Konami Code

How to unlock the Konami Code achievement in Cheevos. Enter Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A on the site to find the secret. Worth 50 XP.

The story

Partner. You entered the code. Of course you did.

In 1986, a developer at Konami named Kazuhisa Hashimoto was testing a game called Gradius. It was too hard. So he wrote a cheat that gave him every power-up at once, using a sequence he could remember: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A.

He forgot to remove it. The game shipped with the cheat inside. Then Contra used it. Then it spread to hundreds of other games, and then off the screen entirely, into websites, apps, and the muscle memory of an entire generation.

Cache loves this story more than almost any other. A thing that was supposed to be temporary. A mistake left in by accident. It survived because people passed it to each other, hand to hand, for forty years.

The turn: the code does not really do anything most of the time. It is a handshake. A way for a website to say to you, quietly, I know you know. Cheevos says it too. You said it back.

The catalog entry

THE KONAMI CODE Acquired: Entered Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A on the Cheevos site. Condition: Activated. The old code still works. Rarity: SECRET. Legendary. Cache's Notes: The Konami Code is one of the oldest secrets on the internet. 1986. Contra. Then everywhere else. Cache has a folder in the Stash labeled CODES AND SECRETS. The Konami Code is the first item in it. It has always been the first item. You found it. You are in the folder now. In the permanent record. This was the right move.

Spoiler: how to unlock it

Do it right here on the Cheevos site.

  1. Open any page on cheevosgame.com.
  2. Using your keyboard, press the arrow keys in this order: Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right.
  3. Then press the B key, then the A key.

If you entered it correctly, something happens. We are not going to tell you what. That would ruin it.

This is a classic web easter egg: a hidden feature triggered by a specific key sequence, listening quietly in the background for a pattern that almost nobody enters by accident. Sites have hidden all kinds of things behind it.

Where it fits in the Stash

The CODES AND SECRETS folder is Cache's favorite shelf, and the Konami Code has held the top spot since the beginning. You are on the shelf now. Permanently. If you want to know why a raccoon keeps a shelf like this, read the story.