Easter Eggs

In film, software, video games, and other electronic media, an Easter egg is a hidden image, message, or some other feature. A very common type of Easter egg in such media is a nod, reference, or allusion to other related, usually past, media.

Easter eggs are no stranger to the Nancy Drew games, and they have become one of the most enjoyable bonus elements in said series. Although there were references to HeR Interactive and The Vampire Diaries since the very beginning, it wasn't until 2002 with Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake that the series started including physical eggs, which were collectible items. These eggs could only be collected by doing certain tasks, and then once they were placed in the inventory, they often served a fun purpose.

Between Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake to The White Wolf of Icicle Creek, the Nancy Drew games utilized the same egg design, which appeared in every other game to every couple of games. Starting with Legend of the Crystal Skull in 2007, the series introduced multiple eggs (the average number per game was three) with unique styles in every succeeding game.

As time went on, the designs of the eggs evolved from pretty-oriented to game-oriented. In some cases, the eggs were used to solve puzzles and to find even more eggs! A couple of games even featured additional Easter eggs that could only be obtained in the bonus editions.

By 2003, the games started offering an award for finding an Easter egg. When these awards began with The Haunted Carousel, there was always the chance of obtaining an individual award for the egg up until The White Wolf of Icicle Creek. Then beginning with Legend of the Crystal Skull, an award to find at least one egg was one of the twelve offered awards. A unique case with CRY is that it contains an award for finding one egg, then a separate award for finding all three of its eggs.

Although some sites count amusing little extras in games (e.g.; the moving picture that talks after you reposition it ten times in Secret of the Old Clock) as Easter eggs, this site only lists the physical Easter eggs in the series and where to find/how to get them in each game. While the original Secrets Can Kill does not include Easter eggs, the remastered version does. However, since it is a remake of the first game and thus not truly canon, I listed it at the very bottom after all the others. If you want to watch my videos about all of the Easter eggs in the series, see the video links below.

For allusions, references, and connections between games, see Cookies.

For reoccurring objects, see Koko Kringles and/or Krolmeister.

Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake

Call 555-6266 (MANON) or 555-7658 (SOLVER) and hear Nancy congratulate you on being the first to figure out that Secret of the Scarlet Hand was her next mystery. An Easter Egg is then placed in your inventory. Using the egg as your cursor, you can find five new paths in the woods, even through the trees. They are all dead ends, but when you reach them, messages will appear in the text box.

The Haunted Carousel

Go to Ingrid's office when she is not there. When you prepare to exit, move the cursor to right above the fire extinguisher until you see the magnifying glass turn red. Your phone rings, and a man asks you what the capital of Wisconsin is. The answer is Madison. You will receive the egg as a prize in your inventory. When Elliott is not in his studio, click on the box of horse tails using the egg. Then go to the Midway Games. Go into the corner and zoom the cursor on the upper right portion of the wall until it turns red. You receive a humorous call on your cell phone from a past Nancy.

Curse of Blackmoor Manor

Click on the chattering teeth with eyes in Jane's room ten times and you'll get an egg in your inventory on the tenth time! Next time you click on the teeth, it will cluck like a chicken. Using the egg as your cursor, click on the last button on the phone in Nancy's room to hear a familiar voice singing (sounds like Shorty of The Secret of Shadow Ranch).

Danger by Design

Flush the toilet in Dieter's darkroom ten times and an egg will appear in your inventory on the tenth time! Doing this act not only gives you the Easter egg, but it leads to the fabric photos being developed without you having to do it! With this egg, you can call the two additional phone numbers Jean Michel has listed in his PDA. The numbers are 48-15-16-23-42 and 10-80-01-08-00. One is a guitar riff, and the other is Morse Code for: "Keep it down; some of us are trying to sleep!"

The White Wolf of Icicle Creek

After the fishing shack becomes inaccessible and Guadalupe leaves, go into the bathroom and Nancy sings, "Call 1-555-MYSTICO and prepare to be amazed." Do that. Ask him for "Something very special" and return to the ice fishing shack. You can fish for an egg! Once you have the egg, you can enter the Chinook, the lodge's vacant room - it contains hen and egg decorations! Then set your alarm to have a freaky dream.

Legend of the Crystal Skull

At Zeke's, look closely at the mummy in the corner. A piece of paper is sticking out of the mummy's hand. Take it. This paper contains a story similar to those in the "Time Will Tell" chapter from the Short Stories for Tired Eyes book, which leads to collecting eyes from the grandfather clock at the Bolet mansion. However, with this story, look for words that rhyme with numbers, then turn the clock hands to those times.
- The words and corresponding numbers are Midday (12), Heaven (7), Great (8), Fine (9), Score (4), and Fun (1). Put these numbers into the clock in this order and you get an egg!
Go to https://iamhotchkiss.girldetective.org/ and click on "Current Projects". Recreate the symbols in the site's picture on Renee's trunk, and when you open it, an egg is inside!
- The buttons to press, clockwise, are 3, 12, 13, 17; 1 (top button), 2, 6, 9; and 3, 4, 11, 14.
In Bruno's secret study, play skeeball by turning all the blocks into hens, then back into mouths to get an egg!

The Phantom of Venice

At the Rialto Market, make a gelato cone with the colors of the Italian flag (red, white, and green), and you get an egg with those same colors!
In the Ca' Nascosta, use the bobby pin to unlock the door next to Nancy's room, and you get an egg!

The Haunting of Castle Malloy

While playing darts at the Screaming Banshee Inn, shoot all bullseyes until you have one point left, then shoot all of your darts out of the ring except for the last one. Shoot that one in the one-point spot and you get an egg!
Turn the bottom stone on the pillar with the compartment in front of it to "Lughnasa." Turn the middle stone once and the top stone all the way around. The compartment will open, revealing a sheet with the garden leprechauns. The numbers mean clock positions - turn each to their respective positions at either 12, 3, 6, or 9, according to the sheet. The gate will open, revealing an egg inside the nest on the gate!
Look at the book in Fiona's room. The cover says "LAPIN" as a solution to the tower's rolltop desk. Enter that into the desk to get a printout of a fourth doll arrangement. Arrange the dolls according to that card to get an egg!

Ransom of the Seven Ships

Get in the golf cart and drive past Shark's Cove. After you cross the bridge and the sand is turning pink, look for a turn-off on the left into the sand. It is a path with little patches of grass everywhere. Go that way. At the end, you come to an enclosed pit of sand with an egg waiting for you!
Using the previous egg, go to the Monkey Center and click on the monkey to the right, the one with the color shapes game. When you win the game, an egg is one of the offered prizes!
While sailing, collect all the messages in the bottles in the ocean. When put together, they create a segment from "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe. The red letters spell, "Deep in the sand near the sharks, seek this," and behind "this" is a faint drawing of an egg. Go diving again at the wreck of the Caridad. Swim up and far right past the wreck, to the point where Nancy mentions sharks, then go and slightly below and to the left. Using the metal detector, uncover the pictured egg in this spot!

Warnings at Waverly Academy

Before you do the main puzzle with the raven in the locked classroom, press the raven's eye three times, its wing twice, and its tail once. The compartment opens to reveal an egg!
Type "ISBN 4755568135314" into the library catalog, and you can look at the book "Mid-Break at Waverly" on the shelf to the left while facing the door. Inside is an egg!
- The source for this ISBN number is in Resorting to Danger!
In the cellar, line up the four-star tokens in the panel with four slots on the wall in alphabetical order of the stories they represent (cat, bug, orangutan, and raven).) The slots fall back, revealing an egg!
- Once you have collected any of these Easter eggs, use it on Leela and ask to play air hockey. You get a brand new mallet!

Trail of the Twister

After you release some mice in the spring house, leave some cheese for them. When you return later, you find they have left an egg in its place!
At the farm, use the diving rod to poke different spots of the prairie dogs' previous home. Eventually, an egg pops up on the screen for you to collect!
At Ma N' Pa's, buy the mystery box for $99.90 (which consists of 9990 Pa Pennies). Inside is a globe with three metal rotating twisters and a token. Use the token to watch the jackalope exhibit. When it ends, an egg is dispensed out of the machine!

Shadow at the Water's Edge

Watch the yurei DVD at Yumi's apartment. After a few minutes pass in real time, you get a text message that contains a black and white ghostly photo with an egg shape in the center. Go to the Pachinko Parlor in Kure and print out the photo at the photo booth. After you pick up the printed photo from the output tray, an egg is dispensed!
At the Pachinko Parlor, put between 15 and 30 pachinko balls in the prize machine. The bottom right prize becomes an egg, which costs only one ball!
Record an EVP in front of the lantern on the little island at the very front of the garden. When you play it, a voice says, "If a ghostly egg is what you seek, under the broken tile, you must peek." Go into the room with the baths. Near the bath on the floor is a tile that is slightly darker than the others and cracked. Pick up that tile, and you find an egg underneath it!
At the Ryokan Hiei, after you get the computer password, open the puzzle box again, but before you use it. There is an egg in the box!

You can skip any of Rentaro's puzzles using each of these eggs!
Also, if you hold any of them while clicking on the Avatars program on Yumi's computer, you get more options! (Purple skin, purple eyes, pink hair, a black skirt with purple leggings striped with two different shades, & a white shirt with a pink tie with three white stars on it.

The Captive Curse

In the upper right corner of the puzzle box that is outside Karl's office, put all the glass tiles on top of each other. The box then opens with a metal egg inside! However, it is covered with metal. Take it to the glass shop, put it on the fire fingers on the bench, then stick it through the glass to melt the metal off.
Dial MONSTER (6667837) on the phone in Nancy's room, and you get a message saying, "To find the egg, dig near the vegetable vampires fear!" Go out into the woods and find a string of garlic. Once there, dig the dirt using the scoop from the bench in the glass shop. You unearth an egg!
In the passages, there is a panel with two keyholes. Put Karl's desk key on the left and Anja's on the right, and it opens, revealing an egg!

Alibi in Ashes

In Brenda's van, open Brenda's makeup kit several times to get an egg inside!
After you win Number Punch, play it again and start by pressing two. Then press all the prime numbers in numerical order (2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41). You get an egg as a prize!
At the police station, enter "BNNYDRV" (bunny drive) into the ticket shark. Though it does not give you a physical Easter egg, it produces a picture of a car that was stopped for suspicious cargo...Easter eggs! Perhaps it was the Easter Bunny?

Tomb of the Lost Queen

In the antiquities tent, use the pickaxe on the vase with the bunny and the egg. An egg is inside!
Before you solve the scarab puzzle, put the four scarabs in the corners of the scarab puzzle, and you get an egg!
Put one of the two eggs in the hole in the mouse puzzle in the cat tomb, and you get another egg!

The Deadly Device

In Niko's office, press the pigeon button nine times before you solve its puzzle, and it lays an egg!
Enter the binary code that is on Gray's shirt (172956) into Niko's desk drawer. An egg appears inside!
After viewing the coding on Ellie's computer, come out of Nancy's room in the lounge and click on the vase to her right. An egg is inside!
In the Bonus Edition, play all the notes on the Tesla coil keyboard from left to right, then back to left after solving its puzzle. You'll find an egg!

Ghost of Thornton Hall

Use the EMF reader when standing next to the first lamp on the wall in the cellar stairway. Then click to the left of the lamp. You'll find an egg behind a brick!
Inside the crypt, open the coffin with the bird plate five times, and an egg appears in the skeleton's eye!
On Charlotte's jewelry box (before solving the puzzle), press the tiles on the left, across the bottom, and up the right. You'll find an egg inside!

In the Bonus Edition, you can place one of the eggs on the showroom scale to the right of the electricity book so that it moves and reveals a tractor phone charm!
Place all the eggs in Charlotte's little cabinet in her room, and you can read her Masquerade invitations!

The Silent Spy

Inside Nancy's hotel room, enter 4133 (Nancy's serial number in jail in Alibi in Ashes) in the safe. An egg is inside!
At the train station, open locker 44 three times. An egg is inside!
Play FDCECABEEF on the bagpipes. You get an egg!

You can use any of these eggs to get a free train ticket!

The Shattered Medallion

In the woodshed at Mossburn, open the stove door seven times to find an egg inside!
In the Puzzle Palace, play Monster and/or Raid five times, and you are rewarded with an egg!
Before you light the fire bowl in the cave, click on it using one of the eggs. You get another egg!
In the bonus edition, click on the auction house while holding one of the eggs. For 30 points, you can purchase another Easter egg!

You can use any of these eggs to add points to your team on the scoreboard!

Labyrinth of Lies

In the Tartarus part of the Underworld, click on the fruit tree near the pool seven times, and you get an egg!
Spell "Athena" (ΑΘΗΝΑ) on the door in the secret passageway to the workshop, and you find an egg!
Use the blacklight on Charon's lantern, and you find an egg!

Sea of Darkness

On the triangle puzzle box in the Captain's quarters (before solving the puzzle), press the triangles down until all three orange triangles are pressed up. The box opens with an egg inside!
Open the alarm box in the wheelhouse several times until an egg appears.
In the kitchen, fill the food trays with puffins. A chicken clucking sound is heard. Then go to the instruments and look in the cello for an egg.
In the Bonus Edition, go into the ice caves and past the first wall you broke until you come to a junction that can go either straight or left; go left. At the end of this tunnel, use the hook on the pile of blue ice to find an egg.

These eggs can be used to get a free item from the gift shop (except for the sword).

Midnight in Salem

Inside the Parry house, zoom in on the potted plant that is in the living room. An egg is inside! (Unlike all other preceding games, this egg, unfortunately, cannot be picked up and placed in your inventory.)

Mystery of the Seven Keys

Look at the back of the cafe's flier stand to the left of Patricie. Turn the flier around, and you see Sonny Joon's favorite order. Make Sonny's order (one shot of espresso, two sugars, and one steamed milk), and you get an egg.
Find Leo's cat Mariáš ten times and pet her; in order, she is found in the following locations:
- In Leo's office, after you open the bookshelf.
- By the Castle Square statue.
- By the Old Town Square truck in the corner.
- In the room that connects the museum to the jewelry store behind a pillar.
- In Marek's store up against the wall.
- On a bench in front of the food stalls by the cathedral.
- In an alcove in the tunnels. Enter from the door beside Leo's office, & Mariáš is a few steps inside.
- On the cabinet on the right side of the cafe, under the pictures from previous games.
- In front of the clock in the Old Town Square by a truck.
- Beside The Dalibor Knight exhibit.
Before inputting the correct lock combination for the alchemist's lab cabinet, set all three dials to the same symbol to get an egg.

Secrets Can Kill REMASTERED

A code on the billboard to the right of the library says, "Cool, cool, pop, spot, grape." Enter it on the soda machine; you get an egg and 80 coins.
Open Jake's puzzle box before you get stuck in the boiler room. As a consolation prize, you get an egg and 80 coins.