Ho ho ho ho, it’s References & Easter Eggs time again! What could possibly be hidden inside such a silly throwaway? Rather a lot indeed, it transpires!
This one’s a big one, so I’ve split it into three sections:
- Landing page — Anything experienced up until and including clicking the “There” button
- Main page — The page shown after clicking “There”, with the gallery and all
- All the time — Anything that applies to either of the website’s pages
This article doesn’t go into the image gallery itself, only the rest of the website. For that, see Behind the Wizards.
Landing page
wizard.zip
When the page is loaded, a file going by the name wizard.zip is downloaded (some browsers may prompt to download instead, but big boy Chrome does it automatically, which is the important thing).
Inside the ZIP is wizard.jpg, with a modification date that is intended to be 19 January 2038 03:14:07 UTC. This isn’t just an attempt at future-proofing — that is the final second representable in 32-bit Unix time, AKA the Y2K38 problem.
This automatic download is achieved by loading the ZIP file inside an iframe. Sometimes the simplest solutions are best.
I wouldn’t blame you for not opening the ZIP, as any files downloaded automatically by websites should be treated with levels of suspicion off the charts, so you can access the file within directly.
Yep, it’s as close to the original photograph as I could find. Judging from the metadata, which I’ve left intact, it was taken on a Leaf Aptus 75 camera in 2014, a camera which released in 2005. This can’t be completely untouched, as it’s been run through Adobe Photoshop CC 2018. I first sourced a wizard photo in 2017, albeit at 680 pixels tall (was the best I could find at the time) rather than 3114 pixels.
Ho ho ho ho!
Clicking anywhere or pressing a key on the landing page causes the wizard to repeatedly go “ho ho ho ho, Merry Christmas!” In the original 2017 release of Just Wizards, this played automatically, but Google Chrome started requiring user interaction to play sound on pages the following year and I expect all other browsers followed.
This came about because I wanted the wizard to say something, but it was unclear what. He has a big white beard, and Father Christmas has a big white beard, so this seemed somewhat fitting.
Claire without an ‘I’
You may be wondering who “Clare without an ‘I'” is and what exactly this means.
Clare is one of the friends I made at the time, as mentioned in Reviving JustWizards.com. She had a twisted sense of humour, so good times were spent laughing at the mentally disabled, videos of cats having seizures or falling/jumping off high areas and going thud when landing, and of course the wizard.
That list is ordered from items I had the least to do with to most. There was something contagious about her trying to hold herself together when a special needs bloke was making nonsensical vocalisations. I wouldn’t want to be associated with that behaviour either then or now, but she just couldn’t help it.
It writing “Claire without an ‘I'” is just taking the piss about the spelling of her name. I’m more familiar with the “Claire” spelling — it seems “Clare” is a more traditional form of sorts.
Spinning wizard
The third spin the wizard does after the page loads is significantly faster than the rest, and the one after is slightly faster than the rest. Here’s the full animation it does:
0% { transform: rotate(0deg); }
10% { transform: rotate(360deg); }
20% { transform: rotate(720deg); }
30% { transform: rotate(1080deg); }
31% { transform: rotate(1440deg); }
40% { transform: rotate(1800deg); }
50% { transform: rotate(2160deg); }
60% { transform: rotate(2520deg); }
70% { transform: rotate(2880deg); }
80% { transform: rotate(3240deg); }
90% { transform: rotate(3600deg); }
100% { transform: rotate(3960deg); }
Console chaos
While on the landing page, messages are printed to the developer console (most easily accessed in most web browsers with the F12 key) at random intervals.
In Google Chrome, it alternates between printing this close-up of the wizard, and the same close-up but preceded with a space.
As I couldn’t get this to work in Firefox, in that and other non-Chromium browsers it prints The power of Wizard compels you! instead (as a warning). This is a reference to the phrase “the power of Christ compels you,” which may be a reference to The Exorcist (I don’t know, just heard it around a bit).
Cookie message
At the bottom of the landing page, it reads “Also, by clicking there you are agreeing to the use of cookies in order to remember if you have clicked there or not. That’s a lie.”
This is a parody on the sheer number of websites that have annoying cookie notices to comply with the EU cookie law. Many of these websites set cookies even if you don’t accept them, making the whole thing entirely pointless.
True to my word, Just Wizards doesn’t use cookies or local storage. It just doesn’t have any reason to, really.
noscript
This isn’t so much an Easter egg, but, if you access the website without JavaScript enabled, a different message than usual will be on the landing page:
Listen up, you need JavaScript enabled in your browser for this website to function. This wizard was dropped on his head as a young’un, so he lacks the magic to perform interactivity without JavaScript.
The “There” button will instead read “Enable JavaScript” and take you to a guide for enabling JavaScript instead of the rest of the website, as the button would require JavaScript to function as normal.
Apart from that, the landing page is rather similar to normal without JavaScript, as it makes heavy use of CSS animations. If you make the window wider than widescreen, the following message can be visible, as the font size is partially calculated by JavaScript: “Please resize your window to make it taller.”
This hasn’t been tested to any great extent, as I don’t seriously believe there can be many people browsing the modern web without JavaScript enabled who will be surprised when a website doesn’t work without it.
Windows XP
When clicking the “There” button, an awful racket can be heard. This is the Windows XP startup sound cranked up to 11. If the website is accessed from a mobile device, it is accompanied by vibration (unless in silent mode or using a browser that realised websites being able to vibrate is a stupid idea).
Pop-up
When clicking the “There” button, a pop-up window bounces around the screen. This is a homage to the website YouAreAnIdiot.org website (no longer online; used Flash; later versions of the website removed this feature).
Originally, at YouAreAnIdiot.org and its predecessor, each time you closed the browser window it would spawn 6 pop-up windows. In turn, for each pop-up closed, yet another 6 would spawn. It also attempted to prevent the use of Alt+F4, Ctrl, Del, and by extension Ctrl+Alt+Del, as far as I can tell from noseying around on the Wayback Machine without a suitably old browser at hand.
The end result, or at least the intention, was that in sheer panic you’d keep trying to close it until your system became unresponsive.
There are some remakes of it and other such things — an excellent write-up is available at https://theaviary.me/Idiot!/ if you’re interested.
Much of what You Are An Idiot relied on no longer works in modern browsers. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t want to replicate its replicatory behaviour anyway. But what does reliably work without the user having to manually allow pop-ups is opening a single pop-up on a user click event (in this case, the “There” button).
Surprisingly, the window.moveTo() function, used by You Are An Idiot to bounce the windows around the screen, still works to this day, as does moveBy(). I can’t think of any legitimate purpose for a pop-up to move around the screen — could this still working be an oversight by browser vendors?
Seeing as that worked and doesn’t cause any real problems for the user like a hundred pop-ups might, this is what I settled on. Because pop-ups simply can’t function in the same way on mobile, the website doesn’t even attempt to create a pop-up on mobile devices.
Main page
Burning wizards
No, nothing to do with The Wicker Man. In the page header, an endless stream of wizards are heading towards flames. Clicking the “Just Wizards” text will cause them to move more quickly for one second. Hovering over the flames reveals the hover text “Wizards are disposable… right?”
Visual captcha
The captcha is a spoof of a misunderstanding of disabilities, articles that are needlessly available as audio, and captchas in general.
The text displayed in the captcha has some resemblance to the QWERTY layout of keys on most keyboards, but this was probably just from me struggling to think of what the captcha should contain.
Filling in the text field for the captcha is by and large an unremarkable process. However, if you fill it in successfully then change the alert field to “i hate you”, it will say “Well now I’m not doing it.” There’s some flexibility in this check, so you can insert intensifiers and use uppercase to your heart’s content.
If the captcha is filled in successfully and the alert field is either left at the default or not changed as described above, a low-quality copy of Rick Astley’s famous Never Gonna Give You Up plays, in typical rickroll fashion.
No smoking
The “no smoking” signs in the background were added due to this website being an entry for the Game Breaker’s Toolkit Jam, as the theme was “no”… hence “no smoking”. Michael Rosen’s “no breathing” would’ve been funnier, but oh well.
You may notice they scroll… strangely. I thought that having them scroll down and to the right at half the speed the rest of the page’s contents scroll upwards might cause some form of motion sickness, but it doesn’t do anything for me, so I guess it’ll remain as a quirky design.
7
When in gallery image #7, hovering over the 7 at the top reveals the hover text “7 is my lucky number”. It is in fact many people’s lucky number.
I don’t personally perceive any numbers as being particularly lucky or unlucky. Certainly there are numbers we’ve created connotations for, but that’s all I see in them.
You’re a wizard
If you type “wizard” into the page, Hagrid will say “you’re a wizard, Harry”. This is from the film Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. This can be done anywhere on the page — it doesn’t need to be in a text field.
FAQ & footer
There’s not a great deal to say about these. They’re basically just filler. *proceeds to write multiple paragraphs anyway*
WhoisGuard was protection Namecheap, my domain registrar, offered at one time for a small fee but by then for free. It is now “Withheld for Privacy” instead — a far less catchier and self-explanatory name.
Without it, my full name and address would have been on full display, which would make me uncomfortable. I believe there are cases where privacy should be compromised, such as if someone is hosting illegal material and not cooperating, but it should not be a free-for-all for randos on the internet to have access to.
Fortunately, such protection is pretty much a given, these days. ccTLDs may still expose your details, but gTLDs should be fine — check before registering. The level of protection varies between registrars — for example, the Whois data for justwizards.me, registered with Namecheap, claims I live in Iceland (I don’t), whereas the data for javacakegames.com, registered with Cloudflare, correctly narrows down my location to Angus, UK.
The “Want to sue me? Don’t” in the footer is because there could conceivably be reason for one to sue. The Windows XP startup sound is loud and the website contains some unlicensed copyrighted material. It’s low risk, but some of these companies can be ruthless. In the event I receive a DMCA takedown notice, either on itch.io or directly, we’ll assess the future of Just Wizards from there.
All the time
Clipboard shenanigans
When copying text from the website by selecting it and using Ctrl+C, the contents of your clipboard are replaced with the text “Just Wizards”. Maybe they don’t do it as much anymore, but I remember a period where quite a few websites would add credit to themselves at the end of whatever you copied, which got really annoying!
Seconds tracker
While on the webpage (if accessed directly, not embedded), the address bar tallies up the number of seconds you’ve been on the page for, flooding your browser history in the process.
I’m mentioning this because it isn’t obvious this is happening when accessing the page from itch.io, due to it being in an iframe over there.
Spinning wizards
If you right-click on the website (or use the menu key on your keyboard) at any time, you get whisked away to the music video Dead Or Alive – You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) with spinning wizards up and down the You may see that the YouTube upload date is a little on the early side for 4K, and you’d be right — at some point they replaced a 480p upload that looks taken from videotape with a 4K scan.
What I’ve done for the current release of Just Wizards is take the audio from the 4K upload but retain the video from the 480p one. The old audio was muffled, so it’s good to get something better. While there’s a large difference visually between the two versions, I found any blemishes on the film more distracting in the 4K version, so stuck with the old 480p one. And it’s not my intention to run a piracy site, so I’m fine with people having to go to the official upload for better quality.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t work in Safari on iOS. Long-pressing doesn’t trigger the contextmenu event. Android users should be able to, though. Rotate your device to a landscape orientation for a decent experience.
At the time of writing, there also seems to be a curious bug with this in Firefox, at least on Linux and macOS. If a video file is loaded from your local filesystem, as in not over the internet, it’ll get stuck in for several seconds at the last second of video. This has caused me a small amount of grief, but fortunately it doesn’t affect the live site in any way, unless you download it.
Another bug is that resizing the window can possibly mess up the scale on some of the wizards. I don’t know exactly what causes this to happen — I find it impossible to intentionally make it happen. So I’m not too worried about fixing it.
In the code
There’s not much additional stuff to be found within the website’s code, but there’s scraps here and there. I may as well point them out, seeing as the website is vanilla HTML/CSS/JS without even any minification at play.
quickMaths() is a reference to Man’s Not Hot by Big Shaq — “two plus two is four; minus one that’s three, quick maths”. It was a recent release at the time of originally making the website, so it was fresh on my mind.
pwomise() is an intentional misspelling of “promise” in the style of that degenerate “OwO” copypasta stuff.
The “keylogger” for the “wizard” Easter egg is named as such just to sound malicious. It’s not — keystrokes aren’t sent off to a server anywhere and it doesn’t have access to what you type outside the website anyway. The variable keyz is named as such because I guess keys is a reserved keyword? It wasn’t working, in any case.
The spinMyWizard class is… well, I could hardly call it wizardSpin. Not after the Meatspin shock website (SFW Know Your Meme link), which uses the same You Spin Me Round song.
What a horrible note to end on that is. I hope you weren’t bored out of your mind whilst skimming through this. It really is a treat to be able to go into these things and show that there can be more than first meets the eye. Until next time.
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