Happy’s Humble Burger Farm from tinyBuild Games and Scythe Dev Team is a pretty unique horror cooking game in which you’re a cook at night in a creepy restaurant. Check our Happy’s Humble Burger Farm review!
Congratulations, you’ve just been hired to work the night shift! You’ll be all by yourself, but we trust you can handle it…
You’ll be grilling patties, operating deep fryers, and pouring drinks at our quiet restaurant on the edge of town. The customers sure do love the menu; they can’t get enough of the Happy’s Deluxe, Fantastic Fowl, and Poppin’ Pork sandwiches.
If you give customers the wrong order, or take too long, it’ll count as an infraction. If you get three of those infractions, well… let’s just say Happy the Humble Heifer isn’t as joyful when the customers are upset. DO NOT UPSET HAPPY. TRUST US.
Happy’s Humble Burger Farm from tinyBuild Games and Scythe Dev Team is a very strange game and a new type of experience since this was the first time I’ve ever heard of a horror cooking game. Your adventure begins as you stand in the dead of night at a BBQ stand. Your objective is to learn how to make a burger for your very creepy customer. Being used to cooking games – since I enjoy the genre – I thought that this one felt more technical. Luckily, there’s a handy employee’s guide, accessible by pressing the Triangle button, that you can read to understand your role in this game and how to prepare food.
Your first task is to make a burger for your customer by taking a bottom patty, a cooked protein (beef, vegetables, or chicken), then a top bread, and assembling everything. Once assembled, you can put it in a bag and ring the bell to give it to your customer. Take note that at this point, the game only feels like a clunky cooking game. But once your first order is delivered, you’ll witness the full weirdness/creep factor set into place.
As for the gameplay, you’ll basically be throwing stuff everywhere in order to complete the requested actions. You’ll have to try every button on your controller before realizing that the ‘take action’ button to interact with the ingredients is the R1 button, which felt unintuitive given that the face buttons are mostly not used, apart from the X button for jumping. I would have preferred to use the X button for normal actions and either the Square or Circle buttons for jumping.
After the first order, I must admit that I was highly confused by the following events: you’ll have to get up from your apartment, then walk all the way to your job in this creepy city. Once you begin working, you’ll most likely wonder how the cooking begins. I spent more than 15 minutes trying to figure out the steps needed to BEGIN working. Once you have understood what you have to do, you’ll have to take on the orders from customers. Once you receive an order, you’ll find the recipes in your employee book. Serve a bad order to a customer, and he’ll be angry. The thing is, the orders are technical, and you’ll definitively have to refer to your employee book to validate the exact requirements of each order. With the semi-clunky controls, it is hard to do, and the order timer runs fast.
Since you’ll be inside of the kitchen, you also have a work code to follow, and if you have too many infractions, you might eventually get fired from your job. There are multiple types of infractions, and, as mentioned in the game’s description, don’t upset Happy.
Now that I’ve discussed the cooking part let’s go over the horror part of this game. Essentially, you’re not alone and awake this late at night. Along with the customers, there are also strange creatures that roam around your restaurant and sometimes crawl inside. You’ll be busy cooking meat, and then something will jumpscare you on site. If you’re a fan of horror or jump scares, then you’re in the right place. In this kitchen, the lights will go out, creatures will lurk, and your co-worker is reeeally creepy. As for this game’s presentation, the art style makes it look like the 3D games from the early PlayStation era. The textures are stretched, and the visual quality is low.
If you’re in here for the trophies, then you’re looking at a list of 14 Bronze trophies, 10 Silver trophies, and 5 Gold trophies before you can unlock a new Platinum trophy for your collection. The trophies are mostly awarded for doing random stuff, like purchasing equipment for your home, defeating monsters, and others will pop based on your performance during the cooking part of the game.
Happy’s Humble Burger Farm is a horror cooking game, and it won’t be for every gamer out there. People who will like this game are those who are fans of horror AND cooking games. The complexity of doing simple tasks like cooking very specific orders in a short time can also get in the way. Happy’s Humble Burger Farm is out on PlayStation 4 with a $19.99 asking price.
Disclaimer
This Happy’s Humble Burger Farm review is based on a PlayStation copy provided by tinyBuild Games.
