It might sound like a creepypasta, but this secret is apparently legit, and it’s a pretty heartwarming one too.

It started with Switch owner Setery who told a gaming forum about how NES Golf suddenly appeared on her Switch’s screen. Other users said her console was haunted but this prompted Switch hackers to race to find the hidden game on the console. However, it instead was a heartwarming tribute to Satoru Itawa, Nintendo’s deceased CEO.

Iwata passed away in 2015, after succumbing to cancer. For those who know him, he’s pretty much the face of the Nintendo Direct presentations on top of being Nintendo’s CEO. Speaking of Nintendo Direct, he became known for a very specific gesture:

As the story goes, after several devs turned down developing the NES’s Golf, Iwata found a way to squeeze the game (with its 18 hole course) into a cartridge.

Hackers recently discovered a hidden NES emulator on the Switch called Flog and after a bit of digging by Switch hacker Pluuto, some suspicious code turned up in the “Home Menu”. Pluuto decided to look into it one boring weekend and found two very interesting details: The code looked for the date 11 July, and the code before it seems to enable the Joy-Con’s

The code looked for the date 11 July, and the code before it seems to enable the Joy-Con’s sixaxis motion sensors, effectively telling Pluuto that a Joy-Con enabled “Secret Handshake” will unlock something on 11 July on the Switch’s Home Screen.

As it turns out, the motion laid out by the code matches Iwata’s famous Nintendo Direct gesture, and 11 July is the day Iwata passed away. This connects into the fact that Flog pretty much is Golf backwards.

However, due to the Switch knowing the date (and as long as it has been updated and is connected to the internet) you can’t just trigger the game to appear. But user Fiskerdin managed to get it to work due to having an unboxed Switch lying around and got it to work.

Why do this? the reason might point towards the Japanese tradition of Omamori, which are talismans made to “guide and protect”, to be left at shrines.

These days they’re made of everything from tSatoru Iwataoys to memory cards, and they channel spirits who will help guide the Omomori owner. Perhaps someone from Nintendo coded this into the Switch so Iwata’s spirit could guide the console to success? even if it isn’t its still a very nice gesture.