Adventure Cheat Codes & Secrets
Complete collection of cheat codes, passwords, unlockables, and hidden secrets for Adventure (1980).
Easter Egg: Warren Robinett’s Hidden Room
Adventure contains the first known Easter egg in video game history, hidden by programmer Warren Robinett without Atari’s knowledge. Atari had a policy of not crediting developers on game packaging or in-game, so Robinett secretly embedded his name directly into the cartridge code. The egg reads: “Created by Warren Robinett.”
This is the game’s central secret and the only major hidden content in the cartridge.
Step 1 — Find the Secret Dot
The Easter egg requires picking up a 1×1 pixel white dot hidden somewhere in the game world. It is nearly invisible against the black background and trivially easy to walk past.
- Use Game 1 for a fixed-position dot that doesn’t move between sessions
- The dot is located in the eastern section of the map, inside the catacombs region near the Black Castle — explore the southern passages of that area slowly, moving your character pixel by pixel if necessary
- When you overlap the dot, your character picks it up automatically with no visual feedback — the dot simply vanishes from the screen
Step 2 — Enter the Hidden Passage
With the dot in your possession:
- Navigate to the room east of the Black Castle’s approach corridor, in the area beyond the main catacombs passages
- Move your character toward the right-side wall of that room
- At a specific pixel-wide section of the wall, the character passes through what appears to be a solid barrier — this is a hidden one-way passage
- Continue through the dark transitional room beyond it
- You arrive in the Easter egg room displaying: “Created by Warren Robinett”
Walk back out the way you entered to return to the main game. The room has no gameplay effect.
Historical note: Atari discovered the egg after Robinett had already left the company and chose to ship rather than recall millions of cartridges. The decision to keep it established a decades-long industry tradition of developer Easter eggs.
Game Variations
There are no button-input cheat codes in Adventure — the Atari 2600 hardware predates that convention. Instead, the Game Select switch on the console cycles through three distinct variants before you press Reset to start. Choosing the right variant is the closest the game has to a difficulty cheat.
| Variation | Object Placement | Dragons | White Castle Start | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Game 1 | Fixed, same every session | Slowest | Open | Best for Easter egg hunting and learning item locations |
| Game 2 | Randomized each new game | Medium speed | Locked | Standard replayable experience |
| Game 3 | Randomized, dragons more aggressive | Fastest | Locked | Hardest variant; intended to frustrate Easter egg searches |
Atari reportedly added Game 3’s increased difficulty partly to make the Easter egg harder to reach deliberately — though Robinett had already left by the time this was considered.
Difficulty Switch Settings
The two hardware Difficulty switches on the rear of the Atari 2600 console (Left and Right, each toggling between A and B) affect gameplay in Adventure.
| Switch | Position | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Left Difficulty | B | Dragons move slower and are less aggressive toward the player |
| Left Difficulty | A | Dragons are faster and track the player more tightly |
| Right Difficulty | B | Standard behavior |
| Right Difficulty | A | Minor additional challenge; dragons may respond more quickly |
For Easter egg access: Set Left Difficulty to B before starting Game 1. Slower dragons give you much more time to navigate the catacombs and locate the dot without getting eaten mid-search.
Respawning — Effectively Unlimited Attempts
Adventure has no lives counter, no Game Over screen, and no continues system. When a dragon eats your character, you respawn immediately at the entry point of the current room. This functions as unlimited respawns with one critical caveat:
- All carried items drop at the exact tile where you died
- Dragons and the bat may interact with dropped items before you can recover them
- The dot can be lost this way — if the bat picks it up, you must track the bat down to retrieve it
There is no penalty for dying beyond losing your held item and losing time. This makes Adventure very forgiving for exploration.
Dragon Behaviors and Exploits
Adventure has three dragons, each with distinct AI patterns that can be exploited once understood.
| Dragon | Color | General Behavior |
|---|---|---|
| Yorgle | Yellow | Patrols the western areas near the White Castle; pursues the player aggressively |
| Grundle | Green | Patrols the Black Castle catacombs; can be baited into narrow corridors |
| Rhindle | Red | The fastest and most persistent tracker in the game; appears later in the quest |
Corner trap: Move a dragon into a tight corner by retreating in a specific direction, then exit the room through a passage before the dragon can turn around. The dragon must recalculate its path when you re-enter, giving a brief window to grab items.
Sword drop kill: Rather than stabbing a dragon directly (which requires precise timing while moving), carry the sword into the dragon’s room, drop it adjacent to the dragon’s patrol path, and step away. If the dragon moves across the sword tile, it dies without requiring the player to time a thrust. This is especially useful against Rhindle.
Room exit reset: Exiting and re-entering a room resets a dragon’s position to its room-entry spawn point. If a dragon has cornered you, stepping through a passage and immediately returning can reset its position to a less dangerous spot.
The Bat Exploit
The bat flies randomly through the game world and steals items — swapping whatever it carries with whatever is on the ground or held by the player. This is usually an annoyance, but experienced players turn it to their advantage.
| Situation | Exploit |
|---|---|
| Item too far to carry | Drop the item and let the bat relocate it; useful when the bat’s random path roughly aligns with your destination |
| Dragon blocking a key item | If the bat picks up a nearby item, the dragon may pursue the bat briefly instead of you, clearing your path |
| Bat carrying the chalice | Dragons are attracted to the chalice; a bat carrying it can serve as an unintentional decoy |
Critical warning: The bat can pick up the dot. If it does, the dot moves to a random location on the map. In Game 2 or Game 3, recovering a bat-relocated dot may be nearly impossible. In Game 1, watch the bat’s position carefully before dropping the dot for any reason.
Beneficial Glitches
| Glitch | Description | How to Trigger |
|---|---|---|
| Through-wall eat | A dragon positioned on one side of a thin wall can eat the player on the other side | Walk slowly parallel to a thin wall when a dragon is adjacent on the opposite face; awareness of this prevents surprise deaths |
| Item stacking | Multiple items can occupy the same tile; only the topmost item can be picked up | Drop items repeatedly in the same location; use this to “cache” items safely near a destination |
| Bat desynced swap | If the player picks up an item in the exact frame the bat attempts to steal from the same tile, the bat’s carry state can briefly desync | Rare; occurs naturally; the bat corrects itself after a room transition |
| Passage re-entry positioning | When entering certain passages, the player’s exit position on the new screen can clip slightly into wall geometry | Walk into passage entrances from extreme angles; rarely useful but can occasionally allow movement in otherwise-tight corridors |
Full Easter Egg Walkthrough (Game 1, Recommended Setup)
Console setup: Game Select to Game 1, Left Difficulty switch to B.
- Press Reset to start.
- Pick up the sword (in the starting area or nearby in Game 1) before heading east.
- Collect the black key and use it to open the Black Castle in the eastern section of the map.
- Enter the Black Castle and navigate the southern catacombs passages. Move your character slowly through this area — the dot is a single white pixel and can only be detected by the pickup trigger, not by sight.
- When the dot disappears from the screen as you walk, you are carrying it. There is no sound or animation confirmation.
- While carrying the dot, navigate to the room east of the primary catacombs corridor in the black castle region.
- Walk your character into the right-side wall of this room. At the precise hidden passage location, you will pass through.
- Move through the dark transitional room on the other side.
- You are in the Easter egg room. “Created by Warren Robinett” appears on screen.
This room, embedded in a 4KB cartridge in 1979, is one of the most historically significant secrets in all of video games — a lone developer’s defiant signature hidden inside 4 kilobytes of 6502 assembly.