I’m not the best at time-management games, but I know a good one when I see it. I spent a lot of time watching my mom play Diner Dash as a kid, and there were plenty of games that came after that fit the mold nicely. Godlike Burger attempts to match those classics with a fun, unique premise. However, I feel like it also tries to do too much, too quickly.

Godlike Burger puts you in the role of a chef who takes over his grandmother’s burger joint, aiming to make it the best in the galaxy. Though, the secret to this chef’s success, is that he uses customers as the main course. Can you make your diner successful without drawing the attention of the police?

Godlike Burger is half Time-Management game and half Rogue-like. Each planet you park your burger joint at has a variety of quests. If you succeed in completing them, you’ll unlock new planets to explore. Each planet has different species, and each species likes different meat types. Because of this, you not only have to keep track of what they order, but what type of meat they like as well.

To complicate things even further, since the customers themselves are the source of your meat production, you have to be careful not to let them see you kill other customers. You also have to balance which customers you serve to get prestige points to make your diner have a higher rating, while also having enough meat to continue producing burgers.

You have to keep track of orders, make sure your equipment is working and do a variety of things to make sure that your customers are happy. Additionally, you have to watch for customers that try to sneak out without paying or sneak in just to loiter in your VIP room. If the customers get annoyed your rating goes down, so that can be a problem too.

There are a variety of tools to help you kill customers, from sauces that make them do things and traps that let you kill undetected. However, sauces must be crafted, and traps have a cooldown, so you can’t always rely on them. Sometimes, you may have to rely on your trusty cleaver, but killing that way leaves blood stains, so you’ll have to clean up without being seen.

After each in-game day, you can do a variety of things to upgrade your facility. You have to pay bills, purchase ingredients like buns, lettuce, tomato, etc, and upgrade various aspects of your kitchen. On top of that, you can research new sauces, buy traps, and upgrade your chef’s capabilities as well. If you fail a day and get caught, you can get a second chance. If you don’t have a second chance available, you start fresh on day one.

Sometimes you can get away with slipping up once or twice, then moving to a new planet where the cops don’t know who you are. Some upgrades are persistent as well, so even if you fail, you aren’t starting from scratch. The problem is, there is so much to do and so many things to juggle that it becomes stressful way before you get to a point where you’re dealing with everything Godlike Burger has the potential to throw at you.

This is why I say that Godlike Burger is attempting to do too much at once. If it was just dealing with customers, or just finding ways to kill them and stock your store, it wouldn’t be too bad. However, having to juggle orders, having enough meat, paying operating fees, fixing broken equipment, using traps, and avoiding the cops just becomes way too much all at once.

The visuals are decent enough, and the story is told through a comic book-esque series of panels. The music and sound design are fairly straightforward as well. Sadly, I don’t think the quirky premise is enough to save Godlike Burger from being mediocre at best, and mind-numbingly frustrating at worst.

While some die-hard Time Management fans might enjoy this, it stopped being fun by about day 3. If you like a challenge I could see it being fun for a while, but I don’t know that Godlike Burger has what it takes to earn the Michelin Star. In fact, I’m sure between the intergalactic crimes and the hectic gameplay, Star Fleet might want to know about this culinary space crime.

A Nintendo Switch review copy of Godlike Burger was provided by Daedalic Entertainment for this review.

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Godlike Burger

$19.99 USD

5.5

Score

5.5/10

Pros

• Interesting Premise
• Simple Controls

Cons

• Too many things to Juggle
• Steep Difficulty
• Generally Frustrating