So in between essays and nursing placements, I was looking for something to procrastinate with. Enter Happy’s Humble Burger Farm. I downloaded the free to play demo thinking the game would be the bog-standard cooking and serving game. However, after just a few short moments shit got real in this horror fast-food hybrid cooking game.
After this first bite (excuse the pun) I was overjoyed to receive the full version on the Nintendo Switch to review.
Set at night, naturally, and embracing the role of a new employee at Happy’s Humble Burger Farm, you spend your time travelling to work and serving customers, where it seems you do all the work. Although let’s also pay some special dues to the creepy colleague, Toe, who mobilises like an extra on Ed, Edd and Eddy and keeps you company in the kitchen.
Before long things start to get weird, think giant people surrounding the building, lights turning off, things running around that you can’t see. This is all before the realisation that the narrative takes place inside a simulation designed to enhance the workforce’s obedience (lucidus initiative) created by Obscura Biotechnology. So essentially it was at this point I contemplated the notion that maybe this wasn’t just a cooking game.
Discussion Points
The graphics for Happy’s Humble Burger Farm leave a lot to be desired with a classic point and click design, blurry animations and fuzzy audio. However, I feel this adds to the atmosphere of the game. The unease and frustration add to the adrenaline felt by the player. Completing extra duties for more moolah, this feature allows for a break from the monotony and provides you with more goals on shift.
Toe, the friend we mentioned earlier. This guy creeps me out, but in an intriguing way, like he’s always at work but does nothing (we all know one of these). But as a character he adds to the dark and confusing plotline, when you first emerge into the world you’re not sure whether he will hurt you and I did spend a large amount of time afraid to walk past his weird-ass.
The Happy’s Humble Burger Farm mascots. You have Happy the Humble Heifer, Petey the Portly Pig, Sammy the Surly Salmon, Charlie the Chillin’ Chicken and the Farmer. Things which are seemingly normal turned very very creepy. I mean these mascots are like when you’re a child being approached by some dude in a tiger suit and you don’t trust it because I mean you were never told in school that tigers walk on two legs and you know talk? Well, these mascots really push the atmosphere of the game past uncomfortable and into the fear territory. Nothing is more creepy than childlike symbols oozing evil.
Once you complete Happy’s Humble Burger Farm or make it through their corporate propaganda training video, you can then play the game as we thought it would be. As a simple cooking game where you can serve customers some tasty treats. It’s a nice aspect of the game, considering that was what I was looking for when I first started playing. And to actually be able to cook as I intended was a nice twist of fate after living through the kitchen nightmare.
Useful hints
Sometimes it can be helpful to know what you’re doing because as we found out, not everything is covered in this tutorial. Possibly part of the rhetoric that you’re meant to be an obedient slave to capitalism, following orders you have been set, possibly the developers forgot to mention bits. But I like to feel as if it is actually the first scenario that comes into play here.
Anyway, we thought we’d put some helpful hints and tips together to make your shifts at Happy’s Humble Burger Farm run a little smoother:
- You can hold more than one item at a time, this will save you a lot of time when trying to complete orders;
- Read the menu and ensure to pay close attention to what customers want;
- Complete extra tasks for more money honey;
- When you need health/energy there is a vending machine in the apartment building to solve that problem.
Overall thoughts of Happy’s Humble Burger Farm
I would give Happy’s Humble Burger Farm a 9/10. It can be quite monotonous and frustrating at times, BUT I like the option to just play as a server once the game is completed. Overall this game is an original concept which admittedly has come from a worrying mind, but I can only define it as just short of genius! Big shout out to my mate Toe, stay weird my friend!
Happy’s Humble Burger Farm is developed Scythe Dev Team and published by tinyBuild. It is available to buy now on Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X and Series S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, and PlayStation 5. For more game reviews, click right HERE.
