How to play Pressure Cooker online
- Move Sam: arrow keys
- Bounce away an unwanted topping: hold Space as it reaches Sam
- Drop a finished burger into a chute: Space
- Start a new game: F12 (Reset)
- Choose a game variation: F11 (Select)
- Music between waves only, or all the time: F4 (left difficulty switch)
Gameplay
In the Assembly Room, patties drop onto bottom buns and travel down a conveyor belt. A dispenser throws out tomatoes, onions, lettuce and cheese one at a time, in no useful order. The order board at the bottom shows up to three colour-coded orders (red, green and blue), with a tick under each topping they need.
Sam catches toppings with his round stomach, from the front or the sides; anything that hits him elsewhere goes splat. Touch a topping to a burger to add it. When a burger is complete, the dispenser sends out the top bun. Then you run down to the Wrapping Room and drop the burger into the chute of the matching colour. Early waves need one topping per burger, later ones up to four.
There are no lives. You start with 50 performance points, and mistakes cost you:
| Mistake | Points lost |
|---|---|
| A topping splats against Sam or the belt | 1 |
| The same topping put on a burger twice | 1 |
| Wrong chute, or missing the chute | 5 |
| A burger falls off the end of the belt | 10 |
Every 10,000 points of score gives back 10 performance points, up to a maximum of 99. A correctly delivered burger scores 100 points, and bonuses are added after each wave. The game ends when your performance rating reaches zero.
There are eight variations: odd numbers for one player, even numbers for two players taking turns. Higher numbers give you less time for each order.
Tips
- Never stand still. The oven never stops, so head straight back after each delivery instead of watching the burger get wrapped.
- Work close to the dispenser. It throws one topping at a time, so bouncing away the wrong ones up close gets you the right one sooner.
- Reject rather than catch. Hold the button whenever the next topping isn’t on the board.
- Park spare toppings. If you catch the wrong one, put it on the newest burger at the top of the belt; the next order may need it.
- Guard the end of the belt. A lost burger costs twice as much as a wrong chute.
The story behind Pressure Cooker
Garry Kitchen had already made Space Jockey, the 2600 Donkey Kong and Keystone Kapers. He got the idea for this game while watching burgers ride a conveyor belt at a Burger King, and development took about eight months. Kitchen worked out which notes the 2600 could play, and a professional jingle writer composed the tune around them.
Reviews in 1983 were mixed: magazines liked the pace and colours but found it repetitive or too close to games like CakeWalk. Retro reviewers have been much kinder. Players scoring 45,000 or more could send Activision a photo of the screen to join the “Short-Order Squad” and receive a patch. The game was later included in the Activision Anthology collection.
