Post
A square fights dragons and finds the first Easter egg in video game history.
Warren Robinett's Adventure for the Atari 2600 translated the text adventure concept into a graphical action game. Your character was literally a square pixel navigating a multi-screen world, fighting duck-shaped dragons, and collecting items to unlock a castle. The game introduced room-based exploration, inventory management, and item-based puzzles to console gaming. Most famously, Robinett hid a secret room containing the text 'Created by Warren Robinett' because Atari refused to credit developers, inventing the video game Easter egg.
Example
To find the Easter egg, players had to locate an invisible single-pixel dot in a specific room, carry it through several screens, and use it to pass through a wall. Atari only discovered it after shipping thousands of units. Rather than fix it, they decided to encourage hidden surprises in future games.
Why it matters
Adventure created the action-adventure genre on consoles and proved that home systems could deliver exploration-driven experiences, not just arcade ports. The Easter egg became a gaming tradition that persists in virtually every major release, and the story inspired the central plot of Ready Player One.
Related concepts