easter egg
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Instagram's classic 'Polaroid' icons return for its 10th anniversary
When Instagram launched 10 years ago today, the app world was more... skeuomorphic. To celebrate those pre-flat design days, the social network has introduced an Easter egg that lets you revert back to the Polaroid icons of yore, including the original October 6, 2010 Land Camera 1000 logo.
The Pixel 4 box is hiding an AR Easter egg
If you were one of the first people to scoop up a Google Pixel 4 or Pixel 4 XL, you might want to try pointing Google Lens at the rear of the box when you receive your phone. That's because Google has hidden an augmented reality Easter egg on the packaging.
Tesla will let you customize your car's horn and movement sounds
Tesla isn't done with whimsical software updates just because Netflix and Cuphead have reached your car... in fact, there's a good chance people outside the car will notice. Elon Musk has revealed that Tesla cars will "soon" have the option to customize horn and low-speed movement sounds. The full selection of sounds isn't available, but Musk is teasing goat bleats, rushing wind and even the coconut horse clops from Monty Python and the Holy Grail -- just in case you want to roll up to the traffic lights Arthur-style.
Google search pays tribute to 'Wizard of Oz' with a dizzying Easter egg
Google isn't reserving its movie-themed Easter eggs for the latest blockbusters. The internet giant is marking the 80th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz with an Easter egg that reflects the rather turbulent ways Dorothy enters and exits Oz. Search for the movie title and you'll find a certain pair of red slippers Tap those and you'll be spun into a world of sepia search results much like Dorothy's version of Kansas. All the links still work, too. If you'd rather go back to a Technicolor landscape, a certain tornado will take you back if you don't mind a little dizziness.
There's a Thanos-themed Easter egg hiding in Google Search
Got a few seconds to spare? Open the Google homepage and search for "Thanos." Then, click the Infinity Gauntlet that appears in the supervillain's Knowledge Graph card. As 9to5Google and others have spotted, the armored glove will snap for a hot-second and then, inevitably, eradicate half the search results. It's a neat little Easter egg that's been added, no doubt, to mark the theatrical release of Avengers: Endgame. And if you grow tired of staring at a half-empty page, you can click the gauntlet once more to trigger the Time Stone and put everything back to normal. Thanos must be serious about "perfectly balanced" search algorithms.
There's a text adventure game hidden inside Google Search
We all love a good, elaborate Easter egg, and Google has gained a reputation for laying those around consistently over the years. The most recent one is an old-school text-based adventure game that you can play in the developer console of your browser.
New 3DS easter egg turns Mario beats into Breakout fun
Over in Japan, one clever customer found a mini-game hidden in the New 3DS browser. Tap out in rhythm the first six notes of the Super Mario Bros. theme and voila, Breakout! Here's a suggestion for a name when the New 3DS heads West: "URL only break my heart." [Image: Nintendo]
Dragon Age: Inquisition Easter egg is The Lord of the Pies
A Dragon Age: Inquisition Easter egg that a BioWare artist is dubbing "The Lord of the Pies" surfaced this week, and occurs when players manage to fall through the floor of the Skyhold area of the game. Shown in a video courtesy of YouTube user LeeCsM after the break, the secret, cavernous room with creepy music discovered under Skyhold houses what LeeCsM calls a "Nug with a top hat." BioWare designers jumped into YouTube's comments to confirm that the Easter egg was placed in the game intentionally, with artist Graham Kelly noting that he "hid it under the level" and that players "weren't meant to fall through it." Kelly added that the hidden figure is "not a bunny either," but rather The Lord of the Pies. "I may or may not have hidden some of his smaller flock around the rest of Skyhold," he wrote. While we didn't find any pie, we enjoyed our time with Dragon Age: Inquisition in our review. [Image: EA, LeeCsM (YouTube)]
Great, now Destiny's first Loot Cave is haunted
This is all your fault, Destiny looters. While Bungie was closing up another treasured loot cave in today's hotfix, the game's fanatical subreddit uncovered a secret message left behind by the developers in the first loot cave, which was sealed in late September. Now, when players arrive at the previously popular exploit location, they are met by a pile of bodies with an indicator that allows players to "disturb the remains." As shown in a video provided by YouTube user Jonty Alphaville after the break, players that click on the corpses will hear a spooky message that says, "A million deaths are not enough for Master Rahool." The message refers to the Cryptarch located in the game's Tower, who decodes the engrams players bring to him, including the massive amount of treasure from the now-haunted loot cave. It's okay, Rahool, there will certainly be more Fallen bodies on the way as long as places in Destiny like the Loot Stairs keep appearing. [Image: Activision, Jonty Alphaville (YouTube)]
Destiny claims biggest launch ever for new IP in UK history
Destiny sold more at launch in the UK than any other new intellectual property in gaming history, following Activision's claim it shipped $500 million worldwide last week. Bungie's shooter is the second game to break the new-IP record this year, the first being Watch Dogs in May. The most successful UK launch of any game ever still belongs to Grand Theft Auto 5, but Destiny now boasts the biggest launch of 2014. Not that any of that's surprising, frankly, and we're still waiting on hard sales figures from Activision. It's maybe more revealing to dissect Destiny's UK sales-by-platform percentages, especially since they offer a 50-50 cross-generation split between PlayStation and Xbox. While PS4 leads the way with 46 percent, Xbox One and Xbox 360 come in second and third with 36 and 14 percent respectively, and PS3 makes up the remaining 4 percent.
Google Search app Easter egg is finger-flicking fun
There's nothing better than finding a good Easter egg in an app, and that's what Buster Hein over at Cult of Mac did. If you have the Google Search app on your iOS device -- it's the app icon with the white lowercase "g" on a blue background -- then you can have all sorts of fun. Just go to the colorful Google logo and flick any of the letters, and they'll move on the screen. Tilt your device, and they'll bounce and fall as if they're "real" physical letters stuck behind the glass touchscreen. Check out the video below!
17-year-old secret message found in Dungeon Keeper code
Just prior to the July 1997 launch of EA's classic labyrinth-building simulation Dungeon Keeper, a designer slipped a secret message into the game's executable code. That message remained secret until now. "I am writing this at 4AM on Keeper's last day," reads the all-caps text. "I look around the office and all I see are the tired, pale faces of the Keeper team. This project has destroyed the health and social lives of each member, so I hope you like the game. Amazingly, after sixteen hours a day, 7 days a week, for nearly 5 months, we still do. This game has been written with a passion I am proud to be part of ... I do not just hope you like it, I also hope you are aware of the huge amount of work we have all done." The hidden text then goes on to offer greetings to numerous people before the author grows too sleepy to continue. This discovery is especially timely, as the author of that text is none other than Jonty Barnes, current director of production at Bungie and one of the driving forces behind Destiny. "It's funny, I'm feeling similar with Destiny," Barnes told Polygon following the discovery. "Both games have taken absolutely everything I have to give. Both I'm very proud to be part of. Both have changed my life." [Image: EA]
Newly discovered Halo 3 easter egg is short, subtle and sweet
One of the last known but undiscovered Halo 3 easter eggs was finally cracked open this week, nearly seven years after the shooter first hit shelves. While it's not mind-blowingly awesome in terms of spectacle, it does have plenty of d'awwww value.
Battlefield 4's Megalodon finally surfaces in Naval Strike expansion
Though dedicated fans have been scouring every inch of Battlefield 4 since its debut last October, no one has yet offered real evidence of the existence of the gigantic Megalodon within EA's shooter - until now. The footage above comes courtesy of YouTube user "jackfrags" who lays out simple instructions on how to spawn the giant beast within your own Battlefield 4 match. First, you must be playing on the Nansha Strike map which was included with the recent Naval Strike DLC pack. Second, you must find nine other willing players to swim with you out to a specific buoy near the main island. Third, you must all be comfortable with having a giant, supposedly extinct sea creature crush you with its massive bulk. If that sounds like too much work, just watch that clip again. You won't get the thrill of virtually being there, but it's the only way to really appreciate the inexplicable yet undeniably impressive explosion that accompanies the Megalodon crashing back into the sea. [Image: EA]
Doctor Who and gaming have been companions for nearly 30 years
BBC science-fiction show Doctor Who turned 50 this weekend, much to the delight of fans across the globe. Some of these fans, it turns out, have also been designing the video games we play for nearly 30 years. Did You Know Gaming has released a video on YouTube collecting tons of Doctor Who references and Easter Eggs from 1984's Robot Odyssey to 2012's Borderlands 2. You can watch it above. There are plenty more references to be found throughout other video games, as the comments are happy to point out. So enjoy this trip through the wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey history of Doctor Who and video games, and see if you notice any others.
Google commemorates Atari's Breakout in interactive fashion
Atari's Breakout turned 37 last month, and that apparently (but not unsurprisingly) is enough of an excuse for yet another Google easter egg. If you type 'Atari Breakout' into Google Images' search, instead of finding graphics of the classic game, the screen will transform into a playable Breakout clone made up from those images. Clever, no? So, if by the end of today you're wondering where all the Joystiq posts have gone, be sure to blame/thank Google.
Mac 101: Easter eggs
For decades, programmers have hidden secret features and surprises inside the software they write. Such tidbits are known as Easter eggs, after the annual holiday hunt. (Note that undiscovered hard-boiled eggs may eventually create less pleasant surprises if left to mature in warm places.) As you're enjoying the Easter holiday, we've got a few links for Apple's Easter eggs. For OS X Easter eggs, the Easter Egg Archive has a fairly comprehensive list that includes some classics; the BSOD Windows icon and the "here's to the crazy ones" copy on TextEdit's icon are particular favorites. The classic Mac OS was populated with plenty of Easter eggs -- even inside the hardware itself -- but did you know that there was even an Easter egg in Inside Macintosh, the developer documentation for the Mac? Folklore.org has the story. As OS X is built atop the BSD flavor of UNIX, it carried forward some truly ancient Easter eggs from the older operating system. The command-line calendar program's data files include some mythological/fictional anniversaries, including a disputed birthday list from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Apple's newest (and most portable) OS is no stranger to the Easter egg tradition, but the new hidden items have a speakable twist. Siri's subtle movie reviews and silly answers to simple questions have taken over for some of the spontaneous/secret items you might find on the Mac.
Hitman Absolution easter egg delivers ice cream at high speeds
This video shows off an easter egg in Hitman: Absolution, in which the ice cream truck Agent 47 drives at the beginning of the game comes back with a vengeance.Courtesy of GameFront, the embedded video explains the steps it takes to find the easter egg, which occurs in the game's "End of the Road" mission. Obviously, that means the video also contains some plot spoilers, so viewer discretion is advised.
Captain Scarlett hails Mr. Bubbles in Borderlands 2 'Pirate Booty' DLC
There's an interesting easter egg in the new Borderlands 2 DLC, Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty. The iconic Big Daddy (AKA Mr. Bubbles) from the BioShock series makes an appearance at some point in the add-on adventure and – well, we don't want to ruin it for you. In the interest of spoilers, we've embedded the video showing off the Pandora version of everyone's favorite child social worker past the break.
Check out this Minecraft easter egg in Borderlands 2
This video shows you how to reach a hidden Minecraft-inspired area in Borderlands 2, which includes Creepers and familiar blocks just begging to be broken. Be warned: the video includes minor spoilers for the game (and a lot of awesome).
