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{{trope}}
[[File:easter-egg.jpg|link=Literal
{{quote|''"You are a stupid, square-headed bald git, aren't you? And you, I'm pointing at you, I'm pointing at you, but I'm not actually addressing you. I'm addressing the one prat in the whole country who's bothered to get hold of this recording, turn it round and actually work out the rubbish that I'm saying. What a poor, sad life he's got!"''
|Backmasked message played in ''[[Red Dwarf]]'', "Backwards" }}
{{color|white|Y}}
▲{{quote|''"You are a stupid, square-headed bald git, aren't you? And you, I'm pointing at you, I'm pointing at you, but I'm not actually addressing you. I'm addressing the one prat in the whole country who's bothered to get hold of this recording, turn it round and actually work out the rubbish that I'm saying. What a poor, sad life he's got!"''|Backmasked message played in ''[[Red Dwarf]]'', "Backwards" }}
▲{{color|white|Y}}<br />The little bits of stuff programmers left behind in the game. They're secrets, intended to tickle the fancy of those who discover them. Programs far too numerous to mention have included Easter eggs -- everything from Microsoft Office to ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]: [[Grand Theft Auto San Andreas|San Andreas]]''.
Originally, Easter eggs were inserted by programmers for companies whose policy forbid them from receiving individual credit for their work. The earliest Easter eggs were mostly credits pages, possibly to allow the programmers themselves to prove authorship to friends. For security reasons (and concerns about malicious programmers inserting undocumented and destructive code), most companies don't allow Easter eggs to appear in their software anymore, but as individual programmers now receive full credit for their work, it's a moot point. {{color|white|Congratulations! You found an easter egg on this page!}} For instance, Microsoft has largely disallowed Easter eggs as part of its Trustworthy Computing Initiative, under the simple rationale that a user should be able to trust that the computer he's using is reliable and reasonably error-free. This hasn't completely stopped the company from incorporating them into their products however, although later Microsoft Easter eggs tend to be much simpler in nature (e.g. a reference to the company's founding date or Master Chief making cameos on Xbox consoles) unlike the more elaborate developer credits and minigames the company's employees have included within Windows and Office.▼
▲Originally, Easter eggs were inserted by programmers for companies whose policy forbid them from receiving individual credit for their work. The earliest Easter eggs were mostly credits pages, possibly to allow the programmers themselves to prove authorship to friends. For security reasons (and concerns about malicious programmers inserting undocumented and destructive code), most companies don't allow Easter eggs to appear in their software anymore, but as individual programmers now receive full credit for their work, it's a moot point. {{color|white|Congratulations! You found an easter egg on this page!}}
Easter eggs aren't just found in games anymore: the term is also used for a variety of hidden content, such as unadvertised [[DVD Bonus Content]].
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An article on why Easter eggs exist (focusing on ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'', but applicable to all games) is available [http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mr257 here].
For time-sensitive Easter eggs, see [[Holiday Mode]]. Compare [[Bilingual Bonus]], [[Freeze-Frame Bonus]] and [[What the Hell, Player?]]. For in-story
{{examples}}
== Video Games ==
===[[Ur Example]]===
*
=== Action-Adventure ===▼
▲* [[Ur Example]]: The Fairchild Channel F console (released in 1976) came with a "Demo Cart", in which a key combination could bring the programmer's name, Michael Glass, up on screen. Both Alien Invasion and Video Whizball (1978) also had a code to display their programmer's last name (Reid-Selth, for Brad Reid-Selth) on the screen.
* [[Trope Codifier]]: The most famous early
▲== Action-Adventure ==
▲* [[Trope Codifier]]: The most famous early [[Easter Egg]] in a video game (to the extent where it's often [[Older Than They Think|mistakenly believed to be the first]]) was Warren Robinett's famous hidden signature room in the ''[[Adventure (1979 video game)|Adventure]]'' cartridge for the [[Atari 2600]]. By finding an item [[Pixel Hunt|hidden deep in a maze of the same color]] and bringing it into the right room, one could move though a previously impenetrable barrier, where the text "Created by Warren Robinett" could be found. This was in an era when Atari refused to put the names of game creators on any of its game packaging, and it neatly took up the leftover memory on the 4K ROM comprising the cartridge.
** An Atari executive coined the term when he compared finding the hidden room to "hunting for Easter eggs". While Atari hired a programmer to find where Robinett's name was in the code, they let it slide; Robinett later asked the programmer what he would have done if told to delete the code, and was told that he would have switched it to "Replaced by (programmer's name)".
* ''[[The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the
** Because it's contested whether the Chris Houlihan Room is meant to be in the game at all. Evidently, not everyone at Nintendo was on board with the contest, so the room ended up getting added and removed multiple times as the game went back and forth between decisionmakers who thought Chris ought to get his room, and those who thought the contest was bunk and shouldn't be honored. Leaving it in but buried so that it was inaccessible to anyone who wasn't cheating was evidently the compromise they came up with.
* One of the doors in a hallway on Kamino in ''Lego [[Star Wars]]'' leads to a room where there is a puzzle to be completed. If you solve the puzzle, the floor becomes a disco and a disco version of the ''Star Wars'' theme plays.
** The Lego games in general are filled with Easter Eggs, most of them necessary for [[One Hundred Percent Completion]]. ''[[Lego Indiana Jones]]'' even has several Star Wars characters hidden in various levels.
** In fact, a "disco" egg appears in pretty much every Lego game in the series, with the music adjusted for the game's theme (a disco version of the ''[[Raiders of the Lost Ark]]'' theme in ''[[Lego Indiana Jones]]'', for example).
* ''[[Batman: Arkham Asylum]]'' actually had an
* ''[[Grabbed By the Ghoulies]]'' contains ''tons'' of Easter eggs from the ''[[Banjo-Kazooie]]'' games, mostly in the form of paintings of the various ''Banjo'' characters placed around the mansion. There's also an infamous whiteboard in one room apparently listing part of a(n incomplete) solution for ''Banjo'''s [[Urban Legend of Zelda|"Stop 'n' Swop"]].
* In ''X-Men Origins: Wolverine'' the video game there's a section of the game where you can see [[World of Warcraft|Frostmourne]], the Lich King's sword, in a heap of ice rocks. Next to this is a skeleton with an exclamation point above it, referencing the marks for quests in ''World Of Warcraft''.
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* In ''[[Assassin's Creed II]]'', pull the lever and stare into the water in one of the Assassin Tomb dungeons long enough and {{spoiler|a giant squid swims by.}} Hang around a little while longer and {{spoiler|''it attacks you!''}}
=== Adventure ===
* ''Riven: The Sequel To [[Myst]]'' had a series of "Spyder Eggs" riddles on [https://web.archive.org/web/20131111191820/http://cho.cyan.com/ its website] (and those of the associated companies), leading to the discovery of the [[Arc Number|five]] Easter Eggs in that game. (By far the best is the one where the actor playing Gehn {{spoiler|bursts into song. He's actually quite good.}})
** Myst III: Exile and Myst Online: Uru Live also have Easter eggs. Some re-releases of the original game Myst have Easter eggs as well, but these were added later and are not part of the original game as designed by the creators. A well-known Myst fan named Zardoz is responsible for cracking some of the tougher to find eggs.
* The ''[[Quest for Glory]]'' series is one huge collection of Easter Eggs.
* Back in the days when [[
** Furthermore: Dying counts as an
** There's a number of
*** Starting a new game on 25 December or 1 January will display a message upon starting.
*** Talk to Palido (the sunbather guy on Puerto Pollo's beach) and ask him how long he's been there. He'll tell you he's been there since eight months before the current month on your computer calendar. If your computer calendar shows January, he'll wish you a happy new year.
*** On Blood Island, go to the lake and try to pick up the water to make Guybrush remark "I don't really want to go in the ocean." Do it 25 times, and Guybrush will eventually go underwater - and appear in the underwater scene from ''[[Secret of Monkey Island]]'', complete with drowned Guybrush sprite (which is labelled as "fish food"). After Guybrush leaves, search the water and you can find an arrow that lets you go down and have a proper look round.
*** In the Goodsoup Family Crypt on Blood Island, examine the hole in the back wall (where the roots are) to find yourself in the forest of Mêlée Island from the first game, complete with original music and HUD. Unlike the water scene, you don't get to have a proper look round, but it is a nice [[Call Back]] to the first game, where examining the stump (which Guybrush pops out of in this
*** On Skull Island, when talking to the bandits, ask "What about toys, got any toys?" and Guybrush will be given a LeChuck doll. In the final area of the game, try using the doll on LeChuck.
*** Examine the clock on Puerto Pollo and Guybrush will read out the time, right down to the second. The time is the same as your computer clock. The clock also chimes every half hour.
*** Mess with the lights in the theatre and you can make them form the shape of Max.
*** When looking into Mort's room in the Goodsoup Family Crypt, you can find a book called Zombies Ate My Neighbors, the name of another [[
*** In Blondebeard's restaurant there's a single table visible with an undead pirate sitting there, wearing a hat that's obscuring his face. If you prompt Guybrush to touch the guy, he shoves him to get his attention, causing him to collapse onto the table and his hat to fall off. The pirate is actually [[Grim Fandango|Manny Calavera]]. As a bonus, a button falls off his jacket onto the table that reads "Ask Me About Grim Fandango".
** The early Lucasarts games contained several references to (usually) their immediate predecessor - Zak Mckracken had references to slimy meteors, an unuseable gas tank and the protagonist having dated the [[
* In [[Telltale Games]]' ''[[The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police|Sam and Max Freelance Police]]'' game ''Abraham Lincoln Must Die!'', Max becomes President and has the power to change the date. Try changing it to Easter and checking the golf hole. You find a nice [[Lampshade Hanging]] and an achievement for the 360 version.
* A lesser known [[Sierra]] game, ''[[Shivers]]'', involves the player traversing a deserted museum to capture elemental monsters that killed three people in the past. As the museum is dedicated to the "strange and unusual", and the player is constantly afraid of bumping into these monsters, it's surprising that the Easter eggs are the scariest parts of the game. There are funny eggs, but also disembodied shadows and glowing red eyes in cramped, dark spaces. Their appearances are randomised, and all the more pants-wetting.
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* ''[[Myst|Uru]]'' has a secret egg quest which starts out in a room with a giant Easter egg floating in the center of it, and ends with you being allowed to {{spoiler|drive a Zamboni around outside the starting area.}}
* This trope is a staple of the [[Nancy Drew (video game)|Nancy Drew]] video game series, sometimes allowing the player to add actual Easter eggs to Nancy's inventory. Perhaps the most memorable is a phone number which, if dialed in-game during ''White Wolf of Icicle Creek'', gets Nancy harranged by a phone-in psychic who references every previous game in the series.
** One
* The first ''[[Discworld]]'' game has a somewhat infamous one [https://web.archive.org/web/20150217082641/http://trueblueaussie.com/Discworld1EasterEgg.htm detailed here.] Eric Idle had jokingly recorded the line "I want to be the first person in a game to say fuck," and they had to put it ''somewhere'', didn't they?
* The ''[[Doctor Who]]'' adventure game, "The Gunpowder Plot", has these innocuous facts about the level... But after reading them, you can {{spoiler|hear a [[Hell Is That Noise|sinister clicking noise]], and when you turn back, you can see one of the Silents. Looking at the fact again will result in the Silent talking about the history of whatever you looked at, and then just disappear}}.
=== Eastern RPG ===
* ''[[Persona 3]]'' has some unusual Easter Eggs found when using a Game Shark or other devices. Most notably, it has [[Mission Control|Mitsuru or Fuuka]] [[No Fourth Wall|scolding you for cheating]]
** That happens if you use a cheat device to enable usage of {{spoiler|the Universe Arcana Persona}} in normal gameplay specifically. Other Easter Eggs also exist - once you have all characters, try making a party of all girls (barring the MC, of course), a party of all guys (Junpei, Akihiko and Ken or Akihiko, Shinjiro and Ken are the only combinations that work), all second year students (Yukari, Junpei and Aigis), or the original SEES members (Mitsuru, Akihiko and Shinjiro) and talk to one of them in Tartarus - the members will say something about the party. Another one happens if you equip Mara as your Persona and enter the Velvet Room.
* The first four ''[[.hack]]'' games came with DVDs detailing what happened in the real world during the events of the game. Watching these with the subtitles on would reveal area keywords for the game where you could find rare items.
** On a related note are the DVD cases of .hack//SIGN. The back covers of the boxes had several random words highlighted. These were keywords leading to special areas in the .hack games that dealt with a character or event covered in SIGN. Not only that, but when the DVDs are stacked in order, they spell "LOGOUT". The .hack series was one where avid fans learned very quickly that NOTHING was insignificant...
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* ''[[Lunar]]: Silver Star Story Complete'' has a ''[[Warlords]]''-like mini-game hidden on its "Making Of..." disc, accessible via a hidden code.
=== Edutainment Game ===
* In many of the ''[[Living Books]]'' games, there would be at least one Easter Egg in each title.
=== Fighting Game ===
* The now freeware DOS fighter ''Xenophage: Alien Bloodsport'' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZuCJgAOKKQ allows you to beat up] [[Barney and Friends]] if you fiddle around with the config files. And yes, the game does mock you if you lose to him (which is pretty much impossible to do involuntarily.).
* ''[[The King of Fighters]]'' is not above secret special moves and such (in fact, in SNK’s earliest fighting game offerings, all super moves initially went unpublished, and to this day they sometimes keep a tiny number of them initially secret), but on occasion they put in some just for fun. As Bao in ’99-2001, for instance, {{spoiler|if you hold down and the opponent does nothing, he starts drawing stuff on the ground... then sits down looking bored, then sort of nods off. Aww}}.
** K' {{spoiler|also drops his usual fighting stance, starts blinking his eyes slower and slower and falls asleep if you stand still long enough.}}
* In ''[[Super Smash Bros.]] [[Super Smash Bros Brawl|Brawl]]'', try listening to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAXbb8R11pc Peach's final smash in slow motion]. {{spoiler|it's a speed up version of the Sky Heaven theme in ''[[Super Mario Bros 3]]''.}}
=== First Person Shooter ===
* ''[[Duke Nukem]] 3D'' map makers also loved to sign their names, often creating whole rooms that could only be seen by entering the "show map" cheat. However, a few were signed in-game along with messages asking the player how they got to the location? ironic, considering that two of the messages were easy to find with no cheats at all!
** The ''[[Duke Nukem 3D]] Plutonium Pak'' CD, which patches Registered v1.3D to v1.4 and adds a fourth episode, contains a CD audio track of the finished version of "Grab Bag", the game's title music. A little-known fact about the tune is that the [[MIDI]] version included in ''Duke Nukem 3D'' is actually incomplete.
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** Finding [[Memetic Mutation|Painis Cupcake]] himself.
=== [[Interactive Fiction]] ===
* Easter Eggs in a (more recent) work of [[Interactive Fiction]] are often hinted at by the author after the game ends. The recent [[Interactive Fiction]] offerings (created by the fandom) often have some kind of response to the command XYZZY available in the original ''Adventure'' game.
** Not just in recent interactive fiction, either -- "xyzzy" has been a secret command or veiled reference in hundreds of programs (games and otherwise) over the decades since ''Colossal Cave'' first appeared.
* Trying to scream or cry in ''[[Anchorhead]]'' will yield different results depending on which stage of the plot you're in.
=== MMORPG ===
* The redesign of the Faultline zone in Issue 8 of ''[[City of Heroes]]'' included a well-hidden "lounge room"; entering earns you the "Egg Hunter" exploration badge.
** Of course the problem with that is that unlike the Warhammer example below it's fairly easy to find, so about 5 seconds after the first hunter found it, everyone knew about it.
* ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] Online'' has an Easter egg ''zone''
=== Platform Game ===
* In Super Mario World, when you stay on the map of the "special" zone (on "Star Road") for a couple of minutes, it starts playing a steeldrum version of the classic [[Super Mario Bros.]]. theme.
** A more [[Nightmare Fuel|distu]][[Paranoia Fuel|rbing]] Easter egg can be found in ''[[Super Mario Galaxy 2]]''. Go to the Shiverburn galaxy, from the start go to the left, enter first person, and look up. You will see three shadowy figures with big eyes (?) looking at you from the cliff. And if you move to the next part of the galaxy, ''[[Offscreen Teleportation|they will still be in front of you]]''.
*** Apparently, [https://web.archive.org/web/20110624013031/http://gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=126769 the game calls them "trees."] Still quite disturbing, even knowing that.
** In the first ''Paper Mario'', if you left the controller idle on the Chapter start screen (e.g. the ones that displayed the Chapter's title), the original version of the ''Super Mario Bros. (World 1-1)'' theme would play.
* [[Sonic CD]] has a secret passage in the Past and [[Bad Future]] versions of Wacky Workbench Act 1. In the Past, a green statue of an angel will be waiting for you and gives you a good amount of rings. However in the [[Bad Future]], [[Our Founder|a gold statue of Eggman will appear instead]]. You can destroy it, but bombs will rain on you seconds later.
* ''[[Metroid]] Fusion'' is more linear than most games in the series, but it still rewards would-be [[Sequence Breaking|sequence breakers]] with an Easter
* ''[[Pitfall|Pitfall II: Lost Caverns]]'' for the [[Atari]] 8-bit and 5200 had an entirely new level after you beat the game that was ''longer than the actual game itself.'' This may be the largest relative Easter egg in any game.
* Later games in the ''[[Jak and Daxter]]'' series scattered (coincidentally egg-shaped) Precursor Orbs around the levels for players to find, which could be spent on various cheats and Easter eggs (found under Cheats in the pause menu), ranging from [[Game Breaker|game breakers]] such as infinite ammunition and invulnerability to more trivial stuff like mirroring the game world and toggling the protagonist's goatee on and off. The in-world explanation is that since the game takes place in the future, the formerly abundant Orbs have now become increasingly rare, and extremely valuable in the process.
* If you managed to get your hands on a copy of ''Castlevania: Symphony of the Night,'' you could put it into a CD player and set it to track 2 to get a cool remix of one of the games main themes. Topping it off were the opening moments of it, when {{spoiler|Alucard says "As you can see, this is a Play Station black disk. Cut number one contains computer data, so please, don't play it. [[Schmuck Bait|But you probably won't listen to me anyway, will you?]]" He was being honest; nothing is there to listen to.}}
** The [[
*** The cool thing about PC-Engine discs in general was that they also served as soundtrack discs, due to how the PC-Engine handled music data. Any standard CD player can handle PCE music tracks. You have to watch out for when the non-music data cues up, though!
** Symphony of the Night in general has shitloads of easter eggs. Like the fountain in Olrox's quarters, which turns red for no reason, the birds nesting in one room, the random little upside down things in the first castle, the rare alternate form when Alucard gets turned to stone...
* In the DOS platformer ''[[Stix World]]'', [[Bottomless Pits]] are usually marked with a "Danger!" sign. However, if you fall past a certain one that says, "Banger!" instead of "Danger!" while possessing a blue key, you can find a room with a giant actual easter egg. Collecting this egg causes a message to pop up informing you to "check in the game directory." Doing so reveals a rather bizarre easter egg: a text file containing the entirety of ''[[Alice in Wonderland]]''!
* The Insomniac Museum of ''[[Ratchet and Clank]]'' fame. It's an easter egg level full of stuff that didn't make it into the game in the style of the actual Insomniac Games office layout, and various Insomniac staff members have commentary on each item. The Museum appears in only three of the games, and is located on 'Planet Burbank' (in reference to where the company is located), or on 'Dantopia'. Getting into it usually happens by chance, since the rather out-of-the-way telepads that send you there only work when your [[
* The secret stars in ''[[Braid]]''.
* In the [[Updated Rerelease]] of ''Jinsei Owata no Daibouken'', if you take the left path, you end up in the world of ''[[I Wanna Be the Guy]]'', and the [[Final Boss]] is the Kid.
* If you hold B while selecting Shade Man's stage in ''[[Mega Man 7]]'', the intro fanfare and BGM change to that of ''[[Ghosts 'n Goblins
* The 128K version of the [[ZX Spectrum]] game ''[[Zub]]'' had the hidden game ''Lightfarce'', supposedly by Fast-As-You-Like Software (a parody of FTL's ''Lightforce'') as an easter egg. It later saw release as a separate game (''Zarjas'').
=== Real-Time Strategy ===
* [[Blizzard Entertainment]]'s games are rife with various Easter eggs. In the RTS games, clicking on a unit often enough results into them [[Stop Poking Me|uttering various funny lines]] (or, if it's a critter, they explode), and exploring the map in great detail may result in finding Easter egg units. For instance, zerglings, hydralisks and marines from ''[[
** In addition, with the exception of the first ''[[Warcraft]]'', every Blizzard RTS (Usually the expansion packs) to date has had a hidden music track. ''[[Warcraft]] II: Beyond the Dark Portal'' had 'I'm a Medieval Man' earned by typing disco or putting the game disc into a CD player, Typing Medieval Man in ''[[Warcraft]] II'' (Battle.net Edition) also yielded this music, ''[[
** ''[[
* ''[[Star Wars]] Galactic Battlegrounds'' has several Easter egg characters hidden in the corners of maps, such as Mara Jade. There are also cheats that will give you absurdly overpowered joke super-units such as the Death Star, a Star Destroyer, and [[Killer Rabbit|Simon the Killer Ewok]].
** The Star Destroyers were interestingly left out of the game entirely, despite being featured prominently in briefings. Eventually, the expansion introduced Air Cruisers that were pretty much the same as the Easter Egg Star Destroyer, but even with the lack of scale, they were visibly designed to look smaller.
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** And to defeat Saruhan, a Turkish state that can sometimes appear as a revolter.
=== Simulation ===
* Naming sims in ''[[The Sims]]'' after Greek gods or old Hollywood stars sometimes gives special benefits and gifts to those characters.
** Ditto with ''[[Rollercoaster Tycoon]]''.
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** And ''Theme Park World''. Naming customers after certain production team members causes them to stay longer or spend more money.
** ''[[Sim Copter]]'' has one of the most famous Easter Eggs of all. In the finale, you are greeted by a throng of adoring citizens. Allegedly, the producer told one of the artists to include a bunch of bikini babes in the scene, without knowing that the artist was homosexual. Annoyed at the request, the artist included several speedo-wearing men, some of whom were kissing. Maxis fired him and was forced to recall early editions of the game.
** Also should note that in ''[[
** Every game in ''[[The Sims]]'' including its two sequels all contain easter eggs.
* ''[[Drakengard]]'' has an Easter egg to obtain after seeing all of the game's [[Multiple Endings]]. It involves doing a free mission in Tokyo and shooting down three or five jets of the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force, which is much harder than it sounds. After you accomplish this, you can choose to fly either your dragon or an SU-47 in free missions. This is a [[Shout-Out]] to Cavia Inc., who develop the ''[[Ace Combat]]'' series of games and developed the [[Simulation Game|Flight Sim]] half of the game. Did I mention that the protagonist is still mounted on the outside of the jet?
* In the third level of ''[[Battle Tanx]] 2: Global Assault'' there are many cars scattered around the level, many outside the game 'area'. They can be destroyed with careful blasting or a remote controlled rocked. One of these, upon destruction, will cue a whole series of messages from various employees who worked on the game. The theme is 'We want to work hard on making a good game'.
* ''[[Star Wars]]: Jedi Starfighter'' has ''literal'' Easter Eggs hidden in the Mount Merakan level.
* The ''[[Star Wars]]: [[Rogue Squadron]]'' series had several Easter Eggs, such as a hidden level in the first game that let you play as an AT-ST, all three games have a code that turns one of the ships into a flying Buick (yes, the car), and best of all the first game had a code that unlocked the [[The Phantom Menace|Naboo Starfighter]] and the code wasn't discovered until six months after the game came out (Which was also when the movie came out in theaters) when [[
* ''[[Creatures]]'' had many, but the most famous was a Bustr.txt, a file which read: ''Hunting scuba cows (A Poem) / Pebbles are not edible. It is fruitless to try eating them. / I have not eaten a sandwhich in many days. / Despair not for Wednesdays. / Salmon unite. / Boo hoo. / Bye. / Thankyou. ''
* ''[[Star Wars]]: Starfighter'' had a force-field cube with silly pictures in picture frames accessible by turning around at the beginning of the first level. Also, one mission features a missile frigate that launches two "Chris Corrpedoes", named for lead programmer Chris Corry.
* In ''[[Wing Commander (video game)|Wing Commander]] IV'', typing "animal" when the shipboard computer terminal text is scrolling, before it gets to the prompt for a callsign, results in a text based "20 questions" type game called "Animal Gump". Replacing "animal" with "chicken" gives an alternate version of the credits, with strange comments.
* If you play ''[[
** On December
* ''F/A 18 Hornet'' has a literal giant easter egg floating over an airbase near Lake Bahr-al-Mith in Iraq.
* The [[Hollywood Hacking]] sim ''[[Uplink]]'' combines this with [[Genius Bonus]] in a very interesting and thematically appropriate way. There are supposedly encrypted easter eggs hidden in the game's code. If you want to see them, find the right segments and crack the encryption keys.
* ''[[Star Wars Rebel Assault]] II'' has several that are activated by holding down certain keys during a cutscene. One is a falling stormtrooper doing a Wile E. Coyote impression, another is a squad of dancing stormtroopers.
* In ''[[Silent Hunter|Silent Hunter 4]]'', you can find a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUcpCs91__I Ghost Ship (the Flying Dutchman)?] as well as...[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNA4tTwSOwM well.]
=== Sports ===
* [[The Reveal|"Uh, don't tell the other kids, but, uh, I speak English. I learn Spanish in school."]] (Pablo in the original ''[[Backyard Sports|Backyard Baseball]]'' when you hold Shift while clicking on his player card.)
* There was at least one [[Football Manager|Championship Manager]] game that allowed you to play as an international team if you gave yourself the same name as the manager of that team in the year the game was released.
=== Stealth ===
* ''[[Metal Gear]]''. The whole series. The early ones had a few, but the ''Solid'' games contain more than you could possibly ever
* The [[Updated Rerelease|Gold edition]] of ''[[Thief]]: The Dark Project'' features [[Debug Room|a hidden joke stage]], accessible by altering the configuration file, that intentionally exposed things the players weren't supposed to see, such as bugs that were killed before final release and the placeholder texture, along with notes giving insights into the design process and some out-and-out gags.
** Then there's an
** ''Thief 2'' has a rather unusual one. In the level where you break into the City Watch HQ, if you throw a Scouting Orb over the wall immediately to your left when the level begins you can see a couple of zombies dancing.
=== Turn-Based Strategy ===
* ''[[Shining Force]]'' has two items which, when held by the appropriate (female) character, change that character's field sprites to ones with a little more [[Fan Service]]. In the English-language release, their names have been romanized, but not translated.
* ''Eschalon: Book 1'' contains three items called Easter Eggs. If all three are found they can be traded in to make the character advance a level.
* You have to be incredibly lucky or very persistent to see it, but in ''[[Phantom Brave]]'', you can generate anthropomorphic owl [[Player
* In the Special Edition version of [[Lords of Magic]], there are 4 official quests (Fire,Earth,Death, and Order) you can choose from. There's also a hidden 5th quest(based on the story of Siegfried, and complete with German accents) that can be accessed by clicking on the center of the quest selection room
=== Visual Novel ===
* In the mirror moon translation of ''[[Fate/stay night]]'', go to Caster's Info screen and go to her first skill page. A little Neko-Arc from ''[[Tsukihime]]'' is in the corner of the text box.
=== Western RPG ===
* ''[[Fallout]]'' has many examples. [
** In an example of this perhaps being taken too far, the [[Expansion Pack]] ''Mothership Zeta'' for ''Fallout 3'' is ''based entirely around one particular easter egg''.
** The "Wild Wasteland" perk in ''[[Fallout: New Vegas|New Vegas]]'' essentially places a bunch of Easter Eggs on the map that also double as [[Shout-Out
* In ''[[Ultima]] V'' on the Commodore, yelling FLIPFLOP would flip the screen upside down.
* The ''[[Gothic]]'' series has the Mighty Alien Dwarf, who leaves signed messages to the player, either in areas of the game that can't be reached without cheating or in places that there's no real reason to explore. One message not from the Dwarf was a rusted-out old car hidden deep in an uninhabited corner of the map, with a note from the game developer saying, "Well, I always wanted to make a game with cars, you know."
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** Fairly early in the game you can run into a ranger named "Bub Snikt", who claims that he's the best at what he does, and what he does ain't pretty. If asked to join your group, he claims he works alone.
** At another point you can meet "Lord Foreshadow", who makes oblique comments about trouble brewing down in Amn, and that he recently visited Neverwinter.
* The voice actors for [[Player Character|Hawke]] in ''[[Dragon Age II]]'' must have had a ''lot'' of fun the day they recorded their combat lines; the source audio file archive [https://web.archive.org/web/20120809164933/http://impressioniste.tumblr.com/post/17106196066/dragon-age-ii-source-audio-easter-eggs-in-the includes] such menacing battle cries as "There's a donkey in the spoon drawer!" and "This fish isn't working!"
=== Wide Open Sandbox ===
* In ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]: [[Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas|San Andreas]]'', if you get to the top of one of the towers on the Gant Bridge in San Fierro, you will see a sign that says "There are no Easter Eggs here. Go away." The ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' series is as a whole rife with Easter Eggs.
** Furthermore, if you go to the Bridge's tourist gift shop, you will see a section of the bridge itself, and a plaque that tells you how much bits of data was needed for the developers of the game to make and design it.
** ''[[Grand Theft Auto Vice City]]'' [[
* ''[[Saints Row]] 2'' has an actual ''Easter Bunny'' that rises from the water.
* ''[[Endless Ocean]]'' has a lot of these, but they're either very small, unobtrusive, and possibly not intentional (the holes in the rock at Comb Reef, the various findable items, the out-of-season fish) or huge enough to stretch the definition of "egg" (the [[Derelict Graveyard|Ship's Rest]] area, some of the aforementioned items). The only true
** There are a few other ones that are almost definitely intentional. [[Exposition Fairy|Kat]] can be spoken to on deck, and usually provides information as to what you should do next. However, once story mode has been completed, she says random, sometimes [[Contemplate Our Navels|navel-contemplative]], sometimes funny things. There's also another {{spoiler|secret cutscene}} unlocked by achieving [[One Hundred Percent Completion]].
* [[The Elder Scrolls]] [http://uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Easter_Eggs Morrowind] and [http://uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Easter_Eggs Oblivion] are full of Easter eggs.
* In ''Vette'', driving off the far end of the Bay Bridge would lead you to Alameda, home of Spectrum Holobyte, the developers.
* ''[[Scarface the World Is Yours]]'' has this in dialogue trees. Unique conversations give performance bonuses. Talk to everyone (sometimes twice). That old lady in the hat? Tony Montana will try to pick her up. The masked wrestler really likes candy. And fried chicken. Tony even tries family counseling on a teenager wandering Miami Beach.
==
* On the QWERTY type key arrangement, the word "Typewriter" is contained in the top row. Whether or not this is coincidence is debatable.
** According to ''[[Cracked.com]]'''s [http://www.cracked.com/article_19151_5-bad-ideas-humanity-sticking-with-out-habit.html 5 Bad Ideas Humanity Is Sticking With Out of Habit], this was so salesmen could easily type the word to impress potential buyers. ''Cracked'' also has a [https://web.archive.org/web/20120119213347/http://www.cracked.com/funny-6013-the-qwerty-keyboard/ topic page about the typewriter and its layout].
** "Secretary" can, intentionally or not, be typed entirely with the left hand. Hmm.
* If you're playing the Macintosh version of ''any'' shareware game made by [https://web.archive.org/web/20081120165836/http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/all.html Ambrosia Software], press 'X' on that game's title screen for an Easter Egg.
* A particularly common form of Easter egg is a "[[Developer's Room|programmers' room]]". Well-known examples are found in ''[[Chrono Trigger]]''.
* [[Nintendo]] composer Kazumi Totaka is notorious for hiding a short, 19-note melody in most of the games he's worked on? sometimes so well-hidden that fans are still trying to find it in various games, years after their release. The usual method seems to involve pausing the game at some certain place and then waiting a few minutes.
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** ''[[Shenmue]]'' spanned three discs; each disk's audio track was performed by a different character.
** ''[[Bomberman|Panic Bomber]]'' for the [[Turbo Grafx-16|PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16]] also had such a track, featuring Shirobon (White Bomber) and Kurobon (Black Bomber).
* Often mistaken for an
* Similarly, try holding down the Z button as you start up a [[Game Cube]]. Now try holding down the Z buttons on all four controllers at once as you start it up.
** This also works for holding Z on the first two controllers, but not the first three, sadly.
* On the Radio Shack "Color Computer 3", pressing <ctrl><alt><reset> wipes everything in memory and displays a photo of three guys at Microware who wrote the 80-column display software... in ROM. This one graphic occupies nearly a quarter of the system's entire read-only memory; as memory was not cheap in [[The Eighties]], apparently Tandy was not amused?
* On Microsoft's now-discontinued "WebTV" dial-up Internet thin client boxes (including the Dish Network DishPlayer), entering various numbers into the remote control with the unit turned off triggered assorted test functions. For instance, [[555|867-5309]] (Jenny's number from the Tommy Tutone song) will cause the unit to call home to MS for firmware.
* While examining a painting of {{spoiler|Flora}} in ''[[Professor Layton and the Curious Village]]'', if you try to touch her breast when you're supposed to {{spoiler|find the mark of the Golden Apple}}, the Professor will say "Now Luke, be a gentleman."
* In the special edition of ''[[
* It was recently discovered that the [[Game Cube]] system menu's ambient background music is actually [http://fryguy64.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=cameo&thread=3527&page=1#88809 a version of the Famicom Disk System startup music slowed down to about 1/25th of the original speed].
* The hidden object game ''[[Mystery Case Files]]: Dire Grove'' contains an
* ''[[Wario Ware]]: D.I.Y.'' has an interesting one that made a lot of ''[[Mario Paint]]'' fans giddy. If you enter the Game MakerMatic and name your game "Mario Paint", you'll hear one of its BGMs as you draw. (If you change the name to something else, though, the music goes away.)
* In the Solar System installment of the ''[[Magic School Bus]]'' educational CD-ROM games had a video camera sitting on a desk in the classroom. It normally did nothing. When you flick the lightswitch in the room to make everything pitch black, and then clicked the video camera, it made a screen appear on the blackboard of the classroom. You could then watch things such as the credits, more information about the Solar System, or a video about how if a person comes into your school dressed as Miss Frizzle, you should "start packing" (you can't travel through the Solar System in one day!).
* In ''FreeCell'' entering game number -1 or -2 results in an unwinnable deal, while (in the newest version) entering -3 or -4 yields a deal that can be instantly won.
* ''Vectron'' for the [[Intellivision]] would display a message from the programmer if the player did an [http://www.intvfunhouse.com/games/vect.php#eastereggs incredibly difficult series of maneuvers] for seven levels. As with Atari's ''[[Adventure (1979 video game)|Adventure]]'', this Easter Egg was hidden because Mattel had a policy against crediting programmers.
== Computer Software ==
* There are [https://web.archive.org/web/20110504210734/http://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/~scheich/Newton/OS1.html two] [https://web.archive.org/web/20110213183855/http://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/~scheich/Newton/OS2.html pages] of Easter eggs for the Apple Newton handheld computer, including Finder's ability to predict Elvis sightings...
* Microsoft is pretty well known for its myriad of Easter eggs sprinkled throughout its early products. Unsurprisingly, any form of Easter Egg in Microsoft products [https://web.archive.org/web/20100330065403/http://blogs.msdn.com/larryosterman/archive/2005/10/21/483608.aspx has been banned] by [[Executive Veto]] ever since as part of its Trustworthy Computing Initative, with the rationale of Microsoft wanting to forge trust from its users by eliminating everything that isn't documented or could potentially cause unnecessary bloat if not security issues as a result of unsanctioned code. Though as stated above, Microsoft's practice of inserting hidden stuff to their products did not cease completely, as Easter eggs do still crop up from time to time albeit in a less elaborate way e.g. mascot cameos like the Ninja Cat and Master Chief or references to the company's history.
** Microsoft Excel 97 had a hidden Flight Simulator mode that could be triggered by inputting a specific set of commands while in a brand new spreadsheet.
** Similarly, users of Microsoft Excel 95 could reach a ''[[Doom]]''-style "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwg9eLHZZRo Hall of Tortured Souls]". This became something of a controversial Easter egg when some have taken the Doom-esque minigame grossly out of context and misinterpreted it as a [[Everyone Is Satan in Hell|satanic]] secret proof of [[Bill Gates]] being the [[Antichrist]].
*** Finally, Excel 2000 featured a ''[[Spy Hunter]]'' style driving game dubbed "Dev Hunter" by its fans.
** In Windows 3.1, a certain sequence of keys would replace the Windows logo in the "About Windows" dialogue with a portrait of Bill Gates or (depending on what code was entered), a polar bear.
** Windows 95 had a feature whereas, in Explorer, you created a folder on the desktop named "and now, the moment you've all been waiting for" then renamed it "we proudly present for your viewing pleaure" then finally renamed it "The Microsoft Windows 95 Product Team!" the directory window would show a video (complete with music) of all the people involved in creating Windows 95.
** [http://support.microsoft.com/kb/232010 Older versions of the 3D Text screensaver], upon having "volcano" input as the text, would display the names of random volcanoes.
** The "Pipes" screensaver would sometimes manifest a teapot at one of the angles in the pipes it drew.
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*** And if you do the math, it gets even better. Given the distance traveled vs. time spent, it's actually assuming you go at a very reasonable speed in a kayak...for 15 days straight...without sleeping...and no equipment or supplies to weigh you down... It sounds like they expect you to do the oceanic trips with only a fishing rod, a fillet knife, and a plastic jug with a water filter.
*** If your path crosses through the East China Sea, the directions insist that you ''jet ski'' rather than kayak.
*** Ask Google Maps for walking directions [[The Lord of the Rings|from "the Shire" to "Mordor"]] and the resulting page tells you to use caution as [[Memetic Mutation|one does not simply walk into Mordor]].
** Then there's the one with about nine hundred U-turns.
** Google Moon used to turn the map into cheese on the closest zoom-in.
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* Using the [[Konami Code]] (up up down down left right left right B A) in Google Reader will give the sidebar a ninja theme.
* In Python v.3 or later, you can type [[Xkcd|import antigravity]]. It brings up that comic in your browser.
* In
== Computer Hardware ==
* Designers of integrated circuits have incorporated miniature artwork in their chips, termed as chip art or silicon doodling. While many of them were more of a playful graffiti or a form of expression from the designer and/or the team (though such unauthorised artists' marks e.g. humorous or satirical designs are discouraged by chipmakers due to fears that the art may interfere with normal functionality), some actually do serve a practical purpose: if the chip was cloned by a competing manufacturer down to the artwork, this was strong evidence that a copyright violation was committed. Such chip art experienced a surge of popularity due to the practice of chip decapping being performed by retrocomputing enthusiasts.
* Despite Microsoft having largely banned the inclusion of Easter eggs in their products, the practice still lives on with their video game hardware. Taking apart the Xbox One S reveals a super deformed artwork of Microsoft's gaming mascot Master Chief, and on the Xbox One X's motherboard where the same Master Chief is depicted riding a scorpion, in reference to the One X's Project Scorpio codename. A hidden credits screen was also discovered in the original Xbox Dashboard as well.
* The original Apple Macintosh case has signatures of the development team embossed in the plastic which can be seen once you open it up. Similar hardware autographs can also be seen in some of Apple's hardware of the era.
== DVDs ==
* The DVD of ''[[Austin Powers]]: The Spy Who Shagged Me'' contains a secret menu, accessed if you wait around long enough on the special features menu for Dr. Evil's spaceship to fly into frame, and select the logo on it. The menu has several bonus features about, well, evil, if I remember correctly.
* The DVD set of ''[[Broken Saints]]'' contains several, the crown jewel of which is a hilarious alternate commentary track on Chapter 19, Act 1, which is practically a [[Gag Dub]] of the chapter.
* Most of the DVDs from the [[ADV Films]] release of ''[[Noir]]'' contain
* The English subtitled version of ''[[Urusei Yatsura]]'' has Easter eggs in the subtitle text. Lum's mother only speaks an untranslated alien language. The subtitle, to show that even in the original language the dialog is unintelligible, is written in the "Symbol" font (The Greek letter font). By matching the characters to a regular font yields hidden messages. One message was "the star wars parody was pretty cool", which is not what she would be saying, but instead referred to an earlier bit in that episode.
* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' actually uses them as a plot point; in "[[Doctor Who
** On a side note, it is worth noting that DVDs of classic ''Doctor Who'' stories are stocked with Easter Eggs whereas the only Egg on releases of the new series so far is the "Blink" message. Hmmm...
** The Blink speech wasn't the only one. The series 1 and 2 DVD set have the "Do you want to come with me?" promotion as an Easter Egg.
* The DVD version of ''[[The Lord of the Rings (film)|The Lord of the Rings]]: The Two Towers'' contains a hidden video clip of Gollum accepting a MTV award for Best Animated Character.
** ''[[The Lord of the Rings (film)|The Lord of the Rings]]: The Return of the King'' has an interview between Hans Jensen (as played by Dominic Monaghan) and Elijah Wood. Something of a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLBDNUvrGQk Crowning Moment Of Funny].
** ''The Fellowship of the Ring'' Extended DVD has a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8ohAwSdIw8 remake of the Council of Elrond scene featuring Jack Black].
* Not unlike the ''Noir'' example above, ''[[Madlax]]'' also has a sock puppet short on Volume 6.
* And so does ''[[The Incredibles]]'' on the second disc of the DVD release.
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** In fact, it's the same cartoon that Deep Thought is watching within the movie.
** The DVD of the 1980s TV series has a similar feature, which turns up totally at random when you push any button on the menu, and basically [[Interface Screw|shows whatever it was you wanted, but in a weird messed up way]] with an apology for the effects of the Infinite Improbability Drive. Interestingly, the TV series DVD predates the films release by at least a year.
* The
* The DVD of ''[[The Ring]]'' has a secret option on the main screen, if you scroll down through all the normal options, the cursor will disappear. Hit enter, and the DVD will play a (slightly extended) version of the cursed video, followed up by returning to the main screen with a phone ringing in the background. Once it starts playing, it cannot be stopped, paused, scrolled through, or in any way halted short of turning off your player.
* ''[[The Matrix]] Revisited'' DVD had a secret list of about 64 songs that could be accessed by clicking on a phone booth in the background. This being ''The Matrix'', I'm sure there's others in ''Animatrix, Reloaded'', and ''Revisited''.
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* The fourth disc of season one of ''[[Life On Mars]]'' has a cell phone next to the ash tray that leads to an Easter Egg when you click it.
* The DVD release of [[Duran Duran]]'s ''Greatest'' video collection contains a number of Easter eggs which the viewer can get to either through a series of convoluted steps, or by going directly to the "track number" in each DVD. The Easter eggs include archival footage of the band playing at the Rum Runner nightclub (where they were the house band) while the New Romantic clubgoers dance around, soundtracked to "Planet Earth"; scenes from a 1984 British TV interview with the band featuring little sound clips of the slowed-down version of their instrumental "Faith in this Colour"; and a lengthy 1990 interview of the band talking about the creative process and the way their then-current album ''Liberty'' came to be.
* ''[[Spider-Man (film)|Spider-Man 2]]'' has a couple of memorable Easter Eggs found by moving the cursor off the list of items in a couple of the DVD menus. One has Sam Raimi claim that he's brought in an expert to show Alfred Molina how he wants a scene to be done. {{spoiler|The camera pans over to show Willem Dafoe acting out one of Octavius' scenes, and Molina breaks down laughing.}} Another starts with Molina as Doc Ock snarling at the camera...before breaking out into "[[Fiddler
* The ''[[Babylon 5]]'' DVD collections contain bloopers and outtakes from the season you're currently watching. All one has to do is find the hidden "5" symbol in the extras menu on the 6th disc of each season.
* Several DVDs of the Star Wars films contain Easter Eggs, including bloopers and the like, and are often revealed by inputting "1138". In the DVD for ''[[Attack of the Clones]]'', select a poster behind Dex in his diner and you'll access a slideshow of rough, hand-drawn student posters: one has C-3PO advertising a Spanish language class.
* You have to decipher some codes and do some lucky guessing on the ''[[National Treasure]]'' DVD to get your Easter Egg.
* One of the DVDs in the ''[[Firefly]]'' set features Adam Baldwin singing "The Ballad of Jayne"
* On one of the discs in the ''[[Wacky Races]]'' DVD set, one of the menu screens has two hot spots that lead to pre-commercial bumpers.
* The first DVD of the 3rd ''[[Tenchi Muyo!]]'' OVA series has a hidden subtitle track in the first episode {{spoiler|which contains the actual translation of Washu's "magic fingers" incident.}}
* On [[Rush]]'s ''R30'' DVD, there's a documentary about their titular tour, and if you press one on your remote at a certain moment, [[
* All of the
* ''[[Sorceror Stabber Orphen]]'', at least in the English release, has some hidden content. You'll probably need to run this on the computer, because some of these will likely be missed just with a menu cursor. These have mainly character outtakes, or private humor.
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* The concept of the "hidden track" on CDs, which there are far to many to list.
* The liner notes to all of [[David Crowder Band]]'s album releases since ''Can You Hear Us?'' conclude with the band thanking the reader for being so patient and loving of the written word, and as a way of saying thanks they include a link to a special "Goodreader" page.
* [[Radiohead]]'s ''Ok Computer'' has some text hidden behind the spine of the cd case. It reads "I like you. I like you. You are a wonderful person. I'm full of enthusiasm. I'm going places. I'll be happy to help you. I am an important person, would you like to come home with me". Also, early pressings of ''Kid A'' included a booklet full of artwork and text (some of which later turned out to be ''Amnesiac'' lyrics) hidden underneath the cd tray.
* The booklet to [[Weezer]]'s ''The Green Album'' folds out into a poster-sized crowd photo of one of their live performances: In the right hand corner there's the silhouettes of [[Mystery Science Theater 3000|Mike Nelson, Tom Servo, and Crow T. Robot]], just barely visible because they blend into the shadows of the audience members. It's given away just a little bit because the liner notes include a copyright notice from Best Brains. Also, hidden behind the spine of the cd case of the same album is the word "No". Some fans claim it's an answer to the above ''Ok Computer'' easter egg, since both are hidden in the same place, but there's no confirmation of this from the band - the only official explanation (from the band's webmaster, Karl Koch) has been "no means no".
* [[Dream Theater]]'s former drummer, Mike Portnoy, always liked to say "Eat my ass and balls" during live shows. Said phrase appears in Morse code in one of the band's songs, "In the Name of God".
* Mike Doughty's ''Haughty Melodic'' includes a hidden message that can be read by putting the cd in your computer, provided your computer uses Gracenote CDDB to identify track names: The song "Grey Ghost" is listed as "Grey Ghost (Here's the hidden message. Eat your greens. Read 'Everything and Nothing' by Borges. Thanks for listening. Mike)"
* Take a look at the [[Fun with Acronyms|first letter of tracks 4-9]] on the soundtrack to ''[[The Dark Knight Saga|Batman Begins]]''. {{spoiler|It spells "Batman"!}}
* Reggie And The Full Effect's ''Under The Tray'' sort of made the CD ''itself'' an easter egg: When you open the packaging up, it appears at first that you were accidentally sold an empty case. However, if you take the album title to heart and pull out the empty CD tray, you'll find the disc underneath it, along with a picture of a smiling James Dewees and the text "You found it!". Of course, many listeners didn't take the album title as a hint and complained to retailers about being ripped off.
* There is a section in Pink Floyd's song "Empty Spaces" (on ''[[The Wall
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* ''[[The Rocky Horror Picture Show]]'' has several actual Easter eggs [http://img246.imageshack.us/i/egg1mt3.gif/ hidden in the scenery]
** It's rumored Rocky Horror actually ''started'' the concept of Easter Eggs. And did so by having an Easter egg hunt on the set, and some of those that weren't found made their way into the film, such as the one depicted above. How much truth there is to this rumor is debatable.
* The soundtrack to ''[[Inception]]'' is ''je ne regrette rien'', just slowed down.
** Wasn't this a plot point of sorts? Don't know if that counts as an Easter Egg or not...
* While [[Pixar]] movies have quite a few Easter Eggs, the Pizza Planet delivery truck is one for Pixar in general. It appears at least once in every Pixar movie except ''[[The Incredibles]]'', and while absent there, it does appear in the video game adaptation.
== Magazines ==
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* Many cards in ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' have Easter Eggs in the name, "flavor text", or art. This is especially prevalent in gag sets like ''Unglued'' and ''Unhinged'', and in improved versions of older cards, like the "timeshifted" sets from ''Time Spiral'' and ''Planar Chaos''. [http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/feature/240 This article] reveals some of the tiniest.
* Page 333 of the second edition ''[[Unknown Armies]]'' corebook. {{spoiler|The page's top heading and page number are printed backwards while "333" is in the background of the main page.}}
* In the 3.5 ''[[Dungeons
* ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' RPG has PDF versions of the sourcebooks available if you buy them online; in several places where [[Painting the Fourth Wall|Harry scratched out part of the text with Sharpie]], you can copy the text into another program and read what was underneath. But it usually turns out to be something like "by the way, if you're reading this, we sure bet you feel clever!"
** That's only part of it; the Sharpie'd out segments are in a larger article about the Christian God and his abilities, with the implication being that Harry Dresden himself blacked out the stuff because he didn't think the Heavenly Host would appreciate having that kind of information spread about them. Performing the above-mentioned trick reveals that the text says (paraphrased) {{spoiler|Their powers are unknown, but presumably have something to do with Jim Butcher's writing. It'll all be revealed in due time, so just be patient, okay?}}
** The first gamebook's section on worldbuilding, the author remarks on having significant pieces of architecture in one's city, saying "Perhaps the St. Louis Arch is a gateway to something deep in the Nevernever. Maybe the Pyramids at Giza are {{spoiler|nowhere near as bad as Chichen Itza}}." This serves as [[Foreshadowing]] to the novel ''Changes'', not yet released when the game books came out, where Harry and crew go to Chichen Itza and {{spoiler|destroy the Red Court of Vampires at the cost of Harry's lover Susan}}.
* Game writer [[User:Looney Toons|Robert M. Schroeck]] likes to bury easter eggs in his ''[[GURPS]]'' books, although they don't always make it past his editors (like his attempt to add "Sir Brusewain, the Dark Knight of Gotham in Nottinghamshire" to the list of knights in Arthurian Britain in ''GURPS Camelot''). Among the known eggs are [[The Man from U.N.C.L.E.|the United Nations Committee on Law Enforcement]] in ''GURPS I.S.T.'', and an [[Expy]] of a character from ''[[Undocumented Features]]'' in ''GURPS Shapeshifters''.
== Television ==
* The page quote comes from ''[[Red Dwarf]]''. This was because, in the day when the show was made, it would have taken a lot of time, effort and specialised equipment to actually create the reversed sound-track to hear the easter egg. The show itself admitted it wasn't a very good Easter Egg, and included a live frontwards playback of it in their "Smegups" tape.
* In the ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' episode "The Fix", [[Freeze-Frame Bonus|a quick glimpse]] at Kaito Nakamura's license plate shows that it reads "NCC-1701". George Takei, the actor who portrayed Kaito, also played Sulu in ''[[Star Trek]]''
* On ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'', if you enable closed captioning on 'In the Name of the Grandfather', you see that it doesn't display what they are speaking, namely:
{{quote|
'''Homer''' (laughing): I miss her so much.
But…
'''Grampa:''' I had a nightmare. That I was back in England!
'''Homer''' (laughing): I hate them so much. }}
** And if you pause the list of “corrections” Rock Bottom wished to make in "Homer Badman", you find out you have no life.
** This is incredibly common, not just in ''The Simpsons'' but in other shows as well. It's not rare for dialog to be changed in post-production after the scripts have already been submitted to the captioners.
* In [[Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)|the re-imagined ''
** And a weapons locker in Season 4 was numbered "1701", another reference to ''Star Trek''.
** The show also at times made no attempt at hiding recognizable company logos on buildings in Caprica, and one early episode features a crystal clear closeup of the spines of a few of the books in Adama's cabin - revealing them to be Reader's Digest Condensed Books volumes! Eagle-eyed viewers will also see recognizable street signs and traffic lights in the Caprica scenes as well. Given the fact the series is predicated on Caprican civilization parallelling Earth's, these are more likely to be Easter eggs than accidental anachronisms.
* In one of the episodes of the German crime series 'Mord mit aussicht' you have the male policeman running through the hospital and looking awkwardly to a doctor: a doctor that also appears in another famous series: 'Lindenstrasse'
* In Season 2 of ''[[Castle]]'', the episode "[[Halloween Episode|Vampire Weekend]]" has a few [[Shout-Out
** The easiest one to spot is the opening scene. [[Nathan Fillion|Castle]] dons his old Browncoat for a Halloween
** However,
* The ''Allspark Almanacs'', the guides to the ''[[Transformers Animated]]'' universe, are basically a gigantic
* In "Brown Betty" on ''[[Fringe]]'', several things allude to upcoming episodes: Walter sings "Candy man" linking to the episode "The Abducted"; the killer is removing hearts, similar to ep "Marionette".
** The glyphs (six-fingered hand, seahorse, frog, butterfly, etc.) also appear in the background of several episodes, usually in places of significance to Olivia and Peter.
* On the Nicktoon ''[[Invader Zim]]'', series creator Jhonen Vasquez secretly inserted images of GIR covered in blood in a few episodes, without Nickelodeon knowing.
* ''[[Sealab 2021]]'' frequently featured the Big Green Phone, which is surrounded by [[Bathroom Stall Graffiti|random graffiti]]. In one episode, it appeared twice, the second time with the phrase "This graffiti is not different stop pausing" added.
* ''[[NCIS]]'' occasionally pokes fun at co-star David McCallum's long career. In one early episode a publicity photograph of McCallum from ''[[The Man from U.N.C.L.E.]]'' is shown as representing Ducky as a young man, and in another episode, when a character asks Gibbs what Ducky looked like as a young man, Gibbs replies "Ilya Kuryakin".
* ''[[Hill Street Blues]]'' was a very low rated show in its first season, but won a large number of Emmy Awards due to its quality. In the second season opener, one of the statues is sitting on a file cabinet in the station, and Lt Henry Goldblume picks it up and carries it off without any comment as he walks through the scene.
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== Theatre ==
* [[Cyrano De Bergerac]]: At Act II Scene VII, Count De Guiche mentions the famous scene of the windmills that appear at [[Don Quixote]], and Cyrano mentions it’s in chapter XIII. But that scene is at chapter VIII. Any character could make a mistake… except Cyrano, who is a [[Broken Ace]]. Chapter XIII (''In wich is ended the story of the shpeherdess Marcela, with other incidents'') narrates the tragic tale of the love between Grisóstomo and Marcela, [[Arcadia|two shepherds]], and is the deconstruction of the [[Romance Novel]], the genre [[Fan Dumb|Roxane is obsessed with]]. The protagonists of [[Cyrano De Bergerac]], Cyrano, Le Bret and Roxane are [[Expies]] of Grisóstomo, Ambrosio and Marcela, the shepherds Don Quixote meets at that chapter.
{{quote|
'''Cyrano:'''I have!
And doff my hat at th' mad knight-errant's name.
'''De Guiche:''' I counsel you to study. . .
'''A Porter''' ''(appearing at back):''My lord's chair!
'''De Guiche:''' The windmill chapter!
'''Cyrano:''' ''(bowing):'' Chapter the Thirteenth. }}
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* This is done to such an extent at [[Disney Theme Parks]] that entire books have been written on the subject of finding them all. The so-called Hidden Mickeys are inconspicuous images of Mickey Mouse or his silhouette placed in various unexpected locations around the parks. It is also very common, when one attraction is closed and replaced with another, for the Imagineers to include an unobtrusive tribute to the old attraction in the new one.
** Hidden Mickeys aren't just limited to the parks; they appear throughout the movies as well.
** And the Mickeys aren't all small and inconspicuous. [https://www.google.com/maps/search/walt+disney+world/@28.3960828,-81.5781911,492m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en Some can only be seen from aircraft.]
== Web Sites / Web Originals ==
* ''[[Homestar Runner]]'' is well known for including Easter Eggs in cartoons on the site. In an inversion of this fact, Macromedia Central has an exclusive ''[[Homestar Runner]]'' toon hidden inside.
* The [[Web Comic]] ''[[Narbonic]]'' has an entirely separate text story, written in two-word segments, hidden in the filenames of each strip (of all places). The story continues into the [[Directors Cut]] version.
* Referenced in [https://web.archive.org/web/20130916182553/http://www.cinemabums.com/?p=307 this] ''[[Cinema Bums]]'' strip, released on Easter Monday. The comic's title also serves as a reference to [[Doctor Who
* The webcomic ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20111215123517/http://www.bitmapworld.com/ Bitmap World]'' has a number of Easter Eggs hidden around the site, which can be discovered by searching for images of one of the characters, Mike.
* Google [[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy|"Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything"]]. Just do it.
** This also works on [http://www.wolframalpha.com/ WolframAlpha].
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**** In addition, search "[[2001: A Space Odyssey|Open the pod bay doors]]" (with or without HAL) and it returns "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."
**** Asking "How can entropy be reversed?" returns [[wikipedia:The Last Question|"THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER"]].
** Likewise, there was a time when you googled "failure" and got [[What Do You Mean It's Not Political?|George W. Bush's biography]]. (Although to be fair that was less a case of an Easter Egg and more a result of Google bombing. Google may be one of the few pieces of software that allows its users to
** Very few of them work any more, but there were a number of great "I'm Feeling Lucky" Google hits involving fake 404s or search result pages, including "French military victories" which led to "Do you mean 'French military defeats'?" and a misspelling of "Weapons of Mass Destruction" which led to a fake 404 for said weapons?
** Not to mention the Chuck Norris page?
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** In Google Translate, translating "Haruhi" from English to Japanese yields not "ハルヒ" ("Haruhi") but "涼宮ハルヒ" ("[[Suzumiya Haruhi]]"). Surely, someone at Google must be a Haruhiist to skewer the translation result like that?
** Google "[[Zerg Rush]]". We won't spoil its effect for you, so go on.
* In Linkara's ''[[Atop the Fourth Wall]]'' video of ''New Guardians #2'', he plays a clip of [[Adolf Hitler]] giving a speech ([[It Makes Sense in Context]]). Towards the end, there is a message that is onscreen [[Freeze-Frame Bonus|for only a frame or two]] which says: "Yeah, I can see why Germany would want to follow this shouting, drug-crazed lunatic. ZOMG
* ''[[Sister Claire]]'': Known for its hidden Easter Eggs and [[Homage Shot|homages]], ''Sister Claire'' is definitely a [[Shout-Out|Shout-Out Web-comic.]]
* When composing a new mail in Yahoo! Mail. Pressing the text "Subject:" at the top will yield any number of random phrases that refer to either [[Memetic Mutation|internet memes]], [[By the Power of Grayskull|TV catchphrases]], and assorted inane statements.
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20111127030657/http://members.cox.net/sandiept/name-generator.html This Name Generator]'' contains ones for those who like flower names.
** As well as gemstones.
* In the [[Potter Puppet Pals]] video "Trouble at Hogwarts", if the viewer freeze-frames the Avada Kedavra lightning and clicks on it when it forms a pentagram, they are taken to another short video featuring Ron and Hermione in a "follow the butterflies" skit.
* When a [[YouTube]] video is loading, a circle of dots will appear. Holding the up and left buttons unlocks a game of Snake.
* Trickster Mode in ''[[Homestuck]]''. Basically, go into any flash update where a controller icon is in the top right corner and press Ctrl+T. Something will always happen.
** Pay attention to the corners at the end of flash episodes. On occasion, you'll see an icon flash that leads to another flash, as in [http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002838
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* Brian Cronin has collected [https://web.archive.org/web/20131104193421/http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2011/07/01/a-month-of-comic-book-easter-eggs-archive/ an massive collection of these] at Comic Book Resources, all from fan suggestions. Some include:
** Numerous comics strip characters appearing as [[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Reed and Sue Richards' neighbors]]
** [[Unsound Effect|Hidden sound effects]]
** The X-Men randomly appearing in the background in a ''Punisher'' issue
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== Other ==
* In some of the dioramas at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, the artist painted in little elves "as a sort of signature of his work." Also, two dioramas have moving butterflies, which must freak unsuspecting visitors out. [http://www.paleocurrents.com/docs/secrets_of_dioramas.html Here is a webpage devoted to pointing seekers to the right dioramas.]
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* The little guy with a big nose and a toga from Little Ceasar's commercials; look closely at the toga, and you'll see the embroidery is composed of "LC" printed over and over in a line. [[Captain Oblivious|For "Little Caesar's" of course.]]
* Domino's Pizza does something similar, the three "dots" on their logo representing the number of stores they had originally. They originally wanted to add one dot for each new store, but the franchise grew too fast!
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<ref>Created by the tropers[[House of Leaves|.]]</ref>
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[[Category:Metafiction Demanded This Index]]
[[Category:The Secret Index]]
[[Category:Alliterative Trope Titles]]
[[Category:Easter Egg]]
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