SwordQuest Event 2.0

"That's amazing."

Steve nodded, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw the group of people who had just tested the results.

This one Easter egg alone is enough to fill an entire episode of their show.

Our Brother Lin is really generous when he has the goods; he's incredibly good at managing relationships.

"Besides this, are there any others?"

"Certainly."

Lin Lixin smiled, about to drop another bombshell, but suddenly swallowed back the words he was about to say.

"Hiss... Hey? How about we organize an event?"

"Activity?"

Steve's heart skipped a beat, and he immediately realized that he might be able to make a big profit today, so he followed Lin Lixin's line of thought and asked more questions.

Lin Lixin got up and went behind the counter, pulled out a few cassette tapes, and then sat back down.

Do you remember Atari's "SwordQuest" series of events?

The SwordQuest is undoubtedly Atari's most significant achievement during its golden age.

The series is based on the four Western fantasy elements of earth, fire, water, and air, and is planned to be released in four parts, with each part including a comic book produced by DC in addition to the game.

Players need to find hidden clues in the game and comics to obtain clues about the treasure.

The winner might even receive a pure gold sword.

The series was exceptionally imaginative in its operation, but unfortunately, due to the sudden and unexpected Atari Shock, only the first three installments were completed.

To be honest, it is indeed a bit of a shame.

"Mr. Lin... are you also planning to hold a treasure hunt?"

Steve's eyes lit up, and he became excited.

My goodness, this time we really struck gold!

Here comes Toutiao, doesn't it?

"Exactly, don't you think this is more interesting than me just revealing the Easter egg directly?"

Lin Lixin pulled Contra out of the floppy disk.

"The first Easter egg is hidden in the floppy disk version of Contra. The hint is: Mutation. Remember, it's only in the floppy disk version."

With a floppy disk having a capacity of 1MB, there are just too many tricks you can do with it.

He put down Contra and then took out a floppy disk containing Metal Gear.

"The second Easter egg is hidden in Metal Gear, with the hint 'wreckage.' This Easter egg can be found in both the arcade and console versions."

The last one was a floppy disk containing Wolfenstein 3D.

"As for the last one, I can tell you very clearly that I have hidden a weapon in the game—a chainsaw."

A few days later, the latest issue of Electronic Games, featuring an illustration of Lin Lixin's interview, was released as scheduled.

Unlike previous episodes, this one was practically a GAMENOVA exclusive.

The new game review section was filled with detailed gameplay reviews of Story of Seasons, which provided objective evaluations of its strengths and weaknesses in almost every aspect.

The final score jumped from 3/10 a few periods ago to 9/10, completely signaling a break with past results.

Aside from the reviews of Story of Seasons and the detailed configuration analysis of NovaBox, what truly caused a sensation in the community was the developer interview section.

No one expected that Electronic Games, which had just clashed with GAMENOVA, would conduct an exclusive interview with Lin Lixin.

Easter egg?

There are so many hidden Easter eggs!

GAMENOVA is still hidden!

To everyone's surprise, even after several months and as discussions about these games have cooled down, there is still hidden content that they had never discovered.

The message above, stating that "[the first person to discover the Easter egg can send a letter to Electronic Games, and the event team will issue a reward after review]", has sparked a new wave of gaming enthusiasm.

Ironically, the first game to be found by enthusiastic players was Metal Gear, which was considered the most difficult to locate.

The winner was Henry, the manager of a small arcade called ArcadeArea.

The photo captures him holding a Metal Gear mecha figure made of gold and other precious metals, standing next to a Metal Gear arcade machine.

Although the photo is somewhat blurry, it is still barely discernible that it appears to be a hidden small room containing only the wreckage of an armored vehicle of a different model than the Metal Gear.

According to the article, Henry apparently discovered the hidden room in level 11 by accident while demonstrating walkthrough techniques to players who were stuck.

In the photo, Henry is surrounded by equally excited players, and someone even put a crown on his head as decoration.

He seems to be a very popular guy.

Henry's discovery only fueled the players' frenzy in their search for the Easter egg.

His appearance proved that the content in that issue of the magazine was not hype, but a fact.

You can win prizes by playing games?

Such a great opportunity attracted people from all over the country.

Even people who never played games before flocked to the arcade after hearing about this, and then spent the whole morning debating whether or not to invest in a NovaBox.

However, it takes new players quite a while just to figure out the gameplay, let alone find the Easter eggs.

That afternoon, inside an arcade in New Mexico.

John stood in front of the newsstand, staring in astonishment at the contents of the magazine.

Hidden Easter eggs in Contra? Keyword mutations?

"That thing was actually an Easter egg?"

He almost immediately understood what it meant.

In the console version of Contra, when players encounter a frog-like enemy before the boss battle in level 8, they can jump over it, fire three shots into the air, and then jump into the frog's mouth while in three lives to enter a new "mutation" level.

These are 8 additional levels separate from the main story's 8 levels.

John typed it out unintentionally, but he never imagined it was a hidden Easter egg.

"Wrong!"

John abruptly slammed the magazine down, his eyes trembling.

Didn't anyone else notice this?

Really? The operation isn't that complicated.

That's a full eight levels! So no one else has played it yet?

With that thought in mind, John quickly drafted a letter and mailed it as instructed in the magazine.

A few days later, news that a second Easter egg had been discovered reignited the discussion.

But aside from that, the content of this Easter egg is actually more frightening than the reward itself.

What do you mean by saying the console version of Contra actually has 16 levels?

Does that mean we've only played half the content so far?

Okay, okay, you made it but won't let us play with it, huh?

These kinds of people are the most cunning; they just put a rubber band on it and call it ultra-thin.

Meanwhile, Lin Lixin burst out laughing upon seeing the report.

In the original timeline, the eight underwater levels of Contra can be considered a classic rumor widely circulated in China.

The origin of this urban legend is truly unverifiable; some say it's due to a bug in the FC version, while others say it's a misinterpretation from other versions.

This time, however, Lin Lixin simply made it a reality.

Anyway, the floppy disk has enough capacity, so building a few more maps won't take much time.

The monsters were simply modified from their original form, and their order was shuffled.

However, the publicity effect of this Easter egg gimmick far exceeded its cost.