SimWord of the Day: Easter Egg

In interactive media, such as a computer game or DVD, an Easter egg is a piece of bonus content that is in someway “hidden,” and yet still accessible by a user. The content can be a message, a hidden level, even designer art. The Easter egg is initially found by accident by a causal user or deliberately by a determined user through entering certain key codes or going to obscure places on a map, and then made public on a chat room or forum. Easter eggs were originally the work of programmers trying to sneak content into the finished product under the radar of the publisher; they are now included deliberately as an extra “game” activity to build the user community.