Coming up a close second behind the BeJeweled match 3 puzzle scenario being picked up by food puzzler games is the conveyor belt matching genre (which has so far as I've seen two variants). There's Candace Kane's Candy Factory's version where you swap candy pieces moving along a conveyor belt to make matches, and then there's this version where you piece together items on a conveyor belt to make food items (or take containers/glasses/cups from the conveyor belt to make sides like fries/drinks and desserts).

Don't focus on the story too hard, it's abit to swallow even for me. Apparently one day you receive mysterious blueprints somehow, and the end result is a sentient burger making machine. With it you decide to sink your life savings into opening a burger shop, and that's where the fun begins. On a long conveyor belt the machine belts out both burger ingredients (meat or chicken, buns, cheese, lettuce or tomato) and side containers (fries or drinks or ice cream/shakes as you add stuff to your menu). Most of the things are easy (just load the container onto the specific serving you want and wait,

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later on you have to do additional steps for the ice cream like add topping or (if you put it in a glass) mix it into a shake)) but it's the burgers (and later salads) that require abit of work. The orders require you to pick up the specific pieces to assemble the item in question, order is not important but what you put on is. One item too much and the item cannot be given to said customer (so you cannot accidentally put cheese on a straight hamburger or the customer will reject it... apparently add ons is not welcomed here). Simply click the first item and move from item to item clicking until you got the burger (or salad which requires you to start with the bowl), the only challenge is watching what you put on it, which becomes more complex the bigger the item you add to your menu is (bacon cheeseburger for instance or a deluxe cheeseburger with lettuce).

Otherwise that's it. Just fill out the orders and right click the mouse to send them to the customer (it's abit quicker than constantly having to drag

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the order to the customers so that's a plus). Upgrades are instantly available without purchase, you just have to pick from a list of three after each level to upgrade (which at times includes power upgrades which activate when you successfully deliver an order with said upgrade attached to the order on one of the food items). With a rather addictive gameplay, quick and multiple upgrades (new items, more items, power upgrades) the game builds up rather fast as does the challenge along with it (the more you serve the more you have to be on the ball, especially when the easily uptight customers come and you have to whip out their orders quicker).

The only flaw with this game is it's story, which is so implausible I can't believe somebody actually wrote this as a game scenario. First off you get mysterious blueprints for a sentient burger maker (I don't know if it was stolen from the talking Quizzno's sub grill, the other way around, or both are unrelated but... dang!), then (upon moving to your second shop) the burger maker gives "birth" to a child which mutates into

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a second oven... which you somehow manage to move to a new location (fully grown)... how? I'm not sure. Then you find out (upon moving to the third shop) that there was another person who got the same blueprints only they managed to put it together wrong... so you... uh... I can't pretend, you just cheat them out of it by low bidding on it then fixing it up without them knowing it. That's so wrong, but in this economy it's understandable. I didn't go farther so I don't know what strange hijinxs ensued with future shops... I'm sure they're as bizarre as the events to this point most certainly.

The game is rather nice, and if other games of the genre are as promising as this then the new "matching" game genre of food puzzlers is going to be a welcome addition to the food puzzler arena (along with the BeJeweled match 3 puzzle scenario and the Cake Mania style assembly and selling genres).

So with that said I give Burger Shop 4 totally implausible burger making scenarios out of 5... No, really, the machine GAVE BIRTH?!? HOW!!