During the media hour at PAX Australia 2024, I was sauntering around the show floor before the horde consumed it in less than an hour. As usual, I gravitated to the floor space afforded to our creatively-rich friends across the pond, and a representative from CODE NZ recommends Burger Bois, which is where I found myself a few minutes later – playing as a character with French fry hair flogging a burger completely made of pickles. No meat patty, no sauce – just pickles and a bun. Best of all, the customer loved it – five stars.
Before your brain goes to games like Overcooked, let me explain what Burger Bois is. Developed by New Zealand’s Mischief Makers Studio, Burger Bois is a food truck simulator where flavour is king and players must satisfy a customer’s hunger by the request they give and the ingredients on hand. These can be normal burgers you’d order and eat yourself, or they’ll be obscure orders, like a bun slathered with pickles.
As co-founder and studio director, and Burger Bois’ programmer, UI designer and art director Jess Woodward explains, there are plenty of games on the market that let players partake in the chaos of food creation, so the team wanted to do something different, focusing on “designing food based on its flavours and physical properties instead.”
The way it works is that customers will come to your truck with specific requests, and it’s up to you to fulfil their needs. For example, one character during my demo wanted a drink, even though your van does not cater for thirsty customers. But for those who want a burger, you’ll also need to get the right balance when it comes to taste, as each ingredient will have flavour stats (is it acidic, spicy, salty, etc.), as a customer may demand a meal that leans more to one flavour profile. Or, if you’ve ever worked in hospitality and wanted to serve up whatever you thought the customer deserved, you can, but you’ll hear about it in the review. And bad reviews are bad for business. The more business booms, the more suppliers and ingredients you’ll unlock.
The challenge of Burger Bois is not only to satisfy the demands of hungry customers and earn a five-star rating, but also to manage your truck’s food inventory. Although the developers told me at PAX that you’ll never get an order you can’t fulfil.
Burger Bois has been in development for a bit over 12 months now. Woodward reveals that the idea for the game was first discussed in 2019, with her brother Alex, Burger Bois’ game designer and narrative designer, coming up with the concept because as someone who loves cooking, he wanted to make people, like his sister, feel invested in food.
Instantly, you’ll be drawn to the character designs, with Mischief Makers using a mix of human and humanoid characters. Woodward shares that they “wanted this game to feel like wholesome-weird cartoons like Steven Universe, Gravity Falls, Spongebob Squarepants and Bob’s Burgers.”
And it nails that brief, with characters and even the general vibe, feeling like it could have been an adaptation of a popular cartoon that aired during the heyday of cartoons.
“Using a mix of human and humanoid characters gives us lots of room for narrative and game design fun too – there’s something comedically dark about serving meat burgers in a world of animal people,” says Woodward.
One of Burger Bois’ more unique features is that players will be able to share recipes they create in-game with their friends and family in real life, allowing them to taste the masterpieces and monstrosities you come up with to see if you’ve got a hidden talent for culinary creations.
“We’re big fans of the Roll for Sandwich series by Adventures in Aardia on TikTok and other social media trends where people experiment with their food, and we wanted to give our players the chance to do the same for themselves,” says Jess Woodward.
“You’ve designed something delicious or weird and the game tells you what it thinks it might taste like – but how does it stack up according to your tastebuds? It also circles back to that idea of helping IRL cooking non-believers to engage with the act of cooking in a new way.”
So far we’ve only had a taste of what Mischief Makers is looking to serve up, but it’s an intriguing spin on the food game genre, and one that we’re excited to watch cook as it continues development. As for when players can get their taste of Burger Bois, Mischief Makers is targeting a 2027 release on PC, with other platforms hopefully coming after that.
You can Wishlist Burger Bois on Steam.
