The Demo Site

A committed gamer has found a hidden Easter egg in the Atari version of Donkey Kong... 26 years after the game’s release. The gamer, Don Hodges, says he had to scan all 25,000 lines of the game’s code. Eventually, he stumbled upon this exciting little gem.



What’s that? Can’t see it? Look closer. It’s the letters “LMD” located at the bottom of the screen. These are the initials of the game’s Atari programmer Landon Dyer.

Admittedly, the Easter egg is a pretty disappointing find. And it’s insanely difficult to trigger. But the egg has been hidden for almost three decades... making it the Tutankhamun of video gaming discoveries.

For his efforts, Don Hodges received a $75 reward from Digital Press.

If you want to find the incredible capital letters for yourself, this is how you do it (courtesy of Don Hodge’s blog):

1. Play a game and get a score of 33,000 through 33,900. This score must become the new high score.

2. Kill off all of your remaining lives. However, your last life must be killed off by falling too far - by walking or jumping off a girder that is too high to land safely. If the last life is killed any other way, the egg will not appear.

3. Set the game difficulty to 4 by pressing the Option button 3 times. The icon for this difficulty is a firefox.

4. Wait a few minutes, and the demo screen where Kong jumps across the screen will appear.

5. The title screen will then appear, and Landon Dyer's initials [LMD] will be at the bottom center of the screen.

So... piece of cake, right?

Digital Press is offering more rewards for other long lost Easter eggs... if you're bored on a rainy Sunday afternoon and happen to have a degree in computer programming.