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So You Think You Can... Find the Easter Eggs?

NicoleJohnson
ACE Emeritus
ACE Emeritus

With one week to go until the So You Think You Can Alteryx? game show Community track session at Inspire, and while we're over here getting super-excited for world renowned game designer Jane McGonigal's keynote, thought it would be fun to tell you all a little story about how gamers – much like Alteryx-loving analytical superheroes - sometimes just can’t help having a little fun while they work!

 

Once upon a time on a fair afternoon in 1979, a video game designer named Warren Robinett was having a bit of a rough day. As the developer for Atari’s Adventure game, he was extremely proud of the technical work he’d done in the development of this magical quest… but Atari, being hesitant about tipping off competitors on the names of their key developers, had implemented a policy of removing the names of their game developers from their products.

AtariAdventure.jpg 

Warren Robinett was less-than-pleased at this lack of recognition for his great work… so what did he do? He hid a bit of secret code in a little gray dot in a remote corner of the game that would allow the player to pass into a secret room displaying the words “Created by Warren Robinett.” He then kept it a secret for the next year until the game was released… Atari eventually discovered the secret message, but when the developer who found the responsible code informed Atari that in order for him to fix it (a costly endeavor), they also had to agree to let him change the message to “Fixed by Brad Stewart”… well, Atari gave up the fight and decided instead to encourage the inclusion of such messages in all their future games, describing them as “Easter Eggs” for consumers to find.

Easter Egg.gif

 

MORALS OF THE STORY: Check your work before submitting the final product... Give credit where credit is due... and if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!

 

Since the release of Atari’s Adventure, there has been a long history of video game developers placing Easter Eggs in their games, and this was naturally extended to software developers as well. Those who know Alteryx also clearly know how to have fun, so it’s no surprise that Alteryx developers hid a few fun secrets of their own within the program code - there are currently three Easter Egg games in the program, all accessible from the About screen in the Alteryx Help menu:

AboutScreen.PNG

(DISCLAIMER: Please ignore the embarrassingly low scores displayed in the next few images, which are intended for visual purposes only and are in no way an indication of my actual game-playing abilities, which are actually far worse...)

 

First, we have beloved Pong (a table-tennis-esque game that was one of the earliest arcade video games developed), one of two games that will randomly appear when you double-click the Alteryx “a” icon in the About screen:Pong.PNG

 

Second, we have the classic Space Invaders (an alien-shooting arcade video game, created in Japan in 1978), which is the other game that will alternately appear when you double-click the Alteryx “a” icon in the About screen:

Space Invaders.PNG

 

 

 And third, if you hit the Ctrl key while double-clicking the Alteryx “a” icon, you’ll get the latest high-scoring addition to the Easter Egg suite – Data Breaker!

Data Breaker.PNG

 

Alteryx isn’t only just about the games, though… every once in a while, they like to kick it Old School too. (No, not that Old School…)Old School GIF.gif

 

I’m talking about switching your view back to the original tool icons used in Alteryx – click on the Colorado state flag next to the “Created in Boulder, Colorado” message, and many of the tools in your workflow will temporarily revert back to their original icons!Old School.PNG

 

So have fun playing around with these hidden features for the rest of the afternoon… and come have even more fun with us (myself, @TaraM, and @MattD) at the So You Think You Can Alteryx? game show session on Wednesday morning next week at Inspire!! Hope to see you there!

 

Cheers,

NJ


Join the Community Track Session So You Think You Can Alteryx Wednesday June 6th | Room 261AB

7 REPLIES 7
patrick_digan
17 - Castor
17 - Castor

@NicoleJohnson There's also some great artists at Alteryx! If you open the comment tool example, you'll find a hidden comment which looks good when zoomed out in notepad++:

 

Capture2.PNGCapture.PNG

 

There was also this gem in one of the Alteryx Install files:

dragon shooting a fireball?dragon shooting a fireball?

 

MarqueeCrew
20 - Arcturus
20 - Arcturus

@NicoleJohnson,

 

At Inspire16 I achieved this new high score...

 

capture.png

 

12,040

 

Cheers,

Mark

Alteryx ACE & Top Community Contributor

Chaos reigns within. Repent, reflect and restart. Order shall return.
Please Subscribe to my youTube channel.
Derangedvisions
11 - Bolide

this post just makes me love Alteryx even more (I really didn't think it was possible)

davebest28115
6 - Meteoroid

Does anyone know where we can get the gameboard workflow from "So You Think You Can Alteryx"?

NicoleJohnson
ACE Emeritus
ACE Emeritus

Hey Dave! I'll check in with @MattD on the progress of getting that loaded to the public Gallery, it has not yet been posted far as I know... stay tuned! 

Cheers,

NJ

MattD
Alteryx Alumni (Retired)

Thank you everyone for your patience as we migrated the workflows to the public gallery! The jeopardy game board workflows can be downloaded (1) here and (2) here.

 

Instructions for how to create and setup the game board are as follows:

 

Put the two downloaded workflows in their own directory:

 

1.jpg

 

Import both .yxzps in Alteryx and exit them both upon completion:

 

2.jpg

 

Go into the Setup Board folder from the directory where the workflows were imported. Take the workflow Setup Board.yxmd and move it to the Create Board Folder:

 

3.png

 

4.png

 

At this point you simply open both workflows, and run them in the order Create Board.yxmd, then Setup Board.yxmd. The file that will let you open the game board will be found in the Create Board Folder titled Jeopardy Gameboard.htm:

 

5.png

 

Get ready to have some Alteryx fun!!

 

6.PNG

Former Alteryx, Inc. Support Engineer, Community Data Architect, Data Scientist then Data Engineer
davebest28115
6 - Meteoroid

Now.... If I only knew all the answers....