Easter eggs

An Easter egg is an intentional inside joke, hidden message, or feature in a work such as a computer program, video game, movie,book, or crossword. According to game designer Warren Robinett, the term was coined at Atari by personnel who were alerted to the presence of a secret message which had been hidden by Robinett in his already widely distributed game, Adventure.The name has been said to evoke the idea of a traditional Easter egg hunt.

This practice is similar in some respects to hidden signature motifs such as Diego Rivera's including himself in his murals, Alfred Hitchcock's legendary cameo appearances, Fritz's appearances in the works of Chris van Allsburg, and various "Hidden Mickeys" that can be found throughout the various Disney Parks.

Atari's Adventure, released in 1979, contained the first video game "Easter egg" to be discovered by its players, being the name of the game's programmer, Warren Robinett. In 2004 an earlier Easter egg was found in Video Whizball, a 1978 game for the Fairchild Channel F system, displaying programmer Bradley Reid-Selth's surname.

In computer software, Easter eggs are secret responses that occur in response to an undocumented set of commands. The results can vary from a simple printed message or image, to a page of programmer credits or a small videogame hidden inside an otherwise serious piece of software. Videogame cheat codes are a specific type of Easter egg, in which entering a secret command will unlock special powers or new levels for the player.

An Easter egg is found on all Microsoft Windows operating systems before XP. In the 3D Text screen saver, entering the text "volcano" will display the names of all the volcanoes in the United States. Microsoft removed this Easter egg in XP but added others.

In the Pinball game in Microsoft Windows, typing in "hidden test" (with the space) and pressing Enter will allow the user to drag the pinball around with the mouse.

Microsoft Excel 95 contained a hidden Doom-like action game called The Hall of Tortured Souls.

Some computer and video game secret levels are triggered by an Easter egg. In 1993's acclaimed LucasArts video game Day of the Tentacle, the original game Maniac Mansion from 1987 can be played in its full version by using a home computer in one character's room.

For a time, Google Maps contained several Easter eggs whereby a user asking for directions from Japan to China, from New York to Tokyo, or from Taiwan to China would be directed to either jetski, kayak, or swim across the Pacific Ocean. Asking Google Maps for walking directions from the Shire to Mordor produces "One does not simply walk into Mordor", a warning that replicates a line from The Lord of the Rings.Google search responds to "Do A Barrel Roll" in the search box by tilting the page 360°, as if a pilot were maneuvering an aircraft. This is a reference to the popular video game series Star Fox, where the phrase became famous. In December 2011, Google also introduced an Easter egg that was triggered by typing "let it snow" into the search box, which caused snow to fall and the screen to frost over.

In 2012, an update to the Mac App Store for OS X Mountain Lion introduced an Easter egg in which apps, during the download process, were timestamped "January 24, 1984," the date the original Macintosh went on sale. Upon completion of the download, the app was given the correct date. This is the first Easter egg to appear in Apple software since Steve Jobs banned them when he returned to lead Apple.

Shrek

The first thing that I noticed about the Shrek menu is that there is so much going on,everything is doing something giving the DVD menu have a life of its own. As soon as the menu appears things are happening, in the background all of the  characters are moving around, some of them are are only moving slightly, looking around and and moving there limbs however others such as donkey are jumping up and down, speaking and interacting with you which was very advanced for the time (2001).

 Each of the buttons between different menu screens  has a character or characters steppping forward saying something and then walk or run off the screen to the menu that you have chosen, for example when you click on play the three little pigs jump forward say “play the movie” and then run off screen and then into Shrek’s outside toilet.  The reason the creators of this menu have made it so interactive and is so that that it will appeal to its younger demographic (5-10 year old). Targeting there core demographic is a very clever idea and it makes the menu so much more interesting having everybody moving instead of it simply static.

The DVD  is full with a lot of different features and there is so much to do that the creators obviously spent a lot of time designing and developing it. Even though this was one of the earliest DVD's there is a lot more features on this than there is in a lot of new DVD’s, some of the stuff on the special features is the kind of things that you are getting on Blu-ray now. This was probably considered as a good selling ploy for DVD's and helped the transition from VHS. Other features the DVD has are Xbox playing hints, DVD – ROM that once downloaded on your computer you can open a “Re – Voice” studio and storyboards.

over all it is clear the creators went all out and  to create the most exciting DVD menu they could, it obviously paid off because it eventually became the biggest selling DVD of all time with over 5.5 million sales. Personally like the Shrek DVD Menu design and wish more films put this much effort into there DVD's now because I think it is a great way of selling the product.