Easter eggs

An Easter egg is an intentional hidden message, inside joke, or feature in a work such as a computer program, web page, video game, television program, movie, book, or crossword. Minecraft features several easter eggs hidden within the game.

April Fools 2011


The Locked chest was a naturally generated block used as the premise of Notch's 2011 April Fool's Day joke. Upon attempting to open the chest, a message would appear stating that a Steve Co. Supply Crate Key is needed, and that one could be purchased at the Minecraft store.

This concept is a reference to the Team Fortress 2 item drop system, where you can pick up an item while playing. One of the receivable items is called Mann Co. Supply Crate, which required a key purchased from the Mann Co. Store, a microtransaction system integrated into the Steam client.

Within the Minecraft store, there were many easter eggs: //Determine Entrance if(options.enterOn == 'timer') { setTimeout(init, options.delayTime); } else if(options.enterOn == 'click') { _this.bind('click', function(e) {					e.preventDefault;					if(!locked) {						init;					}				}) } else if(options.enterOn == 'konami-code'){ var kkeys = [], konami = "38,38,40,40,37,39,37,39,66,65"; $(window).bind("keydown.raptorz", function(e){			       kkeys.push( e.keyCode );			        if ( kkeys.toString.indexOf( konami ) >= 0 ) {			        	init;			        	$(window).unbind('keydown.raptorz');			        }			    }, true);
 * Clicking on the proceed to checkout button triggers a screamer in which a Velociraptor from the film Jurassic Park will growl loudly and fly across the screen. Once clicked, the Proceed button also changes its display name to 'Fiddlesticks!!!1'. (The 1 is a reference to the ! key being the same as the 1 key, and that sometimes people may forget to press shift)
 * Entering items totaling over $10,000 into the cart causes a window pop-up asking if you are prone to seizures. Entering OK makes the screen start flashing.
 * The script that causes the Velociraptor to appear has a reference to the Konami Code in it.

Halloween 2012
On October 31st, Zombies, Skeletons, and other mobs will sometimes wear Pumpkins or Jack 'o' Lanterns on their heads. They will occasionally drop these blocks if killed. This was added in version 1.4.2 for Halloween 2012.

Christmas 2012
From December 24th-26th, Chests and their larger counterpart have their textures changed to Xmas Chests. This was added in version 1.4.6 for Christmas 2012. Note that the Trapped Chest blocks aren't affected. A texture known in the game files as "skis.png", was also added in in the same folder as the Xmas Chests. Its textures were added by Dinnerbone as a red herring.

Zombie Pigman
In an unused area for the Zombie Pigman's texture, the words "THX XAPHOBIA" can be seen. This was written by Notch to give credit to the texture's original creator, XaPhobia.

Never displayed splash
Within the "texts" folder, there will be a document labeled "splashes." The document contains all the splashes you see on the title screen. One of them is "This message will never appear on the splash screen, isn't that weird?" And, true enough, it will never show up on the splash screen. If this splash is the only splash in the splashes folder then the game will get stuck in an infinite loop.

MissingNo.
If one were to delete the file splash.txt without deleting the META-INF folder, the splash text on the title screen would appear to be missingno. This is a reference to the infamous Glitch Pokémon, MissingNo.

"Minceraft"
There is a one in 10,000 chance that the title screen will display "Minceraft" instead of "Minecraft". Also, the beginning of any crash log has a chance to have the phrase "You should try our sister game, Minceraft!"

Upside-down mobs
Naming any mob "Dinnerbone" or "Grumm" using a name tag or a renamed spawn egg (first letter must be capital) will cause it to turn upside-down. This also causes Dinnerbone and Grum's avatars to be rendered upside-down.

Tower of Pimps
In the Xbox 360 Edition Tutorial World, at the Sandstone Pyramid, go to the top floor where the hidden Music Disc is. There are four blocks of gold on top of a block of Obsidian, which is the "Tower of Pimps". The "Tower of Pimps" was created by Gavin Free of Achievement Hunter in their video "Let's Play Minecraft Part 2 - On a Rail!" and has become a symbol of the group's Let's Play Minecraft series, mainly as a trophy of their competitions in their Achievement City world within the Xbox 360 Edition.

Herobrine "Bug Fix"
In the Update News, you will notice that many updates end with '- Removed Herobrine'. This is a running gag in the update news and also shows on Mojang.com.