Easter eggs , are they allowed?

I am making a game for the conest and in light of the rights thread, i am wondering, i am having som eeaster eggs in my game ( love making them )

Are those allowed?  i mean  do i need  permission from people to do mentions in games.  i mean i have a  here lies link kind of easter egg in the game. but i am not using images from link, just a mention to him, hyrule and the master sword.

should i cut those out ( i hope not took me some time to make) or can i leave them in  as it is ok  to do those things? 

Im sure its fine my game im entering has gore and violence.

Hundreds of games have references etc to other well known games.

I think as long as you make it obscure, so that only a true fan of the game would know, it would be ok.

Mine has several so far.  I like slipping in references to things I like.  For instance, the bad guys in the game are an Alliance, and they wear purple.  The main character is wearing a brown-ish colored coat.  If you don't have a certain item, a message asking HOW can you do X if you don't do/have Y? pops up.  Because seriously, PINK FLOYD! ;)

There is only one thing that could prevent you from using easter eggs in any game:


Names and Logos can be trademarked, and then anyone can be forbidden to use them.


That's why most easter eggs modify the name spellings a bit, and never use the real logos of the other companies for them.


Basically that means you can't have a "Sherlock Holmes" appearing in your game, it needs to be a "Herlock Sholmes" or something like that...

That name made me lol.

Though isn't sherlock in the creative commons area now?

Most probably, but I didn't want to waste time thinking up a current example...

I will give you the example of the easter egg i have

In the first town there is an elf standing in front of a grave stone named hyrulian hero, when approaced her says  What? you thought this was a "Link lies here"Easter egg? then a battle begins, and when you win it you get the master sword, its not a weapon but a rather useless item one that i am concidering to turn into  a key item for a special dungeon where you will get a secret character.

After the battle with the ghost of the hyrulian hero they can  action press the  tomb stone to get here lied erdrick  and some numbers, (like in final fantasy 1 had  both references in that game according to the japanese and american version)  on the bottom it says  "There is something written below" and after they pressed enter to see what it is it says. told you it wasn't Link.

Its kinda like a double easter egg (or a tripple if you know where erdrick is from :p )

Is that an easter egg that is ok ?

The indie developer of "Game Dev Tycoon" Added a Boat load of Easter eggs. The most obvious being the one where C. Johnson is asking you to do a product placement of his Exploding Barrels, talking about how his Marketing department says they don't have the money to pay for product placement and that gives him an Idea, PAY FOR PRODUCT PLACEMENT! He owns the company he can do whatever he wants, Chariots.

See how that is obscured? Only a fan of what I'm talking about will get this reference. That's how to do easter eggs if you want to have them. It's better than having it be in a main part of text and just coming out and saying what it is.

So mine is to obvious?

I Am just trying to make sure that i am not doing something that can get  me or others into trouble..

Quite possibly. Instead of saying "Master Sword" say "A legendary sword used by the incarnations of a great hero in a green tunic across time" or a popular one "It's dangerous to go alone, take this."

NEr moment here) the master sword is the last sword you get, the first sword you get is followed by the its dangerous thing:p

NErd moment over :)   Thats a great idea, i might change it into that :)

I may have to play this game now...  Mr. Johnson is a personal hero of mine!  Still, I don't think that was a direct thing from him-must be someone posing as him, because he only said chariots once. ;)

But yeah, as long as you're clever with it, you're golden-and it seems like you've got it figured.