Orion Burger

Orion Burger
Developer: Sanctuary Woods Multimedia Publisher: Eidos Interactive Platforms: DOS, Mac OS Classic Released in UK: 1996 Released in FR: 1996 Released in DE: 1996 This game has hidden developer credits. This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused cinematics. This game has unused text. This game has debugging material. This game has a hidden level select. This game has a notes page

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: Can the terminal window be accessed and the log messages seen? What are the cheat keys and global variables accessible through the Mac debug menu?

The titular alien fast food chain can't make hamburgers out of humanity until they prove that we aren't sapient, so they've cooked up a battery of intelligence tests so abstruse that no life form should be able to pass. (Otherwise known as "adventure game puzzles".) But a teleportation mishap has sent their human test subject into a time loop, and now he has unlimited chances to engineer the precise series of actions needed to beat a rigged game.

Orion Burger is a LucasArts-esque point-and-click comedy that was doomed to "hidden gem" status by Sanctuary Woods' financial woes. On their way out of the adventure business, the developer sold off the publication rights to Eidos, who gave it an apathetic release limited to three European countries.

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Notes

Cheats

These codes can be entered either in-game or from the main menu. Press ↵ Return to clear previous keystrokes, type one of the following phrases (including spaces), and press ↵ Return again to activate.

The first few codes let you fast-forward (but not rewind) to a point past each of the five tests.

Cheat	Log Message
100 billion neurocytes	Cheater bum passed the neuro test!
eyeballs of green	Cheater bum passed the survival test!
a taste youll never forget	Cheater bum passed the sensory test!
where is aunt polly	Cheater bum passed the language test!
disco queen	Cheater bum passed the logic test!

Another two will play unique non-interactive content made for demo versions: an overview of the premise narrated by the character of Stolie the drunk, and a slideshow of 12 game screenshots with fades to black in between. (See the next section for more about these.)

Cheat	Log Message
tell me about it	So you want to see the drunk, eh?
show slides	So you want to see some screen shots

This last code is an enigma. After activating it in the Mac version, pressing the space bar caused the color palette to go haywire and the game to immediately crash. In the DOS version (emulated in DOSBox), there was no noticeable effect at all.

Cheat	Log Message
speed up	So you want to see things rip? Hit the space bar!

Demo Content

As discussed above, material exclusive to demo releases can be accessed in the full game via cheat codes.

Overview

A demo consisting entirely of this cutscene was bundled on DOS CD-ROM copies of Sanctuary Woods' The Riddle of Master Lu.

This page or section needs more videos. There's a whole lotta words or pictures here, but not enough videos. Please fix this.

[Outside Town Hall, Stolie sits on his bench taking swigs from a bottle.]

Stolie: [mumbles] I'll do that right away... [mumbles] Do you have a bigger glass? [mumbles] There's a saying that... there's a saying in my house...

Wilbur: [runs past him and into Town Hall, carrying a double armful of items]

Stolie: Hey! You wanna watch where you're goin', okay?! [notices the fourth wall and waves to us] Oh! Hello! [burps] Pleased to meet my acquaintance with you.

Wilbur: [runs past in the other direction] Sorry!

Stolie: [makes "crazy" gesture] That Wilbur. I dunno about him. Why, the story he told me this morning...! [hiccup] Oh, boy.

[Aboard the spaceship, Flumix beams Wilbur up.]

Stolie: [voiceover] He said he's gonna be abducted by aliens, who wanna grind us up into [burp] burger meat for some kinda fast food chain.

[Aboard the spaceship, Zlarg eats an Orion Burger.]

Stolie: [voiceover] Servin' me up with a side of fries? AHH! That's the last thing I need! And anyway, what else was he saying?

[Aboard the spaceship, Zlarg and Flumix have Wilbur strapped to an examination table.]

Stolie: [voiceover] Oh yeah. Now apparently, these aliens will spare us if Wilbur can pass some kind of intellige... [hiccup] an intell... [hiccup] uh, IQ test! Well, I guess I got nothin' to worry about! [burp]

[In the gerbil cage, Wilbur rubs his head and notices Zlarg and Flumix looking in at him.]

Stolie: [voiceover] Aliens that won't eat intelligent life forms? That is ridiclious! Ha!

[Aboard the spaceship, Zlarg eats a blue creature.]

Stolie: [voiceover] I wouldn't trust no hungry slobbering space alien not to eat me, any more than I'd trust myself not to polish off this bottle of hooch!

[In front of Town Hall, Wilbur runs by again.]

Stolie: Ha! See? There he goes again! He's crazy! Just runnin' around like some kinda... [hiccup] head with his chicken cut off! Tryin' to find stuff to help him pass those stupid alien tests!

[In the diner, Wilbur rants and waves his arms at Vera, who turns away to hurl a dish at Eugene.]

Stolie: [voiceover] Fortunately, Boonsville is a tight-knit little community, with lots of friendly folks.

[In the barbershop, Wilbur rants and waves his arms at Harry.]

Stolie: [voiceover] They'd be glad to help Wilbur out!

[On the island, Elmo aims his gun at the fourth wall.]

Elmo: Ah wouldn't count on that. [shoots]

[Aboard the spaceship, Wilbur talks to Astral through the grate.]

Stolie: [voiceover] And then there's that lady stowaway Wilbur says is aboard the spaceship. [laughs] I don't know, maybe she could help!

Wilbur: Psst! Hey!

Astral: [adjusts her hair] Go away!

[In front of Town Hall, Wilbur stops to catch his breath. The items he's holding include a length of rope, a rolling pin, some sticks of dynamite, and a chain of sausages.]

Stolie: Hey! Just wait one darn minute here. How could he know about a stowaway when—

Wilbur: Who are you talking to?

Stolie: And how do you know [hiccup] you're gonna need all that stuff if you haven't even been abducted yet?

Wilbur: [breathes heavily] I have been abducted. I'm stuck in a time warp. I've relived this day several times now. [teleports] Waaahh!

Stolie: Oh, yeah. Oh, time warps, they'll do it to you every time. You just gotta watch out for 'em. [resumes drinking]

(Wilbur's voice in this demo does not sound like Rob Paulsen.)

Gallery

The other cheat-activated cutscene comprises this screenshot slideshow, which is the same as in the full-size DOS demo found on Archive.org and YouTube.

To do: Spot the differences between the screenshots and the final game.

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Debug Mode

To restore debugging features to the Mac application (68K or PPC), swap MBAR resource 130 ("menu with debugging") in for 128 ("normal menu"). This will be added to the game's menubar:

Teleport

The "Teleport" command lets you call up any scene in the game by its three-digit number.

The following scene numbers are accepted:

101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106
120
133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145
170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176
204
207
301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307
310, 311, 312, 313, 314, 315, 316, 317, 318, 319
401, 402
404, 405, 406, 407
501, 502, 503, 504, 505, 506, 507, 508, 509, 510, 511, 512, 513
601, 602, 603, 604, 605, 606
608, 609, 610
612
701, 702
706
801, 802
901, 902, 903, 904
951
955
971

Scene 901 is a menu screen for a demo, but this exact layout (with the phone number on the left instead of centered) does not match any of the known demo releases.

The behavior of the buttons does correspond to the full-size demo:

• Clicking "Introduction" will show you the non-interactive prologue from the full game (scene 951) and then return you to the full game's main menu (scene 903).
• Clicking "Interactive Demo" will send you to the beginning of the survival test.
• Clicking "Gallery" will send you to the screenshot slideshow (scene 902), and then back to the game's main menu. This works the same as the "show slides" cheat.
• Clicking "Exit" will quit the application.

Scene 955 is a black background with an endlessly spinning wristwatch cursor. However, the game hasn't crashed; the Teleport feature can still be invoked to return you to a functional scene.

Scene 971, the last one numerically, is the Stolie demo.

Entering an invalid scene number—in this case, 300—will spawn an error dialog and force you to quit the application:

Meanwhile on DOS, the text for the Teleport dialog can be found in BURGER.EXE at 0x17A055, but we lack a way to make use of it there.

Backpack

Selecting "Backpack" will list the locations of possible inventory objects...

...and let you change them, one at a time.

The text for the these dialogs can be found in BURGER.EXE at 0x179285.

Modify Global Variable

"Modify Global Variable" asks for a variable to modify...

...and if a valid number is supplied, a new value to assign.

The text for these dialogs can be found in BURGER.EXE at 0x17A081.

An alternative dialog for this feature, using the standard Mac OS appearance, also exists in the resource fork.

Other Commands

"Paint Walk Codes" will paint over the impassable areas of the scene. Animation happening in those areas will chip away at the paint.

"Show Palette" is a toggle. Once activated, the upper left 113×113 pixels of the current scene will persist into subsequent scenes, but will be rendered with the other scenes' palettes. Here, the utility pole from Main Street has taken on the green of the vegetation and the teal of the water, while the sky behind it has assumed the gray and yellow of the road surface.

"Cheat Keys" is also a toggle, but which keys it might enable is unknown. The cheat codes for passing the tests work whether it's on or off.

"Show Terminal Window" had no visible effect when toggled on real hardware, but crashed the emulator when attempted on SheepShaver.

"Disable Bugs" seems to be a joke; it can't be unselected.

Options Dialog

Even with debugging active, this Mac dialog remains unreachable.

Hidden Strings

BURGER.EXE

0x176D89:

M4 Runtime Engine by NickP, MikeE, AndrasK, Tinman, XiH, PaulL, MattP

0x176E4E:

Orion Burger tastes great!

0x17A15F:

English Language
French Language
German Language
Italian Language

Apparently an Italian dub was planned at one point.

0x17A8C4:

Andras' bug
size: %u   name: %s   p: %p   p -> Head: %p
Send TERM.LOG and MEM?.DBG to Matt Powell and call Andras, please!

0x17FC6C:

db_rmlst_get_volume: function is gone. contact Mike Ellis!

BURGER.CFG

A couple cheeky lines are added right at the end of this file:

OURLEADER=RAITKEN
EMAILADR=BURGER@VIC.SANCTUARY.COM

Robert Aitken was the game's lead designer.

To do: Loads more devtext in BURGER.EXE and the PPC Mac app's data fork.