Backseat Review: Happy's Humble Burger Farm

My wife and I love doing everything we can together — and I do mean everything. Whenever one of us is playing a game, the other will oftentimes just backseat and experience everything together. Hell, even when I went off to try to do my own thing and write articles I felt uncomfortable without her presence until I eventually convinced her to join me over here at GameGrin. Co-dependence? Check.

I know we aren't the only ones, and this is why I am reviewing games from my backseat perspective, whilst she'll also do the same in the ones she watches me in. Here is Happy's Humble Burger Farm from a backseat point of view.

I love watching my wife play games. It's easily one of my favourite things to do and I actively bother her to try and play everything I play so that I get to watch her — which is how I convinced her to play Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and finish it despite her never having played a soulslike to completion before.

So of course, when GameGrin received a key for Happy's Humble Burger Farm, I was more than ecstatic to claim it and demand that she play the game, reminding her that I already claimed it and there was no way she could not play it.

Happy's Humble Burger Farm is a horror game that also has parts where you play as a clerk in a fast-food restaurant, so the tutorial quickly teaches you how to make hamburgers and it has a very funny animation that makes it look like the character is slapping everything on the burgers aggressively. Once the tutorial was finished, the game continued onwards with its very cryptic storyline that had me and my wife puzzled.

I know watching people play horror games is very fun in general, and although Happy's Humble Burger Farm classifies as one, the game didn't have enough jumpscares to have me rolling on the floor laughing at my wife for freaking out, nor was it tense enough for me to be trying to sink into my seat trying not to get scared. From a backseat perspective, Happy's Humble Burger Farm is more comedic than not because of some of the animations and the way the animatronics look — something that's difficult and scary to deal with whilst holding the controller, but not so much when watching.

What Happy's Humble Burger Farm missed in jump scares it had in the cryptic and strange storyline. I loved theorising with my wife as to what was going to happen, who we were going to face, and overall trying to help her solve each of the (very simple) puzzles present in the game. It was fun keeping track of what we had to do and figuring out where to go together. Another great highlight was that I was capable of catching some things that I wouldn't have normally if I was controlling the character.

Another great thing was the bosses. Not only was Evil Petey disgusting, but he was fun to watch as my wife ran around trying to frantically create burgers to appease him. And — despite how bugged Charlie was — I enjoyed watching her explore the area trying to find all of the ingredients all the while running away from the angry animatronic in panic.

Happy's Humble Burger Farm actually felt significantly better to watch than play, because a lot of the bugs that were present weren't as annoying to me as a bystander, and I'd even argue that the entire game is even more enjoyable from a backseat perspective, since you won't suffer too much at the hand of uncomfortable controls and strange bugs. It isn't the scary experience that we would love to put some people through, but it definitely offers some horror elements to keep the game interesting enough, and a cryptic story that will have you and your backseat gamer trying to puzzle it together.