🎉 Everybody Loves Easter Eggs
I believe everyone has a fond memory of themselves playing one of their favorite games and randomly coming across a message or event the developers left intentionally in the game to communicate directly to the player. Whether, it be giving hints to future games like in Batman Arkham Asylum when it hinted at a sequel to the game, to a game integrating key moments and mobs from another game like Borderlands 2 does with having an area that contains Creepers (Minecraft exploding mobs).
But imagine this. You’re exploring your favorite website or using software that’s made it way into your daily routine, and you stumble upon something added by the main group of people creating these useful applications that not many people know is there. It not only brings you a sense of thrill but also tells you the detail and hard work the developers put into making that application.
In the past few years, there have been many websites that have integrated Easter Eggs right into the main portion of their front-end. I’ve listed a few of my favorites below.
Wistia’s Team Dance-Off
This one has to be one of the best examples when it comes to how to add a personal touch to a corporate website. Wistia has made it where if you visit the Our Team page (located under About), you will have the option of either seeing a directory mode or a Drum Machine Mode. This allows you not only to record your own beat using the various employee images but also to have a feature where the employee images will dance to the beat you make.
Google Maps Pac-Man
In April of 2015, Google released an update to their Maps which allowed a user to play Pac-Man on almost any city’s roadmap. All you had to do was click the Pac-Man button that was placed at the bottom-left corner of the Google Maps screen. When you do, whatever section of the world you’re looking at will transform into the pixelated arcade classic, complete with four colorful ghosts and iconic music.
Two years later, in April of 2017, Google Maps brought it back with a slightly different touch. It introduced a later game of the Pac-Man series, Ms. Pac-Man. This version of the game opened up the same way the original Pac-Man design did. The one change was that if she went off the map, she would show up in a random other section of the map.
They don’t have either of these workings still on the maps, but you can still play the Google Search Doodle of Pac-Man.
Google Chrome: Unable To Connect
This one I think we’ve all found. Either through mistake or through trying to access an article or website and miserably failing due to internet connectivity. This Easter Egg allows you to play a dinosaur game where you dodge, duck, dip,dive, and dodge oncoming obstacles ranging from cacti to pterodactyls. Today, you can play the Chrome Dinosaur game without turning on Airplane Mode by typing chrome://dino in your web browser.
A couple of years ago, someone actually built a program to see how far you could possibly ever go in the Dinosaur game. His software was able to reach a score of over 20,000 before sadly coming to its doom. If you would like to see the process of how he designed the software and how it interacts with the game, click here.
My Personal Websites Easter Eggs
Yes, of course, I have added Easter Eggs into my own websites and designs. As I’ve said, I love the idea that users that visit my websites can get neat little surprises for spending time and diving deep into my websites to see what most people will never know is there. In fact, I have been 4 Easter Eggs laid out throughout my personal portfolio website. Click here to visit my website and see if you can find all 4!
