Easter Eggs

An **Easter egg** is an intentional hidden feature. *The Battle of Polytopia* currently features five Easter eggs, the most notable of which are the Bunny, the "sunrise" background, and mixed tribes.

## Bunny

The Bunny is a unit spawned by tapping an unoccupied tile in the player's territory ten times. (To prevent abuse, it can only be spawned in single-player.) The Nature Bunny will destroy any building it moves onto.

During the December holiday season, the Bunny is replaced by the Bunta, which resembles Santa Claus in appearance but is otherwise identical to the Bunny.

The BunnyThe Bunta
## Luxidoor Easter Egg

On mobile, players who do not own the Luxidoor tribe may encounter it as an opponent in single-player games. This is related to the fact that Luxidoor is more expensive than other tribes. On Steam, this Easter egg is extended to any tribe that the player does not own because Luxidoor is included in the base game.

## Sunrise Background

The night sky background can be changed to a yellow-to-pink "sunrise" gradient by holding it then releasing after 20 seconds. This change can be reverted by holding the background for 20 seconds again or by relaunching the game.

This Easter egg was introduced in update 1.5.

## Mixed Tribes Easter Egg

The Mixed Tribes Easter egg allows players to merge two tribes in the tribe selection menu. Only tribes on which the player has three stars can be merged. Hence, tribes can only be merged in the Perfection and Domination game modes. To merge two tribes:

* On mobile, hold the two tribes' icons simultaneously.
* On Steam, hold down the alt key, click the first tribe's icon, then hold the second tribe's icon. (Do not release the alt key until the merge is completed.)

As two tribes merge, sparks travel between their icons.

Mixed tribes have some of the aesthetics of the tribe selected first but the gameplay of the tribe selected second. Specifically, the first tribe determines the first four characters of the name, city style, and unit style of the mixed tribe; the second tribe determines the last three characters of the name, terrain style, and technology (including starting and special technology, where applicable) of the mixed tribe.

Using mixed tribes, units that would not usually not be accessible to some special tribes can be found. (Such units can also be obtained without merging tribes by the special tribe converting a unit it cannot get, except in the case of Cymanti as they have no Mind Bender.) For example, Cymanti aesthetics with a regular tribe gameplay can end up showing Cymanti naval units.

High scores for mixed tribes are saved in the Throne Room.

This Easter egg was introduced in update 1.14.2.

## ∑∫ỹriȱŋ Language

The ∑∫ỹriȱŋ language option (in the settings menu) is an Easter egg available to players that own the ∑∫ỹriȱŋ tribe. The language was written by Zoythrus.

This Easter egg was introduced in update 1.15.1.

## Floating and Sinking City (Removed)

This Easter egg made a city visually float upwards or sink downwards if the tiles at its bottom-left and bottom-right were tapped alternatingly. Tapping on the bottom-left first caused the city to rise, while tapping on the bottom-right first caused the city to sink. This was a purely cosmetic change that would be reverted when a unit is trained in the city or the turn ends.

This Easter egg was removed in 2021, likely unintentionally.

## References

1. ↑ Zoythrus on Discord: ***Q:** Why are the Luxidoor more expensive than other normal tribes? **A:** The official answer is that because they're a proud, wealthy people who don't like being bought by poor people. But, hey, they have a chance to show up in your games as an enemy even if you don't own them.*
2. ↑ Zoythrus: *From what I'm understanding, they were never officially removed. Like, we never said "We're removing this easter egg." Pretty sure it's a bug that prevents it from happening.*