When it comes to hiding Easter Eggs, Google’s first and most iconic online service, its Search Engine, is one of the greatest masters in the internet. Who has not yet known that typing “do a barrel roll” will make the engine display rotate a la the named maneuver from Nintendo’s “Star Fox” videogame franchise, or that “Zerg rush” will show rabid letter “O’s” eating everything on display? Recently Google as a company celebrated its 20th anniversary, and they did it by introducing some new Easter Eggs on their online platforms and services. One more quirky discovery will be discussed here.
The Verge has it that inquisitive users of Google’s internet browser Chrome have discovered an Easter egg that is a throwback to very early computer role-playing games: the text adventure. These “games” usually involve the player exploring a given location described in game text, given options on which direction to move (to enter and exit rooms), interact with objects in the environment, or do particular actions, all described in narration. Google actually created an easy-to-follow text adventure and hid the feature in Chrome’s “Console” tab, though it will also work on Mozilla Firefox and (not so well) on Microsoft Edge.
To find the adventure Easter egg, users need to go to Google.com and search for “text adventure”. Once the search results are up, they must right-click on the page display and select “Inspect” to open the web-dev section. From there, they can click the “Console” tab to be greeted by the question “Would you like to play a game? (yes/no)”
Typing “yes” in reply on the Console prompt will start the text adventure, where the player assumes the role of “G”, the first letter of the Google name. His quest will see him making his way around an ASCII map representation of the Google campus in search of his friends “o”, “o”, “g”, “l” and “e”. Movement from one part of the text setting is facilitated by typing “north/south/east/west” when prompted, and players can opt to pick up objects in their surroundings and use them, all while following the whimsical text narration, like an interactive “Choose Your Own Adventure” book.
Personally, we have tried the text adventure Easter egg and found it to be some lighthearted fun. It probably will end as soon as G, played by the player, finds his fellow letters to spell out “Google” once more, but it could take quite a while as you might end up walking around in circles. But it will be a fun diversion and perhaps worthy of the throwbacks Google has been showing everyone during its anniversary celebrations. Just try it.
Images: Indian Express and Eurogamer
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