Both tomb and womblike, the egg is a neat symbol of Christ’s death and resurrection. But while the life-cycle of the average video game character would make a Hindu cow’s head spin, the term “Easter egg,” is derived from the tradition of sending kids out to forage for chocolatey goodness - the experience of encountering gaming’s eggs reminding us of a tradition based in the thrill of discovery. Games, though, are virtual treasure troves for explorers, so what makes Easter eggs special? Why do they exist? And why have they become such a beloved component of game design?
Let’s start with some history. The Atari 2600’s Adventure (1979), is a proto dungeon crawler that’s generally considered to contain gaming’s first Easter egg. After performing a specific set of actions, a room can be entered which contains the words, “Created by Warren Robinett”: two screen-high columns of blocky multicoloured text which stick out like a pair of gangrenous thumbs, such dissonance being one of the criteria we use to decide whether we’re dealing with a part of the game environment, or, as in the case of Robinett’s message, something else.
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