10 Video Game Secrets That Took a Long Time to Uncover

Hidden Message – Gumball (1983)

Many wouldn’t think much – or at all – about Gumball, an obscure game that was released in 1983 for the Apple 2 and PCs. But it contained a secret that wouldn’t be discovered until 2016 and required extensive cracking against its copyright protection. 4a.m., who had cracked about 683 Apple 2 games by that point, and qkumba discovered that hitting Ctrl + z during the game’s cutscenes would unveil a cipher. If the same thing was done during the game’s ending, then the word “Double Helix” appeared. If the word “DNA” was entered, then a special message from creator Robert A. Cook was revealed, congratulating one’s efforts. Even better is that Cook himself would reply to the discovery, tweeting that, “I assumed it would take a thousand, but you solved it in a mere 33 years.”