Do you like finding Easter eggs in games, books, and movies? I wrote about this topic a few years ago (original post here), and someone recently asked me about it. That post focused on the appearance of my cats, Biddy and Walter, in many of our games, and I thought it would be fun to showcase all the different ways the St. Louis Arch has also appeared (whenever it has made sense and I remembered to request it of the artist).
Why the Arch? Stonemaier Games was founded and is based in St. Louis, and the Arch is probably the most well-known building/monument here.
I’ll share the Easter eggs in chronological order by release date, including Viticulture, Euphoria, Between Two Cities, Scythe, Charterstone, Tapestry, and Rolling Realms.
As far as I can recall, the Arch does not appear in Libertalia, Red Rising, Wingspan, Between Two Castles, Pendulum, My Little Scythe, or Smitten. If I’m missing one, please let me know!
What are some fun Easter eggs you’ve found in Stonemaier games or any publisher’s games?
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17 Comments on “Can You Find the St. Louis Arch in Each of Our Games?”
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Just got viticulture and was staring at the logo, thinking it looked a lot like the St Louis arch, glad to find this article to confirm it and find all these other references. Only lived in St Louis for a few years (worked at Barnes), but it was still an important part of my life.
Your post shows the arch on the mini golf board in Rolling Realms, and then in the paragraph immediately after you say the arch does not appear in Rolling Realms. :)
Good point!
Beyond just the arch, I noticed the “314” area code in viticulture Tuscany expansion…
Good eye, Kurt. :)
Hi Jamey,
Regarding your recent Demographic survey, I was unable to select Tapestry Expansion for the question; Which of our other products do you most want to buy? Not sure if this is a common error or just me, using my android device. Not a big issue but it might flag up when collating the data.
Thanks,
Tom.
Thanks! I’ll take a look.
Very cool! Kinda like a certain bunny in a certain periodical. I’ll have to bring this up in our next game night when we play one of your games.
My design partner, Ed, and I like to include subtle nods to our core group of Alpha testers in our games. In his first game, Scoville, Ed included several recipes named after the members of the group. In Embarcadero, we included business names in the Unsinkable expansion with references to our Alpha team as well.
Nice! I’m happy to hear when other designers/publishers (and artists) include Easter eggs. :)
Oh, and I forgot to mention: the St Louis Arch is on the Scythe Modular Board as well.
Nice! I’ll add that to the post.
I absolutely love easter eggs! Back when I was still a software developer, I loved to put easter eggs in my software as well.
I really like the Arch and Cats easter eggs in the Stonemaier Games, but my favourite collection of easter eggs is probably those on the Scythe Modular Board.
As for non-Stonemaier games: one of the hardest to spot easter eggs I know, is the hidden Sasquatch on the Cascadia box. It’s really tough to find and I spent months looking for it, but once you know where it is, it can’t be unseen. :)
That’s awesome about Cascadia! I’m really curious where Sasquatch is–I can’t find it. :)
This blog doesn’t support spoiler tags, so for anybody that doesn’t want to know: don’t read on. :)
It’s on the outside of the inner box (so, not the lid but the box itself). On the top side of the box, there’s forest in the middle and water below. Right in the horizontal middle of that box side, a brown creature is coming out of the forest, to the beach. It’s extremely tiny, but it’s there, and it’s intentional.
Thank you! Brilliant!
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