curious sweetness

and hidden delights

I thought I was being cleaver.

I thought I was being a jerk.

I thought that I, Jimmy Dalling, fourteen year old boy was somehow smarter than the folks who developed the Super Mario Bros game that we were playing.

I had jumped up on top of the brick ceiling.

Go back! You’ll cause a glitch. You’ll brake the game.

I didn’t go back.

I didn’t break the game.

I moved forward and discovered that the game developers had hidden a secret passage - a short cut right there in the game.

If they did this once, did the do it again? In other words, Is this a feature or a bug?

I had to know.

I scoured every inch of every screen of that game. I found every funny wall, pipe and underwater coin cache. The developers created a world that invited me to explore every pixel.

The developers hid ‘easter eggs’ in their game.

I couldn’t get enough.

Easter eggs are so compelling. They create insiders and outsiders. They reward curiosity and delight with frivolity.

Do you ever hide ‘easter eggs’ in your work?

Do you have the …