One of Kage's item win poses features him throwing a pan into the air and it landing on his head. This is a reference to a secret win pose he had in Virtua Fighter 3tb.
According to creator Tony Grayson, possibly in a joking manner, the Anton characters are all multicoloured as a result of a nuclear war that left only Japan and their home country of the Backburner Peninsula, and are not meant to be any real-world enthicity. Grayson jokingly compared the skin colors of the Anton characters to The Groovenians, a 2002 Cartoon Network pilot that was not picked up for a series.
Throughout development of Shipwrecked 64, Squeaks D'Corgeh would make references to a non-existent character in the game named "Duncan Dolphin". This even included a fake death animation for a character named "Drake Dulfin" (likely intended to be the Spoiler:Starling counterpart of Duncan) being shot in the face by Spoiler:Brandon Lester in his Bucky Beaver costume in what appeared to be a Wild West-esque setting. This continued after the game's release, where one of the patch notes for the Hotfix 2 update stated "Removed Duncan Dolphin", likely as a reference to the "Removed Herobrine" gag seen in updates to Minecraft.
However, on April 1st, 2024, an April Fools update was released that added Duncan to the game as a New Game+ bonus. If the game's True Ending has been reached, he will appear in The Theater at Midnight and ask Bucky for help activating his "New. Radical. Mechanism!!" due to losing the trinkets needed to make it work. This will take the player to a new area called "Garten of Duncan", a recreation of the Testing Sector from Garten of Banban made using assets from The Plaza. Clearing the map will take the player to a previously unused location called "Layer 4 Elevator", where an audio tape reveals that the player can input console commands to access other unused locations as part of the update. Entering the door will take the player to another new area, known simply as "Sample Area", but only a few seconds after entering the player will be kicked out to the encounter with the Spoiler:Studiogrounds Husk at the end of the game.
Notably, in the "Layer 4 Elevator" area, Chief Wulf can be seen on top of the tallest building in the area. If the player uses console commands to reach him, he can be spoken to, revealing that Spoiler:he has relived the same days over and over again, watched Stumbler O'Hare die over and over as part of that, and believes that he will be forgotten after his death.
Race Ace is the only game in Don't Buy This to have been released as an individual cassette prior to the compilation's release, credited to Tony Rainbird, who helped create the Firebird label that Don't Buy This was published under, meaning its inclusion may have been an in-joke.
In an interview with YouTube channel "The Geek Getaway", the CFO and COO of the revived Intellivision, Nick Richards, could be seen in front of a door reading "Amico Hater Dungeon". According to a comment by the channel, Richards said his daughter put up this sign.
A running gag throughout the Ace Attorney series involves the protagonist and his assistant having a conversation about the difference between a ladder and a stepladder. First occurring in "Turnabout Samurai", the third case of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, a stepladder has appeared in at least one location in each game to date (with the exception of The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures) for the sole purpose of continuing the tradition. The conversation generally goes as follows: after examination, the protagonist and one of their partner characters engage in a debate about the usage of the words "ladder" and "stepladder", and the difference between the two. Usually, one will accuse the other of being too absorbed in the details instead of looking at the big picture to realize that they both serve roughly the same function, to which the latter's response will often vary. Additionally, similar gags in regards to other items in the series have also been used, particularly in The Great Ace Attorney games, which primarily use a variant of the debate involving the difference between a shovel and a spade instead.
Within the various re-releases of the Ace Attorney games, an achievement is added that can be unlocked for engaging in every "ladder vs. stepladder" debate within the games featured in that collection. In the case of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, a second achievement for engaging in every "shovel vs. spade" debate within the two games is also included.
The "X-Potato" weapon is a reference to one of Inugami Korone's livestreams of Blasphemous, in which she accidentally mispronounces the name Exposito while looking up boss names up after beating the game. It is unlocked by surviving 10 minutes while playing as Korone in a run. Its available Collabs (fusions between two weapons) are also references to Korone:
• Rap Dog (combined with Idol Song): Alludes to Korone's ability to rap, most prominently shown off when she and Nekomata Okayu sang "if..." by DA PUMP. • MiKorone (combined with Elite Lava Bucket): A portmanteau of Inugami Korone and Sakura Miko's names, a term for streams featuring the two collaborating together. • I'm Die, Thank You Forever (combined with Holo Bomb): References a collaboration between her and Mori Calliope played Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes, each using their non-native language (English for Korone and Japanese for Calliope). During one attempt, Korone, realizing she couldn't diffuse the bomb in time, uttered "Ah, I'm die, thank you forever" before exploding.
Claptrap's bounty item is his 2012 Character of the Year award from the Spike Video Game Awards. In the cutscene of him putting the bounty on the table for the tournament, GLaDOS says that it looks familiar. This is a reference to how Portal 2 was nominated for and won six awards at the 2011 Spike VGAs, with GLaDOS and Wheatley's voice actors, Ellen McLain and Stephen Merchant, also winning awards for Best Performance by a Human Female/Male respectively.
On the Name Entry screen, when attempting to submit an inappropriate name (i.e. profanity, sexual content), it will instead be replaced with a different, more appropriate name. Humorously, this also applies when attempting to submit the names DDR (an abbreviation for rival series Dance Dance Revolution) or 573 (The "Konami Number", Konami being the company behind DDR), as they will be replaced with "SMX" (abbreviation for StepManiaX) and 123 respectively.
Developers at Summitsphere are known to use Fixed Rilla Roo from Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled as a personal in-joke, referring to anything in an in-development game that is revised, even if it's simply an improvement and not a fix, as "FIXED (blank)". This is most likely the inspiration for Fixed Gold Evil Baby Paul (Shiny)'s name in Antonball Deluxe.
Tails Nine's stats in the game are all listed as 9/10, most likely in reference to both his name and the fact that unlike his original counterpart, he has nine tails (two organic tails, and seven mechanical tails).
In Episode 45 of "More Learning With Manga! Fate/Grand Order", Gudao (The Male Master) contemplates whether he should use a Holy Grail to increase Astolfo's Level Cap, or save it for when he gets a Limited 5-Star Version, presumably as a Saber Class. The Fifth Christmas Event "Nightingale's Christmas Carol" would introduce exactly that: a new, Limited 5-Star Saber version of Astolfo.
Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2, like the first game, contains unused calls from the announcer. Interestingly, a good chunk of these voice calls are for characters who could be clones or otherwise have a similar body shape to playable fighters, such as DoodleBob, Dark Danny Phantom, Nermal, Abrasive SpongeBob, Squilliam Fancyson, and La Tigresa. Perhaps most interestingly, Lucy Loud's ghost ancestor, Lucille Loud, is the only The Loud House character with an unused announcer line, despite the show's protagonist Lincoln having been cut from the first NASB and the show being based on a large ensemble cast of sisters. Michelangelo and Leonardo are the only cut veterans from the first game with unused announcer voice clips. None of them are from new shows, with a technical exception in the form of the name "Tak", which most likely refers to the Invader Zim character, as she would fit a clone role being an Irken invader like Zim, but could also potentially be for the titular character from the Tak series, though this is unlikely given that the game series had effectively been abandoned by Nickelodeon following the cancellation of its animated series in 2009.
Strangely, before the unused voice lines were dumped and publically uploaded to the internet, an almost entirely accurate list circulated online with Goku from Dragon Ball listed as an announcer call, likely a meme-based in-joke regardless of if it is real or fake, a name which was not included when the voice calls got datamined proper.
Atari Corporation wanted to license out the likeness of hockey player Mario Lemieux for a Lynx game that would've been titled "Super Mario Hockey" as a jab at Nintendo and their Super Mario franchise disguised as a reference to Lemieux's nickname. The game was never made, but eventually Lemieux's likeness would be licensed out to Sega for a 1991 hockey game.
In the ending of the PC version of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, the Count Olaf police mugshots are 3D squares that the camera zooms into. If you change the camera to look at the sides of these mugshots, you can see an anthropomorphic turtle holding a trophy with the caption "CONGRATULATIONS! A WINNER IS YOU!" (a reference to Pro Wrestling for NES).
Through out the Yakuza series, the character of Goro Majima speaks with a Kansai accent, a Japanese accent associated with the Kansai region where Osaka is located. This accent is also stereotyped as being associated with criminals or gangsters. There are multiple instances where Goro Majima seemingly slips back into speaking in a Kanto accent, more associated with Tokyo and without this connotation, and this is even commented on by other characters, (with one notable instance being in Yakuza 4 where his sworn brother Taiga Saejima who speaks in a more natural Kansai accent informs him his accent is slipping) suggesting he puts up the accent to make himself seem tougher or more serious.
The Garib collectibles in Glover originated as an in-joke, according to designer Rich Albon:
"The studio was doing a port for a Japanese company at around the time of Glover and they got a faxed bug report (yes, a faxed bug report!) which had one item that read, There is a problem with the Garib.' No one knew what a Garib was - there was no reference to it in the in game or in the code. So it kind of became an office meme: anything without a name became a Garib."
Offroad Thunder has some humorous unused graphics, such as a "Winners don't use drugs" parody that says "Most winners don't use drugs", a satirical tip screen that says "use the steering wheel to steer!", someone's hand grasping a rubber chicken, and an image of a monkey with the caption "Look at the Funny[sic], DISTRACTING Monkey!!"
In an interview with YouTube channel "The Geek Getaway", the CFO and COO of the revived Intellivision, Nick Richards, could be seen in front of a door reading "Amico Hater Dungeon". According to a comment by the channel, Richards said his daughter put up this sign.
Star Wars: Monopoly contains a set of two unused lyric music videos, which are both in-jokes welcoming new employees to Artech Studios.
In the ending of the PC version of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, the Count Olaf police mugshots are 3D squares that the camera zooms into. If you change the camera to look at the sides of these mugshots, you can see an anthropomorphic turtle holding a trophy with the caption "CONGRATULATIONS! A WINNER IS YOU!" (a reference to Pro Wrestling for NES).
The Utah Teapot, a 3D graphics in-joke, can be found in the data of Watch Dogs 2 as an unused vehicle.
Offroad Thunder has some humorous unused graphics, such as a "Winners don't use drugs" parody that says "Most winners don't use drugs", a satirical tip screen that says "use the steering wheel to steer!", someone's hand grasping a rubber chicken, and an image of a monkey with the caption "Look at the Funny[sic], DISTRACTING Monkey!!"