Happy’s Humble Burger Farm [Xbox]
Developed by Scythe Dev Team, Happy’s Humble Burger Farm is a fast-food restaurant simulator with a creepy, dark spin to it. You’ll take orders from customers and have to manage them, getting them out quickly and correctly in order to turn a profit, and maybe even earn a bonus if you can succeed whilst also completing any additional tasks; such as clearing out all the dead rats from the mouse-traps around the business, taking in deliveries from the back door and placing them on the storage shelves and binning all the trash that’s been left lying around the restaurant. Happy, the fast-food mascot, wants to see her customers happy - so making sure that you don’t make too many mistakes is very, very important; too many infractions, and she’ll make you regret it.
Trying to stay on top of all of the orders can be a bit of a challenge, particularly in the beginning when you’re still getting used to where everything is kept, and which stations are used for which types of order. Orders are timed, so you’ll find yourself getting more and more flustered as the clock ticks down, especially if you’ve already made a few mistakes and are at risk of a visit from Happy! There are other weird and wacky things you will do and see, including bizarre boss fights that are a fair bit more challenging than we’d expected, and enemies that will mess with the restaurant as you work, turning off lights and appliances. You have health and stamina bars to keep track of, and can utilise vending machines for snacks throughout your shift to keep these replenished, although we didn’t find this to be much of an issue aside from during boss fights.
Visually, it has a PS1-era aesthetic, with dull lighting and mist obscuring the world outside, which instantly ups the creep factor. As well as the restaurant itself, you’ve got your apartment complex to explore - and the locations in between, including a spooky graveyard and a pawn shop, to name just a couple. The world of New Elysian City is actually a lot bigger than we’d expected, considering the main focus of the game is y’know… making burgers. You’ll hear radio broadcasts and you can tune into bizarre TV programmes back at your apartment, and these really add to the whole weird, otherworldly vibe. You’ve got a selection of enemies to contend with, from freaky humanoids that explode into a burst of flame or gas upon contact, as well as terrifying crawlers that scoot around, but you’ve also got Happy - who unlike her joyful moniker will leave you feeling anything but. The soundtrack is fantastic, and works amazingly with the core of the game - and you can use the Jukebox to pick and choose what to listen to. Likewise, the voice acting is brilliant, with the farmer having a horrifying, threatening voice - and Sammy the Salmon being voiced by none other than Jon St. John - the legendary voice actor for Duke Nukem (and believe me, you’ll notice it immediately).
As mentioned before, you’ve got your own little apartment that will gradually get filled with items you collect over time, as well as new items you can buy from vending machines and the Steal & Sell pawn shop. There are collectible action figures, as well as secret items such as sheets of paper with various notes scribbled on them, and these too will be viewable from your apartment, and it’s pretty interesting to see all of this stuff rather than it being confined to your inventory like with most games. There’s even an odd encounter in your apartment later on that adds another layer of insanity to the whole story, that will then allow you to craft new items.
The restaurant can be upgraded using Burger Tokens, and you need to pay attention as you trudge through each shift, serving customers and dealing with the threat of creepy, exploding dudes that will chip away at your health - and your patience. There’s a deeper story to everything than just the rinse-repeat of each shift at the restaurant, but you’re welcome to take it as slowly or as quickly as you like. Churn out a few shifts and explore New Elysian City to progress, or take your time going back to the restaurant each day - it’s up to you. If the repetitive nature of the time management side is what you like, completing the story even enables an Endless Mode that will see you serving customers ad infinitum.
Priced at £16.74 on the Xbox Store, it’s a really interesting take on things, with even the opening cinematic (showing you with a mind control chip being implanted) leaving you with questions you’ll be hunting to find answers to. There’s a lot of dark humour, and even just being in the world is oddly funny, with your neighbour-and-best-friend, Toe (yep, that’s his name); a weird lump of a dude that runs awkwardly around and only talks in groans and strange vocalisations being your main source of company. Overall we had a fun time uncovering the mysteries that Happy’s Humble Burger Farm has to offer, and would recommend it to those looking for a strange but fun game to pass the time.
In the end, we decided to give Happy’s Humble Burger Farm the Collecting Asylum rating of 9/10.
Are you interested in Happy’s Humble Burger Farm? What do you think of it?
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- V x
Thank you to tinyBuild for the Happy’s Humble Burger Farm Xbox review code!
