Not only was it the first graphical adventure video game but Atari’s ‘Adventure‘ was also the first to feature an ‘Easter egg’ (a purposely hidden secret in a game) that could be discovered by players. The back story is that Atari wouldn’t give game designers public credit for their work.
The company was acquired by Warner Communications and Adventure creator Warren Robinett said, “It was a power play to keep the game designers from getting recognition and therefore more bargaining power.” So Robinett created a secret room that was really hard to find and hid his signature in it. In June 1979 he handed over his finished code with the ‘Easter Egg’ in it, and quit.
Spring/Summer Surprise!
He didn’t tell anybody and let Atari manufacture a few hundred thousand cartridges and ship them around the world. Atari released the game for the 1979 Christmas season. By the Spring/ Summer of 1980 Robinett’s surprise was sprung.
Like Hunting for Easter Eggs
The Manager of the Atari game designers at that time was Steve Wright, who thought it was sort of cool to have little hidden surprises in video games. He’s attributed with saying, “It’s kinda like waking up on Easter morning and hunting for Easter Eggs.” And so it was, that the ‘Easter Egg’ in video games got their name. Photo Credits: Atari/Critical Path
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