remove bun gems which stay at a grid position for too long
remove_only_bottom_row - set to true to only remove bottom row gems which have stayed for too long.
drop_by_cell - set to true to make falling gems drop per cell.

Version Log:
demo-004 - Added the option to drop by cell and settings to clean up old gems.
demo-003 - Added the settings file.
demo-002 - Fixed a bug where the gems weren't aligning with the grid correctly.
demo-001 - initial release

The gameplay definatly needs some tinkering with.

Have a bit of a play and hopefully this will give us a start in fleshing out the design doc.

It would probably be better to post any ideas or improvements on the Design Document Discussion thread. Any other comments, technical issues or bugs please post here.

Note: If the demo crashes on startup you may not have the visual c++ runtime libraries installed. You can get them from here

Submitted by souri on Wed, 18/03/09 - 2:59 PMPermalink

Awesome job on this, mate! Btw, the 200x600 placeholder graphic for the side - you can grab it from here.

To move the project forward, Charcoal will need to playtest and fine-tune the settings.xml... Also, Charcoal, you'll need to provide some specs on the content needed so we can make a complete game from this. Make a bullet point list and we'll assign the jobs.

Submitted by Bittman on Thu, 19/03/09 - 9:29 AMPermalink

And was suddenly reminded of my second ever gameboy game "Mario & Yoshi". In this game you did not control the blocks, but the platforms. Mario and Yoshi also had the top of an egg and the bottom of an egg as two seperate entities, and the top would always disappear meaning you'd never be left with blocks you could not remove.

With a quick playtest of Burger Time, I can tell it needs some tinkering. It took me 20 seconds, whilst only holding down, for me to lose as burgers kept stacking up. But so far so good, always good to see early stages and how they develop onwards.

Submitted by mayo on Thu, 19/03/09 - 3:03 PMPermalink

Just one question - is Burger Time the official title for this game?... Because BurgerTime was released in 1982, it was my favourite game on Intellivision >_>

Submitted by charcoal on Thu, 19/03/09 - 7:10 PMPermalink

I would say Burger Time is working title of the game ;)
And Stop! Burger Time! should never be in the running for discussion as the game's title.

squashed_bug: How would you feel if I changed the type of puzzle game we use?
I've been playing the prototype and I keep coming up with problems that I have a very hard time fixing.
After reading David's comments about the GDD, I think that a match-3 type puzzle will work better...

Submitted by squashed_bug on Thu, 19/03/09 - 8:28 PMPermalink

Propose what you want and I'll comment on how feasible it is.

What's a match-3 type puzzle. Is it basically a falling block game where you match two buns with a filling? Or somthing without falling blocks or hamburgers altogether?

Submitted by charcoal on Thu, 19/03/09 - 9:28 PMPermalink

Basically it's Bejewelled, or Puzzle Quest.

The way I see it now, you don't match up gems in a sequence to make hamburgers, but you aim to make cascades, to add the fillings to a burger/sandwitch/whatever.

From what I imagine on your end, it would mean a re-write of most of the game.

  • *It's still on a grid, but it's always filled with gems.
  • *Instead of moving a group of three gems you swap two adjacent gems, to create lines of three or more.
  • *After a match has been made, more gems fall in from the top to fill up the grid again.
  • *More matches can be made by the falling gems, adding more fillings to the burger.
  • *After the cascade has finished, a score is derived from the combination of fillings resulting from the cascade.



This time I will mock up a series of screen shots ;)

Submitted by designerwatts on Fri, 20/03/09 - 12:08 AMPermalink

A question that's' popped up into mind as i've been following the development of this project:

Any particular reason the theme is fast food burgers?

Don't get me wrong. The setting of a puzzle game can be anything really. I am curious to know why the game is themed around burgers. I just can't find a context between gems and fast food.

When I think of gems, I think of riches and miners and old commodore games. Anyone remember those games where you had to dig yourself out of puzzly mines full with dirt, boulders and gems?

I made a quick mock up of kinda what I think a theme with gems possibly could be:

[advance apologies to all for the poor vector art.]

That's all really dude. I understand that the dressing for the puzzle game can be anything really. [Although good context can definitely help with the aesthetics of the game.] Just curious about the current decision. :)

Cheers!

Submitted by charcoal on Fri, 20/03/09 - 10:11 AMPermalink

The decision to use burgers as the theme came about when I first started thinking about what game to make.
I walked away from the computer and joined my housemates in the living room, watching TV.
As I was thinking about what time of puzzle game to make, an advertisement for Hungry Jacks came.
From there it just went together in my head; stacking specific patterns of gems.

Also, gems are just a naming convention for the movable items on the game board.
If it helps, we could start calling them ingredients :P

I too remember boulder dash on the C64.
A bit different to what you've suggested, as you can see in the youtube Souri posted.

Submitted by designerwatts on Fri, 20/03/09 - 12:01 PMPermalink

calling the movable items 'ingredients' from now on is a good idea. It'll help people quickly associate the game elements. I can make a link between burgers and ingredients. I pointed this out thinking back to my experience with the lead level and game designers at Bluetongue. They where always quick to point out things that where ether inconsistent or didn't fit in with the theme of the game or presentation. Someone needs to put these questions across even if they seem a bit trivial at the moment.

The vector art mock up isn't really specific in any way other then having a mining themed title and little man with a shovel. Didn't really want to suggest a puzzle type or outwardly replicate boulder dash. Just wanted to get the retro-esqe spirit of the game across. :)

Cheers!

Submitted by Sabre070 on Wed, 01/04/09 - 1:32 PMPermalink

I was thinking about this today and I have a few tips:

1) Specific orders, you have to make a specific thing.
2) The Menu - have a list of things that the ai can order, you can change the percentage of price (which then goes to score)
3) You should have a customer happiness bar, this goes down the longer you take to make the burger.
4) Ingredients cost.. When you match an ingredient you don't need it still gets subtracted (from score/money)
5) You can have 3 burgers being made at once.
6) You have upgradeable staff/store (you upgrade as a whole) in categories such as drinks, sides, cleaning and customer service. These allow for drinks and sides to be served better and faster, the store to be more clean (so that while they are waiting in line they are more happy and they may chose to eat-in more often), and to have the servers temp the customers into buying more.

Basically with the menu I was thinking you could have (for example) 'Burger with the lot' and you have to make that, but you could also have 'Burger with the lot meal' (comes with drink and side), this earns you more points but is less likely to happen and depends on you upgrades.

PS: This was to work with the match-3 style game that I saw at Dissecta.

Forum
team threads

Here is the most recent version!

Controls:
[Left Arrow] Move the gems left.
[Right Arrow] Move the gems right.
[Down Arrow] Accelerate gem drop.
[Space] Rotate gems.

The settings.xml file can be modified, below is a description of each element:

width - Sets the width of the grid
height - Sets the height of the grid
bun_weight - Chance of getting bun gem
beef_weight - Chance of getting a beef gem
cheese_weight - Chance of getting a cheese gem
tomato_weight - Chance of getting a tomato gem
lettuce_weight - Chance of getting a tomato gem
onion_weight - Chance of getting an onion gem
multiple_buns - If set then multiple buns can spawn in a group
remove_old_gems - set to true to remove gems which stay at a grid position for too long.
remove_time - time in milliseconds to keep a gem for.
remove_bun_gems - set to true to remove bun gems which stay at a grid position for too long
remove_only_bottom_row - set to true to only remove bottom row gems which have stayed for too long.
drop_by_cell - set to true to make falling gems drop per cell.

Version Log:
demo-004 - Added the option to drop by cell and settings to clean up old gems.
demo-003 - Added the settings file.
demo-002 - Fixed a bug where the gems weren't aligning with the grid correctly.
demo-001 - initial release

The gameplay definatly needs some tinkering with.

Have a bit of a play and hopefully this will give us a start in fleshing out the design doc.

It would probably be better to post any ideas or improvements on the Design Document Discussion thread. Any other comments, technical issues or bugs please post here.

Note: If the demo crashes on startup you may not have the visual c++ runtime libraries installed. You can get them from here

Submitted by souri on Wed, 18/03/09 - 2:59 PMPermalink

Awesome job on this, mate! Btw, the 200x600 placeholder graphic for the side - you can grab it from here.

To move the project forward, Charcoal will need to playtest and fine-tune the settings.xml... Also, Charcoal, you'll need to provide some specs on the content needed so we can make a complete game from this. Make a bullet point list and we'll assign the jobs.

Submitted by Bittman on Thu, 19/03/09 - 9:29 AMPermalink

And was suddenly reminded of my second ever gameboy game "Mario & Yoshi". In this game you did not control the blocks, but the platforms. Mario and Yoshi also had the top of an egg and the bottom of an egg as two seperate entities, and the top would always disappear meaning you'd never be left with blocks you could not remove.

With a quick playtest of Burger Time, I can tell it needs some tinkering. It took me 20 seconds, whilst only holding down, for me to lose as burgers kept stacking up. But so far so good, always good to see early stages and how they develop onwards.

Submitted by mayo on Thu, 19/03/09 - 3:03 PMPermalink

Just one question - is Burger Time the official title for this game?... Because BurgerTime was released in 1982, it was my favourite game on Intellivision >_>

Submitted by charcoal on Thu, 19/03/09 - 7:10 PMPermalink

I would say Burger Time is working title of the game ;)
And Stop! Burger Time! should never be in the running for discussion as the game's title.

squashed_bug: How would you feel if I changed the type of puzzle game we use?
I've been playing the prototype and I keep coming up with problems that I have a very hard time fixing.
After reading David's comments about the GDD, I think that a match-3 type puzzle will work better...

Submitted by squashed_bug on Thu, 19/03/09 - 8:28 PMPermalink

Propose what you want and I'll comment on how feasible it is.

What's a match-3 type puzzle. Is it basically a falling block game where you match two buns with a filling? Or somthing without falling blocks or hamburgers altogether?

Submitted by charcoal on Thu, 19/03/09 - 9:28 PMPermalink

Basically it's Bejewelled, or Puzzle Quest.

The way I see it now, you don't match up gems in a sequence to make hamburgers, but you aim to make cascades, to add the fillings to a burger/sandwitch/whatever.

From what I imagine on your end, it would mean a re-write of most of the game.

  • *It's still on a grid, but it's always filled with gems.
  • *Instead of moving a group of three gems you swap two adjacent gems, to create lines of three or more.
  • *After a match has been made, more gems fall in from the top to fill up the grid again.
  • *More matches can be made by the falling gems, adding more fillings to the burger.
  • *After the cascade has finished, a score is derived from the combination of fillings resulting from the cascade.



This time I will mock up a series of screen shots ;)

Submitted by designerwatts on Fri, 20/03/09 - 12:08 AMPermalink

A question that's' popped up into mind as i've been following the development of this project:

Any particular reason the theme is fast food burgers?

Don't get me wrong. The setting of a puzzle game can be anything really. I am curious to know why the game is themed around burgers. I just can't find a context between gems and fast food.

When I think of gems, I think of riches and miners and old commodore games. Anyone remember those games where you had to dig yourself out of puzzly mines full with dirt, boulders and gems?

I made a quick mock up of kinda what I think a theme with gems possibly could be:

[advance apologies to all for the poor vector art.]

That's all really dude. I understand that the dressing for the puzzle game can be anything really. [Although good context can definitely help with the aesthetics of the game.] Just curious about the current decision. :)

Cheers!

Submitted by charcoal on Fri, 20/03/09 - 10:11 AMPermalink

The decision to use burgers as the theme came about when I first started thinking about what game to make.
I walked away from the computer and joined my housemates in the living room, watching TV.
As I was thinking about what time of puzzle game to make, an advertisement for Hungry Jacks came.
From there it just went together in my head; stacking specific patterns of gems.

Also, gems are just a naming convention for the movable items on the game board.
If it helps, we could start calling them ingredients :P

I too remember boulder dash on the C64.
A bit different to what you've suggested, as you can see in the youtube Souri posted.

Submitted by designerwatts on Fri, 20/03/09 - 12:01 PMPermalink

calling the movable items 'ingredients' from now on is a good idea. It'll help people quickly associate the game elements. I can make a link between burgers and ingredients. I pointed this out thinking back to my experience with the lead level and game designers at Bluetongue. They where always quick to point out things that where ether inconsistent or didn't fit in with the theme of the game or presentation. Someone needs to put these questions across even if they seem a bit trivial at the moment.

The vector art mock up isn't really specific in any way other then having a mining themed title and little man with a shovel. Didn't really want to suggest a puzzle type or outwardly replicate boulder dash. Just wanted to get the retro-esqe spirit of the game across. :)

Cheers!

Submitted by Sabre070 on Wed, 01/04/09 - 1:32 PMPermalink

I was thinking about this today and I have a few tips:

1) Specific orders, you have to make a specific thing.
2) The Menu - have a list of things that the ai can order, you can change the percentage of price (which then goes to score)
3) You should have a customer happiness bar, this goes down the longer you take to make the burger.
4) Ingredients cost.. When you match an ingredient you don't need it still gets subtracted (from score/money)
5) You can have 3 burgers being made at once.
6) You have upgradeable staff/store (you upgrade as a whole) in categories such as drinks, sides, cleaning and customer service. These allow for drinks and sides to be served better and faster, the store to be more clean (so that while they are waiting in line they are more happy and they may chose to eat-in more often), and to have the servers temp the customers into buying more.

Basically with the menu I was thinking you could have (for example) 'Burger with the lot' and you have to make that, but you could also have 'Burger with the lot meal' (comes with drink and side), this earns you more points but is less likely to happen and depends on you upgrades.

PS: This was to work with the match-3 style game that I saw at Dissecta.