Burger Bois News

[p]Hello supporters of the great burger agenda!
[/p][p]Remember when you were a kid, and video games used to come with a lil booklet telling you all about the world and the characters? WE WANNA BRING THAT BACK. [/p][p][/p][p]…in digital form, at least. [/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]She is all of us. [/p][p][/p][h2]P is for Player Character, and also Patty[/h2][p]A fiend for entering no-effort competitions, Patty may have bitten off more than she can chew when she won this failing burger truck. [/p][p][/p][p]She’s not the type to put much thought into the long term, but hey, now that she’s here, she could totally design some burgers and run a business. After all, it’s one failing business, how hard could it be?
[/p][p][/p][p]This is the face of someone who’s never worked in hospitality before.
[/p][h3]Designing Patty[/h3][p]Patty’s character is inspired by a few of our favourite cartoons. Here’s a recipe for designing Patty:[/p]

• [p]1 cup of Bee’s determination to march to her own beat, even to her own detriment. (Bee & Puppycat)[/p]
• [p]½ cup of Steven’s willingness to see the best in everybody and everything. (Steven Universe)[/p]
• [p]¼ cup of Mordecai’s insecurities and immaturity. (The Regular Show)[/p]
• [p]¾ cup of Linda’s unflinching enthusiasm. (Bob’s Burgers)[/p]
• [p]3 heaped tablespoons of Dipper’s creative problem solving… and habit of making things worse for himself. (Gravity Falls)[/p]
• [p]1 teaspoon of Spongebob’s reckless optimism. (Spongebob Squarepants)[/p]

[p]Throw them all in a grinder until the meat is nice and minced, then shape it into a Patty. Enjoy that mental image! :)[/p][p]
[/p][p]Patty is a character of indeterminate age, and only slightly more determinate gender. She’s happy to use whatever pronouns people call her. She has more important things to think about, like if she could deep-fry a taco (yes) and if it’s safe to do so in the food truck while Fry isn’t around (no).[/p][p][/p][p]While Patty doesn’t exactly love to work, she’d rather drive this truck into the ocean and take Fry and a week’s supply of burger ingredients with her than be perceived as lazy. Below her own insecurities though, what she really wants is to put her feet up, enjoy some munchies and imagine she is free from the pressing weight of capitalism. [/p][p][/p][p]Visually, we knew we wanted Patty and Fry to feel like their namesakes, so a lot of our discussion revolved around “this, but people”:[/p][p][/p][p]Courtesy of BanjoZebra on Wikimedia Commons.[/p][p][/p][p]Our artist Jackal took the idea and ran with it through her textured hair and layered burger coloured clothing! Fun fact: we were exploring how we wanted to do the player character’s gender at the same time as exploring her design, so these concept sketches are varying degrees of masc to femme.  [/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]We landed in butch-femme territory in the end, and it just feels right somehow. 😌💅[/p][p][/p][p]When we moved into colour design, we made an unexpected discovery…[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Entirely unintentional, but it tickled us. 😂[/p][p][/p][h2]A relatably weird little world[/h2][p]We hope you’ve enjoyed this lil peek behind the curtain. We’d love to do another one of these sometime for Fry, or even the Truck (vehicle design is fun!), so watch this space. 👀
[/p][p]Until next time,[/p][p]Jess, Alex, Jackal & Anthony[/p][p]
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[p]Hello flavor-mongers! [/p][p][/p][p]If you had the pleasure of tuning in to Frosty Games Fest this morning, you may have noticed a cheeky few ingredients we’ve never shown before. 👀 (And if you missed it, you can catch the showcase here!) [/p][p][/p][h3]Cooking beyond the classics[/h3][p]Burger Bois would hardly be a game of flavor experimentation if all you had to play with were bacon cheeseburger ingredients. We love bacon and cheese - but burgers can be so much more! Introducing:
[/p][p]Live your sweet and spicy breakfast burger dreams with Waffle Buns, Kimchi, and Sriracha Sauce.[/p][p][/p][p]Make an “oops, all purple” burger with Radicchio and Sliced Radish! (Dibs-not on taste-testing this one…)
[/p][p]Break your customers’ banks with a Dark Chocolate and Shaved Truffles bougie burger.[/p][p][/p][p]With heaps more ingredients to come, all this burger potential is just the start. 😌[/p][p][/p][h3]How we choose ingredients[/h3][p]The only hard rule we have is it has to be a real ingredient (sorry, no Unicorn Steak Sandwiches). We have a couple of thought starters to help us choose:[/p]

• [p]What flavor and property profiles are missing from the game?[/p]
• [p]What ingredient categories do we need more of?[/p]
• [p]What would be weird and wonderful?[/p]
• [p]What would people be excited to see on socials?[/p]
• [p]What might suit the theme of a particular parking spot?[/p]

[p]This time around, we wanted to add bitter, spicy, and unusual ingredients! (We can already hear PAX AUS players rejoicing at having more spicy options. 🌶️)[/p][p][/p][p]We also aaaaalmost ended up with Sauerkraut too, but this time around it lost to our need for protein with a Fish Fillet Patty. [/p][p]
Sorry Finn.[/p][p][/p][h3]What’ve you got a hankering for?[/h3][p]Think back to the most exciting burger you’ve ever had. What made it different? How did it taste? And can you tell us what it was so we can put in our game? 👁️🫦👁️
[/p][p]What other ingredients should we add? Tell us on your platform of choice: Bluesky | Twitter / X | Instagram | TikTok[/p][p][/p][p]We wanna make your ingredient ideas happen! 🙏
[/p][p]Deliciously yours,[/p][p]Jess, Alex, Jackal & Anthony[/p][p]
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Hello friends and burger lovers!

This month we’ve got something a little different for you. Our newly coined ‘meal-deal’ sibling duo Alex & Jess had the pleasure of being interviewed by the Bargain Bin Gaymers podcast.

If you’re curious about some of the mechanics we’ve been experimenting with, inspirations behind the characters, and what drives our design decision-making, pop the podcast on and give it a listen.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]🙏 Thanks for watching![/h2]
We had a great time yapping about whimsy and the fantasy vs reality of running a burger truck - we hope you enjoyed it too! 😀 Thanks so much to Davey & Mitch for having us. If you’re hungry for more videos like this, you can find and follow Bargain Bin Gaymers here.

Until next time,
Jess, Alex, Jackal & Anthony

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3224290/Burger_Bois/

Hi friends!

This month, we’re diving into the beginnings of Burger Bois—the inspiration and the backstory that brought this game to life. So, grab a snack (preferably a burger) and let’s get into it!

[h2]💌 A Love Letter to Food & Hospitality[/h2]
Burger Bois is our love letter to food, creativity, and the joy of serving up something delicious. It’s a mash-up of everything we adore: the food service vibes of Good Pizza, Great Pizza, the creative challenge of Sticky Business, and the quirky, comedic characters of Ace Attorney. But where did the idea for this burger building adventure come from? Let’s rewind to 2019.



[h2]💡 The Birth of Burger Bois[/h2]
The idea for Burger Bois was first cooked up by Alex, our resident foodie, while reflecting on his sister Jess’… let’s say, complicated relationship with cooking.

Pictured: Jess, trying to cook.

Jess’ disdain for the kitchen combined with their shared love for Burger Wellington—an annual burger festival in New Zealand—and cartoons like Spongebob Squarepants and Bob’s Burgers sparked a thought:

[h3]“What if we could make a game that turns cooking-nonbelievers into cooking-converts through the power of humor, creativity, and a whole lot of flavor?”[/h3]

For Alex, part of the joy of cooking is experimenting—and he’s not alone! We’re huge fans of Roll For Sandwich, Binging with Babish, and Sorted Food. We wanted to capture that same sense of joy and discovery in Burger Bois—trying new things, sometimes failing, and always having fun.

Fast forward to late 2021, and pre-production began during COVID-19 lockdown as a sibling side hustle for Jess and Alex. But things heated up in March 2024 when we secured the NZ CODE KickStart grant, which helped us bring the core Burger Design game loop to life. Now, we’re building out the full game loop, adding fresh content, and gearing up to put out a demo.

[h2]🤔 What Makes Burger Bois Special?[/h2]
You may have heard that Burger Bois is a food truck simulator about flavor, not labor. As Patty, your job is to design burgers that match your customers’ vague, and sometimes downright alarming requests, manage your stock, and build up your truck’s reputation in a world that’s under the deeply incorrect impression that burgers are “mid.”

Most cooking games focus on the “choppy-choppy” (physically simulating cooking) or combining ingredients like “X + Y = preset outcome Z.” But we wanted to do something different. What if we removed those elements and focused purely on the flavors and physical properties of the burgers you design? That’s the core of Burger Bois—a game that celebrates taste, experimentation, and, of course, burgers.



[h2]👀 What’s Next?[/h2]
We’re still hard at work on the game, adding new features, locations, ingredients, and customers (both friend and foe).

In the meantime, if you haven’t already, wishlist Burger Bois on Steam and help us spread the word. Every wishlist brings us one step closer to sharing this flavor-packed adventure with the world.

Here’s to another month of creativity, burgers, and good vibes! 🍔🎮
Jess, Alex, Jackal, Stevi & Anthony


https://store.steampowered.com/app/3224290/Burger_Bois/
Hungry for more? Follow Burger Bois on Steam and stay in the loop with all these juicy updates!

Hello burger lovers! Now that our burger design & customer request systems are in a good place, we’ve been focusing on what managing your truck might look like - aka, the metagame.

[h2]😋 Making the game feel more “full”[/h2]
Keeping the balance between ‘giving the player enough levers to pull’ whilst keeping within our casual management sim genre has been an interesting design challenge.

Our catchphrase with Burger Bois has always been ‘flavor not labor’, so we wanted to make sure whatever we design here doesn’t feel like work to play. This is Patty’s dayjob, but it shouldn’t feel like the player’s dayjob!

Part of this process has involved researching reference games like Good Pizza Great Pizza, Sticky Business, Potionomics, and Potion Craft, to get a feel for what might work well with a Burger Bois flavor. Our notes from those sessions helped us brainstorm the wider game loop!

Top secret game loop design work, ooooooo

[h2]😅 Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should[/h2]
Once we’d prototyped these new features & tested them with our core audience, we asked ourselves: are these the right fit for our casual management sim game?

When we started the project we established three core pillars:

• Real-world transferable ingredient knowledge
  
• Reward experimentation
  
• Weird and delightful

Comparing each part of the new metagame to those pillars helped us to identify what to keep, and what to cut. 🔪🔪🔪

One feature we were considering cutting fell squarely into the ‘weird and delightful’ bucket, so we decided to keep that on and re-tool it to better fit the game. Another feature accidentally punished players for experimenting, so that hit the chopping block! (Maybe we’ll bring it back for an optional game mode though, who knows.)

[h2]👀 So what’s in the metagame, then? [/h2]
We’re keeping the details hush hush for now, but the ideas we’ve been exploring include:

• Time management without timers
  
• Finding the balance between practicality and the joy of discovery with stocking new ingredients
  
• Ways to influence your business beyond just serving customers
  
• Social media’s role in indie hospitality success
  
• The intersection between your truck, and the places you park it
  
• Goofing off at work can be good for you, actually

When we’ve got more to share on that front, you’ll be the first to know!

[h2]🙏 Thanks for reading![/h2]
We hope you’ve enjoyed this lil exploration of our process, and thank you for your continued support of Burger Bois. 🥰

Until next time,
Jess, Alex, Jackal, Stevi & Anthony


https://store.steampowered.com/app/3224290/Burger_Bois/