A text adventure has been hiding within the code of Google Chrome. The narrative game was discovered last month, and doesn’t seem to appear on any previously-existing lists of easter eggs hidden within the web browser.
If you want to play, you’ll need to head to Google.com (make sure you’re not using a localised version of the browser, such as .co.uk). Once there, search for ‘text adventure’, and then open up the console commands (Ctrl+Shift+J on PC). After you’ve done that, the console should read “Would you like to play a game? (yes/no).”
If you can get past the slightly creepy opening to the adventure (which sounds like you’re being addressed by the antagonist from the Saw film series), hit ‘yes’. You’ll be met with a series of instructions and commands before the story begins. It seems that you play as the blue ‘G’ that appears at the start of Google’s logo. Your goal is to find and locate your friends – the rest of the logo’s letters – who have mysteriously disappeared.
It seems that the adventure – which one commenter in the initial Reddit thread seems to think is set in an around Google’s offices in Mountain View, California – is relatively involved. Most commenters have posted completion times around the 30-minute mark or above, and there are comments about digging through code and searching through a cafeteria.
Quite how long the text adventure has remained hidden without being discovered by a wider community is, as yet, a mystery, although it does feature the updated version of the logo, which appeared in 2015. Head here if you want to check out the adventure for yourself (make sure to follow the instructions in that earlier paragraph). If you find yourself stuck, head to that Reddit thread for some hints from those who have already completed the adventure.