Easter eggs to stimulate your gamebuds

So Easter is upon us once again and as usual all I can think about is kicking back with a copious amount of eggs. That’s what Easter is all about after all – sloth, gluttony, greed; all the best bits from those Seven Deadly Sins I hear so much about. Of course, some people will have you believe Easter is a religious holiday and that we should be focusing our minds on matters of the soul and thereby attempting to procure inner peace and attain salvation through God.

Oh, such innocence!

Let me tell you what Easter means to me. Living a dairy-free lifestyle doesn’t leave much room for chocolate-related indulgences, so I go out of my way to find other methods of indulging myself. I focus my mind on videogame Easter eggs instead, those little gems, usually messages or features, hidden by developers in their games for players to “stumble upon” (read: work ego-fuelled day and night to locate after hearing some chump* gloat about finding one).

But why do I find these eggs so appealing? After all, many of them have no functional purpose at all, with their inclusion often being to merely convey a simple message from the developer to the player. Take the egg seen in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, for example, whereby the player is treated to the heartening words “There are no Easter eggs up here. Go away” displayed on a sign if they somehow manage to ascend a particularly high bridge. But perhaps it is exactly these small messages that make Easter eggs so alluring, as they remind us of the contingent relationship we hold with the developer.

To demonstrate this point, I will describe one of my favourite Easter eggs of all time, the Dancing Golem egg featured in Capcom’s survival horror title, Haunting Ground. By quickly throwing at the player an elephantine man who possesses the mental age of a three-year-old child, Capcom ensures that he or she remains in a constant state of unease. This character, who goes by the name of Debilitas, chases your player character, Fiona, whenever he catches sight of her. This triggers what must be the most panic-inducing music known to games.

To put it candidly, this is one mother of a survival horror game! A great place, therefore, to present an effective counterpoint in the form of a light-humoured Easter egg. Capcom did just this by allowing players to insert a keyplate which they had typed “SALTATIO” onto inside a hulking and rather austere-looking stationary golem, resulting in the subsequent busting of moves by said golem. My mood lightened after witnessing this spectacle – despite the fact my eyes felt mildly assaulted – due to its brief interruption of the game’s intensely foreboding atmosphere. It worked to remind me that it was only due to the efforts of Capcom that I was able to enjoy such an intense experience, an experience they could put an end to at any point.

Ok, so this is not a particularly spectacular Easter egg, and some people would even say it’s not at all entertaining, but for me such features momentarily break the illusion of a game and allow the developer to give a nod in the direction of the player. This is why these are the kinds of eggs I want to see this Easter. They are novel, unexpected, enjoyable and most importantly, kinder to the old waistline.

Happy Easter!

*I use the word chump to refer to someone who is more adept at playing videogames than I am. It pops up in my work quite frequently.