I have a stick up my ass about these two games, and something fishy is going on, but I don't know what.
**TL;DR: Fast food simulator (FFS) and burger shift rush (BR) have identical tutorials, game play, progression, asset packs, and mechanics with few minor differences, like asset aesthetics/colors, interacting with a trashcan or wrapper, and BR has a new oven asset that FFS doesn't have. BR seems like the full game, when it releases, will be more fleshed out than FFS is, but otherwise, as of right now, almost everything is identical. My husband decompiled the files (not a game dev, just a software engineer) and found that they actually seem different enough, and BR's files actually have Italian verbiage in them. FFS is just English.
Something fishy is going on, but what is it? Same devs that made FFS is now parading around nova telum studios? Nova telum just straight up ripped off FFS in an almost identical fashion, but making changes where the FFS devs abandoned the game? Indie teams outsourced to the same people, bought the same kit? I'm so sketched.**
The games in question are
1) fast food simulator. Created by allegedly Turkish indie team no ceiling games. Released in early access on steam December 2024. Last content addition was June 5th 2025. Then one single bug fix to a cashier November 2025, and no one has heard a peep from these devs since then.
2) burger shift: rush. Created by a brand new, allegedly Italian team called nova telum studios. Steam page was created June 14th, the prologue released October 2025, they have since released a demo as well and have scheduled an official release date for September 11th 2026.
Now when I say these games are identical, they are both just full of the same premade assets. So all of that is already the same, nothing unusual there, but the tutorials are even identical. You spawn outside similar-looking buildings by a vehicle, first prompt is to click the sign to name your restaurant, next is to go inside and turn the computer on, then go to market, buy burgers/patties/buns in that order.
*Now, in FFS (fast food sim) the computer is off by default, so you do have to turn it on, but in BR (burger rush), the computer is already on by default.*
So tutorials are the same, all assets are the same, the game play is the same. You have the same brown trays under the same serving counter. You put the same ticket numbers on the trays, make the same food, and deliver the tray. All the burger ingredients are the same, they're unlocked in the same progression order, the customer spawn rate is the same, and the NPCs all make the same idle animations and noises. Even the way you put the toppings on the burger are the exact same, and the order style. IE: customer orders 3 mayo, you click the same mayo bottle asset 3 times, it puts the same mayo splat on the burger.
**The differences:**
1) only the serving counter registers are different. Not the order screens for the people making food in the back.
2) there's a new asset, an oven.
3) some assets are different colors. NPCs styled differently, different generic soda labels, different ice cream flavors, burger wrappers are different colors, etc.
4) you hold LMB to dump tray in FFS, you click once for BR.
5) in FFS, you right click a wrapped burger to bring up a label menu so you can label that it goes to a certain table, in BR you just write on the label with your mouse.
6) allegedly, in the full game, employees will be more fleshed out, having an application pool, taking breaks, and having stats. This doesn't exist in FFS, plus two new kinds of employees. You hire stocker/cashier/delivery person/busser and they just show up, work, and go home.
My husband decompiled both games' files, and found, shockingly, they're actually different. Now he is a software engineer, but no game developer, so isn't exactly sure what is what, but they seemed different enough to him to make him question that two different companies actually made the game. Like audio files having different names and sizes, Italian verbiage in BR, but only English in FFS, just various other things. But we don't really know what's what about files per se.
I've been high key suspicious that no ceiling games (FFS) abandoned their game, rebranded themselves as nova telum, and is selling their now-updated abandoned game as just a "new" game entirely. But idk, the files have me questioning myself and I'm way out of my depth for something that I shouldn't care so much about, but I clearly do way too much 🤷♀️.