Official Web Master Blog

Is this the first Google Image Search Easter Egg? Search for [atari breakout] and you can play Atari's Breakout game. It's an arcade game introduced in April 1976. The game has an interesting story that involves Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and it influenced Steve Wozniak's design for the Apple II computer.

"In the game, a layer of bricks lines the top third of the screen. A ball travels across the screen, bouncing off the top and side walls of the screen. When a brick is hit, the ball bounces away and the brick is destroyed. The player loses a turn when the ball touches the bottom of the screen. To prevent this from happening, the player has a movable paddle to bounce the ball upward, keeping it in play."

Google uses image search results for [atari breakout] instead of bricks, so the game is self-referential.




{ via TechCrunch, thanks Florian K. }

YouTube's player added a "tape mode" button for many videos to celebrate "the 57th birthday of the first commercially available video recorder". The tape mode uses some VHS-like effects that add noise, distortion, pixel blocks, video compression artifacts. If you press the "pause" button, you'll see a shaking effect that simulates what happened when a VHS tape was paused.



To try this feature, you can add "&vhs=1" to the URL of a YouTube video, like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2XmymhCdHU&vhs=1.

{ Thanks, Sterling. }

If you search YouTube for [do the Harlem Shake], the search results page will actually illustrate your query: the Harlem Shake song will start playing, YouTube's logo will start moving and the search results will "dance" chaotically.


It's an Easter Egg based on the Harlem Shake meme. "The Harlem Shake is an Internet meme in the form of a video of various groups of people performing a comedy sketch accompanied by a short excerpt from the song 'Harlem Shake'. As a meme, the video was replicated by many people, using the same concept, and this rapidly led to it becoming viral in early February 2013, with thousands of 'Harlem Shake' videos being made and uploaded to YouTube every day at the height of its popularity."

Gizmodo says that "YouTube puts the final meta nail in the Harlem Shake's coffin," but I think the Easter Egg will make the meme even more popular.


{ Thanks, Sterling. }

You might remember the [do a barrel roll] Easter Egg which rotates Google's search results page. The query is so popular that it's the first suggestion when you type "do a" and Google Instant automatically shows the results for [do a barrel roll] and triggers the Easter Egg.

"The issue is, if you search for just [do a] in Google with Google Instant on, it will show you the search results for [do a barrel roll] and just spin the screen before you can complete your query. So if you meant to search for [do a hop skip and a jump], good luck because before you know it, the search results will take an unexpected turn," reports Search Engine Roundtable.


Actually, you can continue entering the query and the Easter Egg will disappear, but few people will do that. This is an example of Easter Egg that disrupts the user experience and makes Google Search more difficult to use.

Google could trigger the Easter Egg only if you type the entire query or if you select the first suggestion. Another option is to delay the Easter Egg animation.

The "I'm Feeling Lucky" button from Google's homepage is no longer useful when Google Instant is enabled. When you click the button, Google usually sends you to the doodle gallery, but now the button is more special.

Mouse over the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button and you'll see one of these labels: "I'm Feeling Puzzled", "I'm Feeling Artistic", "I'm Feeling Playful", "I'm Feeling Hungry", "I'm Feeling Wonderful", "I'm Feeling Stellar", "I'm Feeling Trendy", "I'm Feeling Doodly". Each button sends you to a different Google site, so you can explore Google Trends, the Google Art Project, the World Wonders Project and more.





{ Thanks, Jérôme Flipo. }

Google shows a clever Easter Egg when you're searching for [conway's game of life]. It's a low-key simulation of John Conway's model devised in 1970. "The universe of the Game of Life is an infinite two-dimensional orthogonal grid of square cells, each of which is in one of two possible states, alive or dead. Every cell interacts with its eight neighbours, which are the cells that are horizontally, vertically, or diagonally adjacent," explains Wikipedia.


It's not an actual game because it doesn't require input. There's an initial configuration and all the other configurations are obtained by applying 4 rules:

"Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if caused by under-population. Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives on to the next generation. Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overcrowding. Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell, as if by reproduction."

Conway's Game of Life is a cellular automaton and it can emulate a universal Turing machine.

You can pause Google's simulation and even hide the search results by clicking the maximize button. If you don't like the Easter Egg, click the close button and it disappears. There's also a simplified version of the Easter Egg for smartphones and tablets, but the controls are missing.


{ Thanks, Dan. }

Google has a new Easter Egg: search for [zerg rush] and you'll notice that search results will start to disappear, destroyed by zerglings. Your mission is to save the search results and kill the zerglings using your clicks, but it's not easy.

According to KnowYourMeme, "Zerg Rush is a popular online gaming term used to describe an overwhelming scale of attack carried out by one player against another in real time strategy (RTS) games. The term originates from the popular RTS game Starcraft, in which the Zerg race is notoriously known for its ability to mass-produce offensive units within a short time frame, thus allowing the player to overpower the opponent by sheer number."




When the game is over, Google lets you post your results to Google+ and shows the message "GG", a cryptic way to say "Good Game".



{ Thanks, Mati. }

Google has some new geeky Easter eggs. When you search for [binary], [octal] and [hexadecimal], Google writes the number of results using the numeral system from the query.

Make sure that "search plus your world" is disabled to see the Easter eggs. Either click the "hide personal results" button below the search box or sign out.




{ Thanks, Abhishek. }

Android.com hides a very simple game at the bottom of the page. Just click the Android logo next to the page's footer and you'll start the game: use your mouse to throw snowballs at the snowman.

The game works in Chrome and Firefox, but it doesn't seem to be optimized for mobile devices.


After hitting the snowman three times, you get a medal.


Here's a video that shows the game in action:


{ via WebSonic.nl }

If you search for [let it snow] using Google, you'll have a hard time checking the search results. Google uses a JavaScript animation that adds some snowflakes and covers the entire page with snow.


Fortunately, Google added a "defrost" button that makes the search results reappear. You can also click anywhere on the page and move your mouse to "defrost" the page or draw something. Click the "+" button and you can share the Easter egg with other Google+ users.




{ Thanks, Venkat. }

If you use Google to search for [do a barrel roll] in Chrome, Safari or Firefox, you'll notice that the search results page actually does that. It's a brilliant Easter Egg that will surprise a lot of Google users.

According to Wikipedia, "a barrel roll is an aerial maneuver in which an airplane makes a complete rotation on its longitudinal axis while following a helical path, approximately maintaining its original direction."



There are at least four other Google search Easter Eggs: ASCII art, anagram, recursion and tilt.

{ Thanks, Herin. Spotted by Jason Cross. }