As I have previously announced I will be taking a look at the history of video game easter eggs and cheat codes. I first came up with the idea for this topic when we were presented with a task to write a blog post about a topic of our choice within the video game history. I started off researching through several books and creating a mind map to list potential topics. Here is what I got down to:
- The Golden Age of Arcade Video Games
- The Rise and Fall of Atari
- The Console War (Bit Wars)
- Violence in Video Games
- Nolan Bushnell and Chuck E. Cheese
- Easter Eggs and Cheat Codes
I then tried to come up with specific questions that I could cover for each topic and eventually made my decision. To research my chosen topic I decided to start at the most obvious place to search: The internet. Each part of my topic (Easter eggs and Cheat codes) have got a separate Wikipedia article so that was a good start, but obviously I couldn't leave it at that so I decided to dig further.
Starting with easter eggs I then had a thought about the questions I came up with earlier. My main goal of this post would be to start of explaining what easter eggs actually are and then talking about the history behind them and possibly even as far as their purpose.
Next up I did the same for cheat codes. Again I wanted to start off by giving a brief definition and then looking at the history as well as their purpose. While I was researching I came across other interesting things that I could talk about as well, such as the greatest and most useless cheats in video game history or why people use cheats.
http://vgstrategies.about.com/od/basicgamingtipstricks/a/whyusecheats.htm
First Draft
So what actually are easter eggs? Easter eggs are inside jokes or hidden messages that can be found in many different mediums, including video games. Within video games they might appear as references to other games or funny things that seem out of place of the actual game and they are usually put into the game by developers to show some form of credit to themselves.
One of the first known easter eggs can be found in the game Adventure for the Atari 2600. This easter egg was put into the game by the developer Warren Robinett and simply displayed the words "Created by Warren Robinett". The reason the developer put this easter egg into his game was because Atari didn't normally credit game designers in the video games themselves. This trend continued on throughout the years and many designers put in their names as hidden messages to credit themselves. As easter eggs developed onwards they went from being simple hidden words to actual pictures of the developers and even to hidden mini games.
So the question that comes up is 'Why do developers hide these easter eggs within their software?' As I mentioned above it all started as a way of crediting themselves, but other reasons may include a way to add a personal touch to their work or just to express their sense of humor. While easter eggs are not harmful in any way, most companies disapprove of developers putting those hidden secrets into their software, which is another reason why it sometimes can be hard to find them.
But how do you actually find easter eggs? While sometimes all you need is a well-trained eye to spot them, most easter eggs can only be accessed by doing a combination of tasks, such as pressing buttons in a certain order or typing in codewords. It is hard to find out those combinations yourself, but players sometimes stumble across them by accident and then share their findings with fellow players.
Similar to easter eggs, cheat codes are hidden within video games and can be activated by typing in codewords or pushing a combination of buttons. Cheat codes started off as ways for game developers to quickly access certain parts of the game for testing purposes and were left in the game after the release, sometimes on purpose and sometimes by accident. However throughout the years it became more common to leave cheat codes in a game because not everyone had enough time to play through hard parts within games over and over again until they finally managed to beat it. Sometimes cheat codes are even used to entertain the player or give the game replay value, for example cheat codes that change around body proportions, which is useless but entertaining to watch nonetheless.
While using cheat codes can ruin the experience of a game, they are a valuable tool and since most of the time they are hidden within the game itself players often don't even know of their existence until they have finished playing the game or get stuck and end up being frustrated enough to find ways to carry on playing the game with the help of cheats.
First Draft
So what actually are easter eggs? Easter eggs are inside jokes or hidden messages that can be found in many different mediums, including video games. Within video games they might appear as references to other games or funny things that seem out of place of the actual game and they are usually put into the game by developers to show some form of credit to themselves.
One of the first known easter eggs can be found in the game Adventure for the Atari 2600. This easter egg was put into the game by the developer Warren Robinett and simply displayed the words "Created by Warren Robinett". The reason the developer put this easter egg into his game was because Atari didn't normally credit game designers in the video games themselves. This trend continued on throughout the years and many designers put in their names as hidden messages to credit themselves. As easter eggs developed onwards they went from being simple hidden words to actual pictures of the developers and even to hidden mini games.
So the question that comes up is 'Why do developers hide these easter eggs within their software?' As I mentioned above it all started as a way of crediting themselves, but other reasons may include a way to add a personal touch to their work or just to express their sense of humor. While easter eggs are not harmful in any way, most companies disapprove of developers putting those hidden secrets into their software, which is another reason why it sometimes can be hard to find them.
But how do you actually find easter eggs? While sometimes all you need is a well-trained eye to spot them, most easter eggs can only be accessed by doing a combination of tasks, such as pressing buttons in a certain order or typing in codewords. It is hard to find out those combinations yourself, but players sometimes stumble across them by accident and then share their findings with fellow players.
Similar to easter eggs, cheat codes are hidden within video games and can be activated by typing in codewords or pushing a combination of buttons. Cheat codes started off as ways for game developers to quickly access certain parts of the game for testing purposes and were left in the game after the release, sometimes on purpose and sometimes by accident. However throughout the years it became more common to leave cheat codes in a game because not everyone had enough time to play through hard parts within games over and over again until they finally managed to beat it. Sometimes cheat codes are even used to entertain the player or give the game replay value, for example cheat codes that change around body proportions, which is useless but entertaining to watch nonetheless.
While using cheat codes can ruin the experience of a game, they are a valuable tool and since most of the time they are hidden within the game itself players often don't even know of their existence until they have finished playing the game or get stuck and end up being frustrated enough to find ways to carry on playing the game with the help of cheats.
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