10 Secret Video Game Areas You Weren't Meant To Find

Contests that allow the winner to snag a cameo in a video game are nothing new, with plenty of big games getting their fans in on the action over the years.

But one of the earliest examples revolves around The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past, which is notable for the fact that the fan cameo in question was programmed in such a way that it was never intended to be discovered via normal gameplay.

This story began in the early 1990s, when Nintendo Power magazine held a competition that would give one lucky winner the chance to have their name appear in an upcoming game. That game turned out to be 1992's A Link To The Past, and the winner of the contest was an individual named Chris Houlihan.

But the thing is, nobody was able to track down Chris's name, because the game he would be appearing in wasn't actually revealed at the time. Plus - as we mentioned - the room isn't accessible through normal gameplay, and was instead meant as a crash prevention measure, making it even more elusive.

Players who did stumble across Chris's room were greeted with a message that reads "My name is Chris Houlihan. This is my top secret room. Keep it between us, okay?" along with 45 blue rupees scattered across the floor. In the decades since, other methods of reaching this place have been discovered, but curiously, any mention of Chris has been removed from all of the game's ports.