The joy of a secret is twofold: equal delight lies in both discovery and disclosure.
Perhaps this explains the presence of hidden messages, in jokes and secret references in
media - often called Easter eggs, in reference to the springtime pursuit of hunting hidden
treats.
So join me, as we uncover the secret world of hidden eggs.
Perhaps the best place to start our search is at the very beginning: and one of the earliest
well-known video game Easter Eggs is in Atari's Adventure from 1979.
Collecting a hidden item and delivering it to a specific location would trigger a secret
message: 'Created by Warren Robinett', the developer's name rendered in flashing text.
Adventure's secret is certainly well known, but it isn't the very first: Video Whizball
for the Fairchild Channel F had a similarly hidden name in 1978 - and there might even
be earlier secrets yet left to uncover.
In these early examples, spare space in the game was at a premium: with only a few bytes
free in the memory budget, sneaking in some initials was really the only viable option.
This was at a time when programmers were not credited for their work: such thankless toil
under companies like Atari would eventually spur the formation of third-party developers,
Activision being the very first.
Nowadays, space constraints are much more lax and developers get to see their names
in the game's credits - but in places where you'd expect to see names within a game's
world, level designers often insert the names of themselves or of co-workers, such as a
certain Dr. Newell in Half-Life's Office Complex chapter.
Sometimes it's more than just a developer's name or initials that are concealed: faces
are often slipped in, either hidden in plain sight or in a secret area.
Photos of developers crop up in all sorts of places - from mundane faces in a crowd,
to the slightly unconventional caveman family seen in Halo 3, bearing the face of Bungie's
Creative Art Director - Marcus Lehto.
Another notable example is hidden in the ultimate level of Doom II: with the help of noclip
cheats, it's possible to get inside the final boss - where you're greeted by the head of
John Romero impaled upon a spike.
Cinema permeates pop culture, and video games are not immune to its influence: movie tie-in
games are an obvious example, but subtler references crop up in Easter egg form quite
often.
In Fallout New Vegas, the Wild Wasteland perk adds a suave looking skeleton lodged inside
a refrigerator, harking to a certain scene from the fourth Indiana Jones film: and in
Dead Island, a hidden cabin is home to a cameo from Friday the 13th's Jason Vorhees.
Television shows are another popular reference in games, and The Simpsons is a recurring
choice: Duke Nukem 3D has as a secret Sector 7G in a later level, and Black Ops 2 references
the show in a more subtle fashion with a sprinkling of a few pink doughnuts at a nuclear facility.
For a time, references to Lost were popular too - with the mysterious island cropping
up in games like Just Cause 2, with the infamous hatch hidden inland within a forest.
Grand Theft Auto V is festooned with references to other media, but amongst them is another
hidden lost hatch, this time submerged under the sea.
Such references reflect the state of pop culture: and as Lost sinks from recent memory, so will
the number of references to it.
Beyond cinema and television, it's not uncommon to see Easter eggs pay homage to other games
- either through character cameo or the presence of a familiar prop.
For instance, it's difficult to include a crowbar in a game without someone construing
it as a Half-Life reference.
In the opening scenes of Bioshock, you're told to 'find a crowbar or something' in an
effort to arm yourself: Left 4 Dead 2's link to the Half Life series is more direct; and
S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl features an unfortunate scientist named Freeman caught
in the Zone.
Popular games tend to have nods in their direction more often - and recently Minecraft has cropped
up in multiple places: from Skyrim's 'Notched Pickaxe' found atop a mountain, to the hidden
creeper cave in one area of Borderlands 2, and a wholesale rendition for humorous effect
within The Stanley Parable.
However, some in-game tributes are less than flattering: some of the dialogue in Battlefield:
Bad Company 2 takes a couple of cheap shots at Modern Warfare 2, with snide reference
to snowmobile races and spec-ops soldiers with heartbeat sensors.
The Witcher 2 is slightly more subtle, with a robed figure found dead in a haystack - a
reference to the impossible eagle acrobatics of Altair in Assassin's Creed.
Sometimes hidden content is more in-depth than just a message or subtle reference - in
some cases Easter Eggs can comprise a substantial amount of content.
From hidden characters, such as Mortal Kombat's Reptile - to the schizophrenic scrawling in
the hidden areas of Portal - such secrets not only surprise the player but extend the
game as well.
Doom II recognises its roots with the inclusion of a secret Wolfenstein level, with Nazi opponents
seeing a reprise in place of the regular hellspawn.
Whimsyshire is Diablo III's secret level, following on from the cow level in Diablo
2 - indirectly poking some fun at those who complained that the game 'was too colourful'
in pre-release screenshots.
Hidden content can even be more than just a level - on occasion you might find an entirely
separate game contained within another.
LucasArt's Day of The Tentacle was a sequel to the earlier Maniac Mansion - and CD versions
of the game allowed you to play the full 1987 original through use of an in-game computer.
Call of Duty: Black Ops is generous enough to feature two - break your bonds in the title
screen and access the terminal to play either the classic text adventure Zork - or Dead
Ops Arcade, a top-down shooter in the vein of Smash TV.
Some Easter Eggs are just outright peculiar - and one recurring oddity seen in quite a
number of games is the Dopefish: a dim-witted green buck-toothed fish that first appeared
in Commander Keen 4.
Since then, it's made a large number of cameo appearances - from the Quake series, to Max
Payne, Warcraft 3, Portal, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and RAGE: Appearing in more games
than most characters could ever dream of, the Dopefish lives.
Another odd egg is contained within Grand Theft Auto IV's Statue of Happiness - a chained
beating heart of the city, hidden behind a sign that insists 'No Hidden Content This
Way'.
Such strangeness isn't necessarily confined to this world, either: Mass Effect has its
own space oddity in the six-limbed shifty cow who'll pilfer your credits while you're
not looking.
Surprisingly, not every Easter Egg is entirely intentional - bugs and glitches sometimes
transcend their status to become hidden aspects of a game in their own right.
Kill screens are one such example - early arcade machines were designed to offer an
ever-escalating challenge to the player, and as such don't have a well-defined end.
In some cases, this meant that attaining a certain level could break the game - and reaching
stage 256 in Pac-Man would result in a glitched playfield and a game over.
Part glitch, part secret level is Super Mario Bros' minus world - a particularly well-known
bug that whisks Mario into an unwinnable underwater stage.
Entered by pulling off a crafty jump through level geometry and into a warp pipe, the player
is left to repeat the level endlessly until running out of either lives or time.
Pokemon has a similarly famous bug - with a certain sequence of actions you could catch
a glitched pokemon that resides outside the realm of the pokedex, known only as MissingNo.
Displayed as a corrupted block of pixelated data, this glitch might exist outside the
game's intended bounds - but the secret pokemon certainly found a place both in player's hearts
- and in gaming legend.
Some hidden content is reserved for a smaller subset of players - and those playing on an
illegally sourced copy of a game are often a target for an amended experience.
There has long been a rivalry between games programmers and those who would defeat copy
protection - and in older games there are often hidden notes left for those with the
skills to find them.
Often adversarial in tone, or an appeal to the cracker's sympathy, these messages are
an interesting insight into the arms race behind copy protection.
Some secret features are triggered in cases where a pirate copy is detected -
from a simple acknowledgement of your actions: such as in Alan Wake, where you gain an eye
patch - or in other cases where your progress may come to a grinding halt.
Mirror's Edge slows you down just prior to a critical jump, in Arkham Asylum Batman's
cape will no longer permit gliding - and in Serious Sam 3, an immortal scorpion will pester
you relentlessly as a reminder of your misbegotten game.
So, we've covered a wide variety of hidden contentin games with in this video, and yet
have really only scratched the surface of the secrets such software has to offer.
It seems as though game developers have quite the sense of humour, and few are immune to
the delight to be had in concealing Easter Eggs for players to find.
There's no shortage of will to uncover such secrets, either - and players have demonstrated
a preparedness to go to incredible lengths to find Easter Eggs, even if the only clue
is rumour or hearsay.
Even to this day, some remain convinced of the presence of the mysterious Thargoids in
Frontier: Elite 2 - and more recently was the fruitless search for the mythical Megalodon
in Battlefield 4.
The collective effort of the internet is a potent force, and even the most obscure secrets
are uncovered in record time today - fuelled by a desire for e-celeb status and a thirst
for hidden knowledge.
No doubt, the joy of discovery is a powerful thing - and some of gaming's most memorable
moments lie within its secrets.
Of course, this video is not intended to be a comprehensive list of Easter Eggs - so please
let me know your own personal favourites in the comment section below.
Otherwise, Thank you very much for watching - and until next time, farewell.