Pressure Cooker

Pressure Cooker is an action game released by Activision for the Atari 2600 in 1983. As Short-Order Sam, a cook at “The Grille”, player's have the goal of fulfilling hamburger orders!

Hamburger orders appear at the bottom of the screen on the order board; in addition to the bun and burger itself, other items may also be requested which include tomatoes, onions, lettuce, and cheese. On the left side of the screen is a conveyer belt which has the start of a burger on it while dispensers on the right will randomly shoot out one of the ingredients. If the ingredient is one players need to fulfil an order, it must be caught and placed on the burger. If it's not needed, it can be kicked back towards the dispenser. Players will need to hurry; burgers must not be allowed to reach the end of the conveyer belt where they fall and flying ingredients need to be either caught or kicked back.

Once a complete burger is built, it needs to be wrapped. The order on the board will be highlighted in one of three colors, and players need to take the burger to the wrapping room and drop it into the chute that matches the color which will complete the order. Once all of the orders are completed, the game proceeds to the next, more difficult level. Players begin each game with a performace rating of 50 performance points; if all of the points run out, the game is over. Points can be lost several ways including allowing burgers to fall off the conveyer, making an incorrect order, wasting ingredients, dropping burgers in the wrong colored chute, and more. Additional performance points are earned every 10,000 points scored with a maximum performance rating of 99 allowed.

Like many Activision games of the era, players could earn a patch for achieving high scores in Pressure Cooker. If players earned at least 45,000 points and sent a photo of the screen to Activision, the Short-Order Squad patch was awarded.