Lor Gislason
Like many teens, my first job was as a grill cook at the famous Golden Arches. I actually enjoyed the job for the most part; my co-workers were nice, it was very close to my house, and I didn’t have to deal with demonic cows if I made a mistake. Unfortunately, employees at Happy’s are not so lucky.
Happy’s Humble Burger Farm is actually a sequel to Happy’s Humble Burger Barn, released a year ago on itch.io. Barn was created in about a month by the developers Sythe Dev Team. After several updates, the team switched focus to the sequel, which you could also consider an expanded and upgraded version of the first title. Gameplay is much the game, just with more meat to it. Every day you’ll wake up in the decaying Elysian City and make your way to work. Clock in, turn on the appliances and get ready for customers to arrive.
Cook and assemble burgers with the timeframe to avoid infractions. Soon you’ll unlock more stations: fries/salmon nuggets, hot pies/cookies, shakes, soft drinks, and hot dogs. I started to get a bit overwhelmed before settling on a system of prepping sides so I wouldn’t be wasting time once an order came in. Events can also interrupt your workflow and need to be dealt with immediately—a clogged toilet or live rat wandering the lobby. An alarm will blare during an event so you’ll know when it’s happening.
There’s a couple of sneaky apparitions who’ll try to impede your restaurant by turning off the kitchen lights or even the appliances, one of whom is an ominous green man who T-Poses closer to you when you’re not looking. You can throw an item through him to make him disappear. Some of these seem to just be for creepy factor and don’t affect your workday. If you’re not careful, the murderous Heifer will appear—and she’s honestly terrifying!
Of course, there’s more to just making burgers, but saying much more sides keep your eyes open would spoil it. Happy’s Humble Burger Farm completes the trifecta of creepy mascot games, with Five Nights at Freddy’s and the recently released Poppy’s Playtime. (Willy’s Wonderland, the Nicolas Cage helmed film, also fits neatly into this subgenre.) They’re great short experiences to either play yourself or watch someone stream. Playtime is about 5-7 hours, but since I am a notoriously slow gamer, add a few extra hours to that for me.
Happy’s Humble Burger Farm is available on Windows (via Steam), Playstation and Xbox consoles. A Nintendo Switch version is expected next year.
A Steam key was provided by tinyBuild for review purposes.
