Easter eggs

An easter egg is an intentional hidden message, inside joke, or feature in a work such as a computer program, web page, video game, television program, movie, book, or crossword. Minecraft features several easter eggs hidden within the game.

Holidays

April Fools

2011

Main article: Locked chest

The Minecraft "store" in seizure mode.

The Locked Chest was a naturally generated block used as the premise of Notch's 2011 April Fool's Day joke. Upon attempting to open the chest, a message would appear stating that a Steve Co. Supply Crate Key is needed, and that one could be purchased at the Minecraft store.

This concept is a reference to the Team Fortress 2 item drop system, where you can pick up an item while playing. One of the receivable items is called Mann Co. Supply Crate, which required a key purchased from the Mann Co. Store, a microtransaction system integrated into the Steam client. The font used in the GUI is also the same as the one used in Team Fortress 2.

Within the Minecraft store, there were many easter eggs:

• Clicking on the proceed to checkout button triggers a screamer in which a Velociraptor from the film Jurassic Park will growl loudly and fly across the screen. Once clicked, the Proceed button also changes its display name to 'Fiddlesticks!!!1.
• Entering items totaling over $10,000 into the cart causes a window pop-up asking if you are prone to seizures. Clicking OK makes the screen start flashing.
  • Later, the window pop-up said: "If you are prone to seizures, click cancel.". This was done likely to avoid lawsuits because of the rapidly changing color flashes.
• The script that causes the Velociraptor to appear has a reference to the Konami Code in it:

// Determine Entrance
if(options.enterOn == 'timer') {
	setTimeout(init, options.delayTime);
} else if(options.enterOn == 'click') {
	_this.bind('click', function(e) {
        e.preventDefault();
        if(!locked) {
	        init();
        }
	})
} else if(options.enterOn == 'konami-code'){
    var kkeys = [], konami = "38,38,40,40,37,39,37,39,66,65";
    $(window).bind("keydown.raptorz", function(e){
        kkeys.push( e.keyCode );
        if ( kkeys.toString().indexOf( konami ) >= 0 ) {
        	init();
        	$(window).unbind('keydown.raptorz');
        }
    }, true);

2013

Main article: Minecraft 2.0

During 2013, Mojang released a pre-release for a fake future version to various YouTubers.

2014

One of the Villager skins. (The unimplemented generic villager)

A post was added to Mojang's blog for the joke.

“	The long-nosed villagers introduced in Minecraft beta 1.9 have become sentient. They have taken over our skin servers and content delivery networks (CDN), so unfortunately you will not be able to change your skins until we fix the problem. We are desperately trying our best to pull the plugs, but we should prepare ourselves to serve under our new villager overlords. Singularity may be upon us.	„
	— The Minecraft Team

In-game, villagers still acted the same, (with their programmed AI) but they made different sounds. Every player's skin was replaced by a villager skin, complete with the trademark nose. Not all players had the villager skin. Skins varied by player. Other villager noises were implemented in non-villager parts of the game. All noises were replaced with the sound effects of Element Animation's "T.E.A.V.S.R.P" (The Element Animation Villager Sounds Resource Pack). Mojang also added in-game villager music. The title screen music contains a parody of the Game of Thrones theme, due to the new series starting in early April and also because of its being included in the original trailer for "T.E.A.V.S.R.P" Jeb also claimed the villager got his Twitter account.

The skins were reverted to the way they were before on April 2, 2014.

This can be activated by setting your computers date to April 1st 2014.

Grum released the villager skins on reddit on April 1, 2014. There were seven variants, including a base skin.

An updated version of TEAVSRP, complete with the new music, was released by Element Animation on April 2, 2014.

Soon afterward; Element animation released "this video".

2015

Main article: 15w14a

Showing banners, obsidian boat, normal boat, and diamond heart

Showing the modified menu screen. Notice that the text reads "Play world" and "Reset world."

15w14a was released as a April Fools' joke for the version “1.10,” when the next update was supposed to be 1.9. This "Update" is called the Love and Hugs Update. There was also a QR code written in the snow that when scanned reads '1.9 The Combat Update'

2016

Main article: 1.RV-Pre1

Shows the tech items and the USB charger block

1.RV-Pre1 was released as an April Fools' joke for the update 1.RV. This "Update" is called the Trendy Update.

Halloween

On October 31, zombies, skeletons, zombie pigmen, Creepers and wither skeletons may sometimes wear pumpkins or jack o'lanterns on their heads. These mobs will drop these blocks if killed using a tool enchanted with Looting. This feature was added in version 1.4.2 for Halloween 2012, Halloween 2013, Halloween 2014 and Halloween 2015.

Also, the only splash text shown is "OOoooOOOoooo! Spooky!"

• 

  Zombies during Halloween.

• 

  A spider jockey with a pumpkin on its head.

• 

  Skeletons wearing pumpkins and jack o'lanterns.

Christmas

Main articles: Chest § Xmas chest and Mentioned features § Joke features

From December 24 – 26, chests, large chests and trapped chests have their textures changed to Xmas chests. This was added in version 1.4.6 for Christmas 2012. A texture known in the game files as "skis.png", was also added in 1.4.6 in the same folder as the Xmas chests, however these textures were added by Dinnerbone as a red herring. This was re-added for Christmas 2013, along with a new 'rain' - feature - pigs riding chickens (this is not planned to be fully implemented). This also happened again in 2014 with a new splash reading, "Merry X-Mas".

• 2014Xmas.png

  Christmas Splash

• Skis.png

  skis.png

• Xmas chest.png

  Normal chests

• Xmas large chest.png

  Large chests

Textures

Some textures have hidden things in space unused by the game.

Guardian

When you open the 1.8 .jar in the Entities Folder, both guardian textures (in an unused space) say "jeb".

• Guardian elder.png

  Elder guardian

• Guardian model.png

  Normal guardian

Armor stand

In the texture for the armor stand, in an unused area in the bottom right, the word "Searge" can be seen in a black box. This is presumably put there as a signature by Searge, the developer that implemented armor stands.

• Armor stand texture.png

  Armor stand texture

Zombie pigman

In an unused area for the zombie pigman texture, the words "THX XAPHOBIA" can be seen. This was written by Notch to give credit and thanks to the original creator of the texture, XaPhobia.

• Pigzombie.png

  Zombie pigman texture

Splashes

Main article: Special splashes

Never displayed splash

Within the "texts" folder, there will be a document labeled "splashes". The document contains all the splashes you see on the title screen. One of them is "This message will never appear on the splash screen, isn't that weird?" If this splash is the only splash in the splashes folder the game will get stuck in an infinite loop. This splash message displays normally in the console versions.

missingno

If one were to delete the file splash.txt without deleting the META-INF folder first, the splash text on the title screen would switch to missingno. This is a reference to the infamous glitch Pokémon found in the first generation of Pokémon games, MissingNo.

• 

  Old missingno

• 

  missingno as of 1.4.7.

Notch's Birthday

On June 1, Notch's Birthday, the only splash that is displayed is "Happy Birthday, Notch!"

This splash was removed as of the 1.8.5 update, since Notch no longer works for Mojang.

Holiday Splashes

Various splashes will appear all day on many holidays, like "Happy New Year!" on January 1, and "Merry X-mas!" on Christmas Day. They may change slightly every year.

Names

Easter eggs related to names of mobs or players.

Notch's death

When Notch dies in-game, he drops an additional apple along with his inventory. This, however, no longer works.

Upside-down mobs

	“	Anything with my name in Minecraft is upside down, including myself.	„
		— Dinnerbone

As of 1.6, naming any mob "Dinnerbone" or "Grumm" (first letter must be capitalized) using a name tag or a renamed spawn egg will cause it to turn upside-down. This also can be done by summoning a mob named "Dinnerbone" or "Grumm".

This also allows Dinnerbone and Grumm's avatars to be rendered upside-down, which can be toggled using the "Show cape" button from "Skin Settings". This feature is intended.

In Pocket Edition and Windows 10 Edition if the player names themselves Dinnerbone they will be upside down.

Jeb sheep

Naming a sheep "jeb_" (must have underscore) using a name tag or a renamed spawn egg will cause it to appear to constantly fade through all colors. When shaved using shears, however, the sheep will bear wool of the original color of the sheep and not the color of the wool that the sheep appears to be. For example, when a blue sheep is named jeb_ and then changes to the color red, if shaved it will still drop blue wool.

"Toast the Bunny"

When Ryan Holtz was developing rabbits, user xyZenTV asked him to make a skin that would look like his girlfriend's lost rabbit, Toast. Now, naming a rabbit with a name tag or a rabbit spawn egg called "Toast" will spawn/switch the rabbit's skin to look like Toast as a memorial.

deadmau5's ears

With the capes addition, Notch also added ears for the player deadmau5. The ears are "vanity items and are worn in addition to the player's skin", with the texture contained within deadmau5's skin.

deadmau5 cannot disable his ears, as a translucent part of the skin is automatically converted into a black color. His name tag is also programmed to render ten pixels higher to render above the ears.

The ears are set to show up based on the username, rather than the UUID of the player, meaning that if deadmau5 were to change his name, he would not keep his ears.

Console tutorial world

Template:Console

Main article: Console Edition tutorial

Tower of Pimps

In the old Console Edition TU12-TU13 Tutorial World, at the Sandstone Pyramid, go to the top floor. There are four blocks of gold on top of a block of Obsidian, which is the "Tower of Pimps". The "Tower of Pimps" was created by Gavin Free of Achievement Hunter in their video "Let's Play Minecraft Part 2 - On a Rail!" and has become a symbol of the group's Let's Play Minecraft series, mainly as a trophy of their competitions in their Achievement City world within the Xbox 360 Edition and the PC version.

Stampylonghead reference

In the Console Edition TU19/CU7/1.12 Tutorial World there is an island in the north east side of the world and it has an old version of stampylonghead's house along with his boat, the S.S. Stumpy.

Additionally, the boat is seen in the trailer for Console Edition TU19/CU7.

.minecraft

debug-profile results

Debug profile results (triggered via /debug) contain witty comments at the top, much like with crash reports.

• Shiny numbers!
• Am I not running fast enough? :(
• I'm working as hard as I can!
• Will I ever be good enough for you? :(
• Speedy. Zoooooom!
• Hello world
• 40% better than a crash report.
• Now with extra numbers
• Now with less numbers
• Now with the same numbers
• You should add flames to things, it makes them go faster!
• Do you feel the need for... optimization?
• *cracks redstone whip*
• Maybe if you treated it better then it'll have more motivation to work faster! Poor server.

Other

Minceraft

Main article: Menu screen § Minceraft

There is a 0.01% chance that the title screen will display "Minceraft" instead of "Minecraft". The beginning of crash logs can have the phrase "You should try our sister game, Minceraft!", too.

• 

  Minceraft easter egg in 1.2.3.

Enchanting symbols

The enchanting symbols shown on the enchantment selection contain random words using the standard galactic alphabet.

Disc 11

When the ogg for music disc 11 is converted to wave and run through a spectrogram, an image is created. Several theories for this image exist, but the most popular is that the image depicts the default player head and C418's autograph. There's rumors about the face shown in the spectrogram; some people say that this "face" is that of Herobrine. C is the hexadecimal of 12, so 12418 is actually C418.

• 

  A portion of disc 11 when run through a spectrogram. Some features have been distinguished. There is a Main character's Face and the number 12418.

• 

  Another image of disc 11.

• Disc11Spectrogramtintedgreen.PNG

  A green version of the portion.

The Killer Bunny

The Killer Bunny is a variant of the rabbit that is hostile to all players. This is a reference to The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It can only be spawned using commands.

"Super Secret" settings

In snapshot 13w36a for 1.7.2, Dinnerbone added a Super Secret Settings button, which could be viewed in the options screen. Clicking it would blare a random game sound with a lower pitch, and change the shader of the screen. These effects would not necessarily work on computers without a graphics card that supported OpenGL 2.1. This was removed in snapshot 15w31a for 1.9.

Crash Screens

Main article: Crash § Witty comments

When the game runs into a fatal error and crashes the crash log will also include a "message" such as "Hi. I'm Minecraft, and I'm a crashaholic.", "Somebody set us up the TNT.", or "You should try our sister game, Minceraft!". The latter references another easter egg.

Item and Block NBT Tags

If one were to use /give to give themselves an item that can mine a non-existent block ID (Any invalid block ID that is not in the game) the text will simply display "missingno". This is a reference to the infamous glitch Pokémon of the same name found in the first generation of Pokémon games.

• 

  The "missingno" data tag on an Iron Pickaxe.

Mojang Banner

A Mojang Banner can be crafted using an enchanted golden apple, a banner, and any dye (optional). It has the Mojang symbol on the front of the banner.

Scottish Steve and Swedish Alex

In Minecraft Console Edition, in the Default Skin Pack the Scottish Steve and Swedish Alex Skins are references to the locations of the companies developing the game. 4J Studios is located in Scotland and Mojang is located in Sweden.

Command blocks

Command blocks have various Easter eggs with messages being added to the previous output.

Searge

Running "Searge" as the command in the command block without a preceding "/" will now set the previous output to "#itzlipofutzli". This Easter egg is case insensitive.

Searge says

If the command /help is run via command block, it gives various messages prefixed with "Searge says: " as the previous output when activated. The following messages exist:

• "Yolo"
• "/achievement take achievement.understandCommands @p"
• "Ask for help on twitter"
• "/deop @p"
• "Scoreboard deleted, commands blocked"
• "Contact helpdesk for help"
• "/testfornoob @p"
• "/trigger warning"
• "Oh my god, it's full of stats"
• "/kill @p[name=!Searge]"
• "Have you tried turning it off and on again?"
• "Sorry, no help today".

Languages

There are three joke languages available at the language menu, Pirate Speak, Lolcat, and ɥsᴉlƃuƎ (ʞ∩). Currently, ɥsᴉlƃuƎ (ʞ∩) actually changes words from English (Australia) instead of English (UK) as it suggests. Minecraft is also translated into tlhIngan Hol, the Klingon language from Star Trek, and Quenya, the Elvish language from Lord of the Rings.

References to other franchises

Portal reference

The achievement for crafting a cake is called "The Lie" in reference to the phrase "The cake is a lie!" from the popular Valve game Portal.

Super Mario 64 reference

The Elytra's behaviour, Tommaso tweets, "is like super mario 64" in reference to the wing cap. This, however, was unlikely intentional.

2001 A Space Odyssey

Using "/help" in a command block displays one of a few joke messages. The 2001 A Space Odyssey quote "Oh my god it's full of stars" is referenced. In the witty comments, there are two other quotes, "I'm sorry, Dave." and "Quite honestly, I wouldn't worry myself about that."

The IT Crowd

Using "/help" in a command block displays one of a few joke messages. The famous IT Crowd quote "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" is one of the messages.