What are your favorite Easter Eggs?

[Zed Clampet]

This was inspired by the Anthropic Buddy thing, which was really just hidden code, but it reminded me of an Easter Egg. So I found in a BBC article the very first Easter Egg. It was on Atari in the game "Adventure" and involved you picking up a single pixel and taking it somewhere (single pixels were enormous). When you got there, there was text telling you the name of the person who created the game. The developer did this because Atari refused to give developers credit for games. Here's a picture: (This was my favorite Atari game, btw. My memory may be creating this, but I'm pretty sure a friend of mine and I found the Easter Egg, but only after hearing about it from someone else)

Somewhere, not sure where, was mention of an Easter Egg in Excel 97 which is widely described as a fully functional flight simulator. Instead of an Easter Egg in a game, it was a game that was the Easter Egg. I found a couple of videos of this, but they didn't match the description of what I would consider a "fully....simulator". Both videos were very poorly done. There probably was a full flight simulator there, but they didn't show it.

The last one for me is my favorite because of my love for Resident Evil 4. In RE8, which was similar in a lot of ways to 4, almost an homage, if you went to the vendor over and over, his voice would change and say "Watch ya' buyin?" exactly like the vendor in RE4. Maybe my favorite line in all of gaming came from that vendor. My strategy was to always carry a rocket launcher, which cost 10k. I bought a lot of them, and every time I bought one, he said, "Stranger, stranger! Now that's a weapon!"

 

[Colif]

Somewhere, not sure where, was mention of an Easter Egg in Excel 97 which is widely described as a fully functional flight simulator. Instead of an Easter Egg in a game, it was a game that was the Easter Egg. I found a couple of videos of this, but they didn't match the description of what I would consider a "fully....simulator". Both videos were very poorly done. There probably was a full flight simulator there, but they didn't show it

You might be expecting too much out of an extra part of a spreadsheet program

It appears to just be a credits screen. Previous ones were mazes.

Shame MS stopped doing all these after a while.

I liked them when they were rare. Now almost every game is full of references to other things, and people get confused if its actually original.

I will think about what my favourite one is.

 

[Zed Clampet]

You might be expecting too much out of an extra part of a spreadsheet program

Actually I wasn't. I watched that video before I posted, and it was made by a child and impatiently just whirls around with the speed of the video increased, and I couldn't make anything out of it. It looked like an insane person discovered a "fly" cheat code.

However, here's a far better video, and this is basically exactly what I was expecting. Tron-looking but 3d map with turning like you are in a plane.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsxGWO39gDI&t

 

[Zed Clampet]

I liked them when they were rare. Now almost every game is full of references to other things, and people get confused if its actually original.

I don't consider that sort of thing an easter egg if they just reference something.

By the way, you know I'm an old man, right? My dad went to the store and spent what would be almost $1000 today to get the Magnavox Odyssey which had 2 games, Table Tennis (pong) and Shooting Gallery, which included a sort-of-flashlight shaped like a gun and was actually made by Nintendo. I don't care and am mostly just picking on you, but you always explain things like I wasn't there. I had the first console, I had the first computer, etc. I'm so old! 😱

Shooting Gallery was Wii before the Wii. First cheese/cheat in my gaming career was aiming the gun at the overhead light.

 

[Colif]

My comment about them when they are rare isn't talking about the windows ones, I mean in games. They should be something you are surprised to find, not something you expect to find.

Or the ones that took years to find

I had the first computer,

really, you that old?

😀

 

[Zed Clampet]

My comment about them when they are rare isn't talking about the windows ones, I mean in games. They should be something you are surprised to find, not something you expect to find.

Or the ones that took years to find

really, you that old?

😀

🤣 I 100 percent intended to say "home" computer, but I'm in bed using the onscreen keyboard, and I type so slowly my mind just wanders off.....

 

[Colif]

I did guess but I couldn't resist 🙂

 

[Zed Clampet]

I did guess but I couldn't resist 🙂

It was terrible. You uploaded (and saved) programs with a standard cassette tape recorder--with the noise.

 

[Colif]

It was terrible. You uploaded (and saved) programs with a standard cassette tape recorder--with the noise.

I was there too. I remember. Load a game and play it once... rewind tape to play again. My 1st one at least had a cartridge port so I could play Asteroids without using a tape.

At least back then you could type a game out from a magazine and not be there all day. You can't do that now.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I was there too. I remember. Load a game and play it once... rewind tape to play again. My 1st one at least had a cartridge port so I could play Asteroids without using a tape.

At least back then you could type a game out from a magazine and not be there all day. You can't do that now.

Maybe you could. I couldn't type. We made a few games ourselves, very simple games. One problem was that everything had to be saved in a variable. There was no onboard saving, at least that's what I thought at the time. I might have just missed something.

 

[Colif]

We have threads on what is your first computer so I won't drag us off topic much more

Post in thread 'What's your timeline and name your all-time favorite games.'

May 18, 2021

70's - generic tv games
80's - Tandy Colour computer, Nintendo SNES, SEGA Megadrive
90's - continuation of SNES/Megadrive, N64, right at end an IBM PC (Celeron 300, voodoo 2 (I think))
00 - AMD Duron PC, AMD Athlon PC, Intel dual core PC - Nintendo Shift in there somewhere
10's PlayStation 3 & 4, I5 Intel 4690k PC
20's AMD 3600xt pc

games (no particular order
Diablo 2
Journey
Sacred 2
Torchlight 2
Super Metroid
Test Drive Unlimited 2

notices all but one are sequels, and most of those sequels had a worse version 3 - tdu3 doesn't exist. I don't know, never played the GameCube version of...

• Colif

• 

 

[Pifanjr]

See also

Thread 'Games easter eggs'

Nov 28, 2024

I am sure that a lot of you know of games that contain these so if you do please tell us all what game they are in and what they are.

I only know of 1.... in the hub in satisfactory you can play a game of tetris ....... maybe i have some more that i dont know about.

• mjs warlord
• Replies: 5
• Forum: General Gaming

• 

Thread 'How do people find game secrets?'

Apr 21, 2023

You know those Easter Egg articles/videos, eg:

This Windows 1.0 easter egg managed to stay hidden for nearly 37 years

This "Gabe Newell" guy in the hidden credits will never go anywhere!

www.pcgamer.com

Darktide easter eggs for diehard Warhammer fans

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is full of secrets, including messages written in Chaos Runes. Sit down and let a veteran tell you all about them.

www.pcgamer.com

The first one is Windows 1.0, not Win 10!

Throw in walkthrus too, just for fun. So… anyone know anyone who digs out this kind of stuff? Is there a secret society, with secret handshake—and the only way to join is to discover the handshake all on your lonesome 😀

I see/read about these finds and just shake my head, trying to imagine how much time and sanity it would've cost me to chase 'em...

• Brian Boru
• Replies: 13
• Forum: General Gaming

• 

 

[Zed Clampet]

We have threads on what is your first computer so I won't drag us off topic much more

Post in thread 'What's your timeline and name your all-time favorite games.'

May 18, 2021

70's - generic tv games
80's - Tandy Colour computer, Nintendo SNES, SEGA Megadrive
90's - continuation of SNES/Megadrive, N64, right at end an IBM PC (Celeron 300, voodoo 2 (I think))
00 - AMD Duron PC, AMD Athlon PC, Intel dual core PC - Nintendo Shift in there somewhere
10's PlayStation 3 & 4, I5 Intel 4690k PC
20's AMD 3600xt pc

games (no particular order
Diablo 2
Journey
Sacred 2
Torchlight 2
Super Metroid
Test Drive Unlimited 2

notices all but one are sequels, and most of those sequels had a worse version 3 - tdu3 doesn't exist. I don't know, never played the GameCube version of...

• Colif

• 

I'll have to think on this. There have been a lot.

My friend had the Intellivision. They actually had a digital store. You could get something from your cable company that would allow you to download games.

 

[Zloth]

It was terrible. You uploaded (and saved) programs with a standard cassette tape recorder--with the noise.

Yeah, but at least with an Atari you could then put in an audio tape and listen to it through the computer. I suppose you could also put it in a proper cassette player next to a computer, but that isn't nearly as cool.

SO, back to the topic...

First, yeah, the Warren Robinett bit was very fun to find! The pixel was transparent AND was inside a room with no entrance inside a maze (you had to use the magic bridge to get in). There were tons of fun things you could do in that game. I could make a decent argument for it being the first immersive simulator game.

One I really loved was in Spore. I was in space and the game started playing a tune I hadn't heard before... except I had... somewhere? Where was this song from?? It took quite a while, but I finally remembered M.U.L.E. from the mid-80's - this was its theme song!! Instant nostalgia rush!

 

[Zed Clampet]

Yeah, but at least with an Atari you could then put in an audio tape and listen to it through the computer. I suppose you could also put it in a proper cassette player next to a computer, but that isn't nearly as cool.

Pretty sure the sound came through your TV, but you may be talking about the 2nd Atari Computer. We didn't have that one. We had a computer, but all I know is that it wasn't an Apple because that's where all the good games were at that time.

 

[Zloth]

Pretty sure the sound came through your TV, but you may be talking about the 2nd Atari Computer. We didn't have that one. We had a computer, but all I know is that it wasn't an Apple because that's where all the good games were at that time.

Yep, it would go into the computer and out the TV set! Atari 400 had it and maybe the 800 - after that, I don't think the computers supported cassette anymore. There was some hacky thing to do it. I don't remember if you just had to poke some specific bit of memory or if there was some little program in Antic magazine that did it, but it was do-able!

 

[Zed Clampet]

Yep, it would go into the computer and out the TV set! Atari 400 had it and maybe the 800 - after that, I don't think the computers supported cassette anymore. There was some hacky thing to do it. I don't remember if you just had to poke some specific bit of memory or if there was some little program in Antic magazine that did it, but it was do-able!

View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DJ980NbjzZ8


I think @BeardyHat needs one of these