by ted2112, HSM team writer

An Easter egg is much more than what that cute little Easter bunny hides around your house; they are little secrets, sometimes funny, put into our media for us to find.

In the computing world, an Easter egg can be a secret response or a cool visual trick triggered when inputting a command. In gaming it goes all the way back to 1979 in Atari’s Adventure, where the programmer put in a secret room with his name spelled out. Here in Home we have several “off the grid” spaces that can only be accessed if you know how to get to them. (Burbie and I have done a series of articles on these).

Even mainstream internet portals like Google are loaded with Easter eggs if you know what to do. The infamous Konami cheat code (up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-B-A) will unlock hilarity on many mainstream sites. My favorite is the Konami code site that you can’t even access unless you put in the code; try it out at the Konami code site to see all the places people have found that have Konami code Easter eggs in them.

Some call Easter eggs high art, some pointless fun. I feel that game and web design calls for very talented and artistic people, and those people sometimes just can’t help themselves.  I’ve put together a small list of some of my favorite Easter eggs. Most you can do yourself; some you will need a little help with.

In Computing:
The Barrel Roll: This is a fun and easy one. Simply type “do a barrel roll” into the search bar of Google and watch your monitor image roll like a fighter jet.

Google Earth F-16 fighter Jet: Type Control-alt-A when in Google Earth for a really fun flight simulator game that happens right over the landscape you were viewing.

The Kickstarter scissors: On Kickstarter, go to the bottom, follow and click on the scissors several times, and you open a secret portal.

YouTube Harlem Shake: Just search “do the Harlem shake” and you have an instant party.

The Soundclick Bacon: If you use the Konami code anywhere on the music site Soundclick, a giant piece of bacon will fill the screen.

iPhone Siri: Ask your phone to tell you a bad joke and you’ll be surprised what Siri comes up with.

In Video Games:

The Harbour Studio Monument: Unfortunately the glitch in the apartment wall to get to this gem has been patched, but at the far end of the harbor, just past the big yacht, is a monument that simply states, “You really shouldn’t be able to read this.”

Grand Theft Auto: This gaming franchise is known to be liberal with its use of Easter eggs. Everything from Bigfoot, UFOs, tongue in cheek messages on walls and spoofing other video game series, GTA games have really embraced the concept and run with it. Check out the top of the Golden Gate Bridge in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas for an “anti- Easter egg” monument.

Metal Gear Solid 3: At the final boss fight, save your game and don’t play again for a while; when you log on to the game again, you will watch an enemy boss die of old age.

Silent Hill 2 Dog/UFO ending: After toiling away with a very heavy video game, this rare ending significantly lightens the mood. In the Dog ending, you realize this cute little dog has been calling the shots the whole time.

Diablo 2 Cow Level: Yes, there really is a secret cow level. For some reason there was an urban legend about a cow level, so the developers at Blizzard actually made one.

Easter eggs fit in well with what we gamers do: we find secrets. Most games have as part of their design the idea of discovering hidden elements in them, and over time these hidden things have spilled out all over our media.

Granted, these are just a few of my favorites; I’m sure there are many more I don’t know about. So let’s reminisce about some of our favorite Easter eggs.

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One Response to “Happy Easter”

1. Danger_Dad says:

   September 20, 2014 at 12:17 pm

   ;^) Programming takes clever, talented people. When left to their own devices, clever, talented people come up with mischief like this. We really shouldn’t be surprised that Easter Eggs exist in today’s computer games or media.

   Reply