If you spend enough time playing a game (or leaving it paused) you may have noticed some very specific changes in the visuals or the audio. Subliminal messages and hidden secrets have been planted in games for quite some time.
Gamers stumble upon some of these hidden messages on accident by unlocking certain levels in a game, while others are only found by hacking into the actual code of the game. Some of the messages are funny or dirty, while others are left so a programmer will forever leave his mark on the game he helped make.
In Chase H.Q., beeping noises begin when the game is left on pause for ten minutes and 45 seconds. The beeping is Morse Code, spelling out the name of one of the games programmers. Leaving messages like this in games has sometimes been the only way to gain recognition for the hard work and long hours put in to create a game.
Why these hidden messages are left varies from game dev to game dev, but one common thread is for legal purposes.
The coders haven't always gotten the credit they deserve, or the compensation, so leaving a signature hidden in the code has played a huge role in settling lawsuits, as proof of who worked on the game.
In Tetrisphere for Nintendo 64, David Pridie, who passed away in 2001, left a full on rant hidden in the code. He left messages in many of the games he coded, but he unleashed his hostile feelings in the Tetrisphere message, mostly ranting how lazy and useless the producer was, and how much the game sucked.
"This guy thought I could save a name in 8.4 BITS.. like umm.. .4 BITS?? WTF is .4 BITS?? its either ON or OFF, not in between," Pridie wrote, "I just thought I would immortalize some thoughts I have at the moment into a rom which will be burned forever. This game sucks. The music is great but the game itself is not how we wanted it unfortunately."
Ouch. There's no holding back when you think no one will find your message. Using the game as a diary wasn't the safest place to confide however, since gamers found that message in only three days.