Open Office Easter Egg: Play Space Invaders in Calc
Finding an Easter egg in movies is usually a cool thing, but finding them in software is even cooler. Today we will look at the hidden game in the Open Office Spreadsheet program Calc.
Open up a new Calc Spreadsheet and enter =GAME("StarWars") into any of the cells and hit enter. Make sure and type in the capital letters as shown to get it to work. The easiest would be to copy the text above and paste it into a cell.
This opens up the Star-Wars Galaxy game which is a Space Invaders clone.
The instructions are in German but you don't need to know a single word to be able to start playing. Just use the arrow keys to move and the Spacebar to shoot.
This is not the greatest Space Invaders clone but still fun knowing you can take a break from data entry and get your retro gaming fix.
For more about Easter eggs in other software and web services check out our Wiki Page on Easter Eggs. It is a lot of fun and if you have some you would like to share with us just leave a comment.

Daily Email Updates
You can get our how-to articles in your inbox each day for free. Just enter your name and email below:

LOL, that's awesome. I will have to try that out.
haha, pretty nice
really cooooool……..
This is fun, but…..it's more fun (ie faster) if you use your mouse to navigate and left click to fire your rockets !! ; )
Is this on office 2003 or office 2007?
@zac20
This is in Open Office calc. Calc application is similar to the Excel in MS Office. http://www.openoffice.org/
I have played the game once and i have closed it. Now, every time I try to open it again it shows me the following message : "oh no, not again!". Do I have to restart? Does this happened to you too?
Neither, it's open office a (very good) free alternative to MS Office.
http://www.openoffice.org/
@zac20: the title says: OPEN OFFICE. Remember, Open Office != Microsoft Office
It's not Microsoft office, which costs money, but open office , an open source and free software.
When people found the flight simulator in Microsoft Excel, there was whining about how it added bloat and shouldn't be in there. I'm sure no comments like this will be made about OpenOffice though.
Nope this is a bit of bloat as well.
But you shouldn't whine about MS or Oo in this case. Surely anyone can see the funny side of secret embedded games in spreadsheet programs.
The other bloated options especially in MS but also in Oo well that fine for whining.
What is the flight simullater egg in Microsoft Office Excel?
There is a flight simulator Easter Egg in Excel 97 but they lost their sense of humor and it's not in new versions
…Like they removed Clippy (the office assistance) in newer versions. OpenOffice needs it's own office assistance.
Does anyone know where to find a version of that old game that required you to raise or lower a cannon in order to fire at your opponants turret ? You would each take turns at guessing the correct angle to score a hit. I think it was on Mac in the early 80's with a few copies since.
LOL!
I tried entering it in A1 and got the text reply "say what?".
It worked when I entered it into another cell.
One of the reasons Microsoft pulled out easter eggs from their products was because it opens the application up to security vulnerabilities.
A pair of uTorrent easter eggs I'm aware of:
In About | Help, if you type the letter "t" and you are presented with a simplified version of Tetris.
Again, in About | Help, if you click on the icon, a synthesized sound plays that mimics the THQ surround sounds audio byte.
I'm unsure if this is available in the Mac version, but it's still present in the latest Windows version.
*LOL*
Thanks!!!!, Nice GAME 8D
> a
>
> …Like they removed Clippy (the office assistance) in newer versions. OpenOffice needs it's own office > assistance.
No. It really doesn't.
Mine works, it's a bit chuggy, but fun, and strangely enough it is in German!!?!? Is that the same for all of you?