Sky Burger

I think that Ian Marsh must have signed some sort of deal with the devil. How else do you explain the ability to knock out some of the most addictive games on the App Store? I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve put into his games&#8230- most notably Textopolis (finally got more than five stars in every city!).

I was almost worried about having to review his latest game, Sky Burger, because somehow I knew that it was going to keep haunting me every time I tried to get something else done in my life. Luckily for me I had some traveling I had to do so I told Glenn that I’d give it ago while on the plane. I hate to use the pun&#8230- but the time on the plane just flew and I was landing in no time.

Sky Burger has now become my latest addiction and I feel its pull constantly.

For those that have played Ian’s ice cream game, Scoops, you’ll be somewhat familiar with the game play found in Sky Burger, but with the newer game he’s bumped up everything and what you have is now a game that has a nice little bit of an accomplishment feel to it &#8211- okay, the accomplishment is working your way up in the fast food business, but let’s not spit hairs.

The basic idea of the game is that you are trying to create burgers and the way that the Sky Burger chain does it is to have a worker trying to catch all the ingredients on the bottom bun and then adding the top bun when you’re done. Sure it’s not the way the Health Department would want it, but it works.

The ingredients (Meat, Cheese, Pickles, Onions, Tomato, and Lettuce) are all nicely represented and easy to pick up on the screen. Though the cheese and the top bun might full you if you’re not careful. In fact, all of the graphics for the game are very nice. The scoreboard has a nice “50&#8242-s diner” feel to it and the backgrounds all add in helping with the feel.

Control is the big issue for this game because as your burger gets higher and higher the sway is harder and harder to control. Sky Burger is set up with two systems to control the stack. The main setting is to just tilt your device back and forth. This works very well and gives you a definite feeling of trying to keep a large stack under control. The other method is a simple use of your finger to swipe the lower bun back and forth. I found this method to be a little easier to handle, but I did lose a little of the frantic feeling of the game.

Before each round you’re given the burger that you need to make. You see the ingredients that you need to collect, and the number of each, before you top it off. I have to say that I loved the names of the burgers. They really went along with what was on the burger. For instance, Jacked Monterey has a lot of everything, except cheese. The best burger to get is the “Sky Burger” because you can put what ever you want on it and build it as high as you can go before the topper comes on.

That darn top bun is the bane of my existence (or is that “bun” of my existence?). The game seems quite simple, but you’ll be amazed at how hard it is to avoid that bun from falling on your stack before you’re ready for it and your game is over. The same can be said for ingredients that you don’t want on the burger. This doesn’t cause a game over, but it does affect your score. Oddly enough I think the same thing happens at real fast food places because every time I ask for no onions they still show up. I now understand how that happens.

Sounds are also good in the game and it even allows you to play your own music while at work. The vibration when you make a mistake can sometimes be a little startling at times, but it’s a nice little kick in the pants when you’re playing and it helps you focus.

You progress through the game working up the corporate ladder. I really like the way the game keeps track of stats, especially the dollar per minute salary that you can check at any time. If only I really made that kind of pay! You can also track your biggest burgers and even take snap shots of them to send to your friends.

Sky Burger also has a nice global scoreboard that not only keeps track of the leaders, but also throws everyone into a pool so you can see the averages of the whole chain. It’s a very nice touch and I seem to check that part all the time.

All in all, I can’t really think of anything that is a negative with the game. I find it to be very fun and very addictive. It might be nice to have a little more story with the game. For instance I moved from working in a little mobile kitchen to an actual store and didn’t really notice it until a few orders after it happened. A cut scene might have helped that a bit, but I’m really just reaching here.

Sky Burger another great example that Ian Marsh is a developer who is really tapped into the iDevice crowd. I love this game and recommend it and everything in his library. I look forward to the seeing what he (and his obvious contract for his soul) comes up with next &#8211- I just have to make sure that I clear a few days before I start it.

The Good

Very Addictive
Nice Graphics
Love The Burger Names
Play Your Own Music
Global Scoreboard

The Bad

Can Be Quite Maddening At Times
I Hate Onions