Contest Winners Level Up In The Ready Player One Easter Egg Hunt
About a month ago, author Ernest Cline announced a new contest to celebrate the release of the paperback edition of his best-selling novel Ready Player One. In the spirit of the book, the contest was an easter egg hunt to find a hidden clue in his novel, which will take you on a scavenger hunt to win your very own DeLorean. So far, only 100 people have cleared the Second Gate to get to the Third.
When the contest started on June 4th, Cline’s fan base quickly devoured his novel to find the easter egg. The First Gate was a hidden URL in the book that took readers to a website where they could play an online Atari 2600 game called The Stacks. 931 people completed the First Gate. Readers had to take a picture with the game’s end screen.
The Second, and most current, Gate is a Facebook game created by game designer Richard Garriott, who was the inspiration for the character James Halliday in Ready Player One. The game is called Ultimate Collector: Garage Sale and involves players building their own DeLorean time machine without spending a (virtual) dime.
Cline has taken his book and made it into a reality. Ready Player One takes place in a dystopian future where a worldwide contest to find a hidden easter egg in one of the video games from a billionaire game designer has consumed the youth. The person who completes all the Gates will inherit the game designer’s wealth. Of course, the stakes are not has high as in Ready Player One, but the spirit of the game is in this contest.
Access to the Second Gate ends on July 31st, so you have time to find the hidden easter egg and complete the First Gate to get to the Second. The “leaderboards” for the first two gates are available to view on Ernest Cline’s blog. Ready Player One is available in store and online now!
