How do you do secrets the "right" way?

[Murderous Owl]

So I'm just curious what's the "right" way to make secrets? What are some good ways to have indicators without it being obvious, and how do you gage how difficult it'll be to find a secret? Are there any major dos/don'ts when it comes to making secrets? I already know that secrets shouldn't just be a random wall that's openable, and that there should be some secrets that are their own extension to the map instead of just being a small room with items, but that's about it.

[Lucius Wooding]

Anything used in the IWADs is fair game. Other than that, if you're trying to get fancy and creative you run the risk of losing people. But some mappers get off on having super cryptic secrets.

 

Personally I draw the line at making them visible on the map and not having any progression (or maybe kills also) locked behind them. But I also like the idea of putting in secrets or easter eggs that are untagged if they're going to be particularly hard to find. I want people to be able to UV max my maps without too much hardship but there can be a bit of an optional reward for deeper exploration as well. 

 

Also, sometimes just making cool areas or decorations or some kind of advantage in combat is a reward enough if it's an untagged secret, placing items isn't mandatory. Of course with any of this a lot of people will probably disagree.

[JadingTsunami]

I would say there are only two real "requirements", if such a thing can be said to exist.

 

Signpost them in some way. Misaligned or incorrect textures, lighting or lighting effects, sound cues (commonly an opening door or descending lift), hint decorations, map arrows, etc. are all common methods.

 

Make them truly optional. Make sure the map is beatable within reason with 0 secrets found; it's OK if secrets make the map easier but not if they contain minimum health or ammo, and secrets should absolutely never contain keys or required switches for progression.

 

The rest are methods to make them more fun or engaging, which are covered in other threads.

[DNSKILL5]

Some secrets should be shortcuts to traverse the level quicker, not everything needs to just have hidden items. I would make any secrets that are essentially required in order to finish the map to be the most obvious, with the more optional ones or ones that make the map way easier to be harder to find, but leaving clues of some kind in general doesn’t hurt since not everyone is going to catch on to all of the subtle hints. I don’t think there’s really any rules though, just certain things that annoy people are: hiding keys that are needed in order to progress in cryptic secret areas. Of course, there’s ways to make that work but that is something that annoys people in pretty much any game similar to Doom as well. 

[baja blast rd.]

You'll get a lot of wisdom about this if you learn to learn from maps. You can easily get a thorough forum post worth of advice from every secret you choose to study. And all advice is specific to the type of map you're trying to make, so knowing the exact context will help even more. For example "make secrets truly optional" only applies if you want to make a map that is broadly enjoyable to a wide range of players. Mappers who care about specific niches often ignore that one. Context-less advice won't always be useful to you and sometimes you won't be able to tell, lacking that context.

 

Here's a small example.

 

 

Speed of Doom map02 leads off with this small cache of goodies. For some background this map is a mysterious, atmospheric cave map. The point of the secret is not just the resources it provides, but the way it fleshes out the world of the map; it and many other secrets and little chambers secreted through this map buildings a feeling that the environment is a lot richer than what you can literally access. But yes it's also fun to gather that small cache of tiny pickups, kind of like loot you're stumbling across. To this effect, that little dark pit in the secret that you can't enter isn't just a throwaway; it reinforces that feeling of "more to this"-ness. The light fixture also suggests that this might be either a human-excavated chamber or something useful for nefarious purposes or idk...the implication of it is enough. The secret is not hard to find if you're attentive (but not trivial, because there's no guarantee you'll look at the detailing in the opening area), and since it's also early in the map, if you find it it helps nudge you in the direction of poking around corners of the map in search of more, possibly similar secrets over your playthrough of this map and upcoming ones. 

 

I could probably keep going, ideas like the green ceiling lip, the exact size of the hole, the detailedness of the surrounding area, and more, in relation to how easy/hard it is to notice. "In plain sight" secrets are a cool concept.

Take everything I just said there and you're going to find a secret with a completely different ideology in every way in some other map. Learn from it. Go learn from several other secrets that are different.

 

Do that over several maps in different sets and you'll have a more sophisticated internal model of what secrets can be used for. Different authors are clever at different focuses. If I wanted to improve at hiding secrets via various mechanisms, I'd analytically play a few Nicolas Monti maps (not that I'd want to be quite as obscure as he can be sometimes, but you don't have to set out to imitate someone to learn a bunch from them). 

 

Another thing I'd add is that when you're doing analysis for learning, author intent doesn't really matter. Like, the light fixture in that above secret might just be a random light fixture, but the point is the effect on me as a player. Whether Darkwave intended that or not, it had a specific effect on me and I can take the concept and learn from it and use it in my own maps; it's just that simple.

tl;dr: be a Nerd.

[Dreamskull]

I used to be pro secret until I realized its more secret not to mark secrets. Good arguements exist for marked secrets benefitting continuous play through multiple levels though, say you give the player a weapon earlier than normal or something like that. Whatever it is has got to justify.

Edited October 2, 2023 by Dreamskull

[bofu]

The biggest rule for me is, they should be optional.

 

The second rule is, they should be noticeable. Misaligned textures, maybe the floor or ceiling is different in front of a wall, maybe you put a candle in front of it. Don't make players find a tiny switch unless that switch is in somewhere where they're going to already be looking and have a chance to notice it.

 

Third rule is that every secret should be rewarding. This doesn't necessarily giving the player a powerful item. Maybe the secret lets you kill some annoying enemies early, maybe it just contains an Easter egg. But the player's hard work should be rewarded.

 

I almost always tag my secrets, with only Easter eggs going untagged. I don't mind if a map has a lot of secrets, just be aware that it's become fashionable to dislike that these days.

[Jayextee]

Don't give them special effect '9'.

[Lila Feuer]

4 minutes ago, Jayextee said:

Don't give them special effect '9'.

 

Is that the one where it triggers only once and is impossible to obtain unless you reload your game? Doom 1 had a hardon for those.

 

I also look down very hard on whatever the hell Sandy was thinking with the secret area that closes within the first minute of MAP27: Monster Condo that I forget is there nine times out of ten, there's zero allusion to its existence.

[Jayextee]

No, it's the sector effect that marks it as a secret. IMO Stewboy is correct here.

[roadworx]

while it's not entirely necessary, making them a bit more puzzle-like, where the player feels clever for being able to find them, is always helpful.

 

what is 100% required, however, is to make at least one secret completely inaccessible, because pissing off speedrunners and completionists is funny :)

[Uncle 80]

For me, "good secrets" usually involve something else than Ye Olde "candle in front of wall" or "slightly off-coloured texture". I've seen those one bazillion times executed the same way. Think outside the box; Crazy jumps, audible cues (remote doors/elevators you can hear but not see), timed [fair] runs, hidden switches changing a room to allow access to higher/lower places, etc. And like Baja Blast said; nothing is more satisfying than spotting a secret in plain sight - e.g. noticing you can run across a series of bookshelfs to land on a balcony or something like that.

[magicsofa]

45 minutes ago, Jayextee said:

No, it's the sector effect that marks it as a secret. IMO Stewboy is correct here.

 

I can't see how it's a good idea to nullify the end-of-level tally on behalf of players who obsess over self imposed restrictions (100%) while playing a modified game (source ports that add in-game secret count and notification).

 

I can tell you the wrong way to make secrets, and really the wrong way to map in general. And that would be catering to the loudest idiot. I have been playing this game since 1993 and have never, EVER done a 100% run. The normal way to play doom is without the chime, and without an in-game kills/secrets/items tally. If you elect to play with these anti-immersion features, that's a You Problem. It's not my job as a mapper to hold your hand because you watched a YouTuber doing pistol starts and never put your two brain cells together to figure out that the level doesn't just reload a second time without user input.

 

The Correct way to do secrets is to include a traversible sector with special 9. Other than that you have a huge variety of options and you'll never please everyone so focus on what you actually enjoy during your own play sessions. Personally I like secrets that reconnect with other parts of the map and/or each other, contain additional enemies, and have at least a little bit of immersive logic to them. Like if the secret area is behind a bunch of computers, I'd put some wires and stuff in there to give the effect of a service room. I also really like it when the reward is something other than items, like activating a crusher, getting the drop on an existing encounter, etc. This style may not cater to UV-max players and that's OK. For some reason I like to have fun when I play videogames and in contrast I like to get paid when I do work, usually at my job.

[Jayextee]

Too late, I already removed sector special number nine from twenty seven entire maps.

[OceanMadman]

Imo, secrets can be as obscure and weird as you want as long as they are optional. They are secrets for a reason. 

[No-Man Baugh]

46 minutes ago, Jayextee said:

Too late, I already removed sector special number nine from twenty seven entire maps.

Will you atleast give us the 90's courtesy and mark the sector that the player spawns in as a secret?

 

I can't live a 0% life!

[Pechudin]

Sometimes I like to lock the best fight of the map behind a secret, meaning if the secret is not found then the player exits with 60%-ish kills. work for that content goddangit!

[Amaruψ]

These are my personal do's and don'ts that I refer to whenever I'm adding secrets to my maps. Of course, these are entirely subjective and just a matter of a personal preference, and are no way the "correct" ways to do them. Use this as a guideline, but don't take it for granted; you might prefer to do them in a different manner, and should always give your maps your own personal twist :)

 

 

• Not too obvious, and not too obscure

Whenever I'm creating my secrets, I tend to provide the player subtle hints of its presence there. Small bits of hints go quite a long way. These hints don't have to be in the plain sight; slight differences around the secret relative to the surrounding area, if done properly, can easily help you achieve your goal of providing inklings towards the secret area. For example, minor differences in texture alignments, subtle differences in map geometry (relative to the surrounding area), etc. Map objects can also be used to achieve this; a green torch amid red torches, a uniform line of candles with one of them positioned slightly differently than the rest, etc. My personal favorite is giving the player hints through the auto-map instead. For example, Slough of Despair has an arrow pointing towards the plasma rifle secret, but you've to utilize the auto-map in order to discover it.

 

Of course, you shouldn't make these hints far too obvious for the player to discover. Those slight differences in texture alignment should just be that; slight. You wouldn't mark a secret door with a visibly sloppily aligned texture from the rest, or in the worst case scenario, an entirely different texture. The latter can however, work out well if that particular secret wall/door is opened somewhere else instead, as to give the player a little hint that "this area can be accessed, but from somewhere else". Though, I still wouldn't recommend it.

 

This also goes the other way around; don't make your secrets almost impossible to discover. Hunting down for the secrets should be fun, not an absolute chore. Another example, if you've ever played Extermination Day, you'd know what I'm referring to. A perfect example would be the map Twisted Neighborhood from there; to activate a certain secret, you've to press use on a certain unmarked tree. There's no indication provided if the tree can be interacted with, nor that it has any connection to a secret present in a completely separate part of the map. Don't do that sort of secret creation, it's, for the lack of a better word, utter bullshit.

 

 

• Never turn them into Serious Sam (a.k.a frustrating)

Alright, I personally consider this to be an unforgivable sin when it comes to creating a secret. Seriously (put intended), please refrain from littering your secret areas with a massive horde of enemies. Small, more controllable fights is what you should more or less lean towards most of the time. Such small fights can help you ensure that the player would feel more accomplished upon discovering the secret, instead of being punished for doing so. This also applies for collecting items. Maps that're like Serious Sam seem to have a hard on for punishing the player for collecting the secret item that they were there for. Again, make the player fight for what they're there for, not punish them.

 

• Be generous with your secrets, but not too generous

I wouldn't consider it to be the epitome of disappointment, but disappointment is certainly one of the main features of an underwhelming secret. The player is using up their resources and their time hunting down those secrets, so you should be equally as generous with what you're rewarding.

 

An example would be to reward the player in small increments for the secrets that're easier to discover. A slightly crooked texture at the beginning of the level? It should reward the player with small bits of ammo for the pistol, health vials or armor bonuses. The highest reward for such secrets in my opinion should be the green armor or stimpacks, but nothing more generous than that. Now on the other end of the spectrum, let's say that the secret is exceptionally hard to discover. Then when the player finally discovers it, the reward should be just as generous. Plenty of ammo for higher tier weapons, higher health and armor rewards such as the soulspheres or the blue armors, or an exceptionally powerful weapon. 

 

If you're pairing it with small fights within the secret areas, then it also plays a factor in what you're rewarding the player with. You should reward the player for not only discovering the secrets, but the resources that they've used up for reaching there. For example, let's say the secret area you've staged a fight with a few imps. The reward should be more ammo and a little bit of health and armor to help the player regain the resources that they've lost. Now, if that enemy is a Cyberdemon, the reward should be equally as large; health packs, rockets, cells, soulspheres, etc. are good choices to by.

 

Now, this also goes the other way. Don't be overwhelmingly generous and stuff your secrets chock full of goodies. Don't arm/heal up the player to the point that they'll be able to easily ace the rest of the map easily. Don't load up your secrets to the point that rest of the map becomes trivial. A massive array of firepower and health and armor stuffed up at a single area isn't a good idea whatsoever. Be vary of that.

 

Again, these are all just my personal thoughts and opinions on how to do them and how not to. Be inspired by them, don't follow them as a strict guide. The outcome is often more delicious if you're to take someone else's recipe and change it to the way it suits your own tastes :) be creative, and have fun.

[volleyvalley]

Probably repeating alot of the stuff said above me in this thread, but secrets should be proportional to the effort you put into it. If the secret is easy to find, place a few armor bonuses, but if the secret is harder to find, place something more valuable, so it feels good to discover, but in the end of the day, you're free to do whatever you want to do with them.

[NightRiding Doom]

Rather than rules to good secrets, here are a few personal rules I have on what to avoid as secrets:

• Required progression. It should never be locked behind a secret.
• No crusher traps as a secret

Things that I deem situational:

• Keys and switches, as they can be used to lock in an alternate path the player can take. 
• Ledges and other places the player can use to deal with something more effectively
• Resource dumps
• Resource empty rooms that only exist because of how they look

[Jayextee]

9 minutes ago, tumedaskihutaja_37685 said:

No crusher traps as a secret

Oh wow, I love this idea. Maybe I'll go back to a few maps of my upcoming megaWAD and stick a few secret crushers in... :P

[NightRiding Doom]

4 minutes ago, Jayextee said:

Oh wow, I love this idea. Maybe I'll go back to a few maps of my upcoming megaWAD and stick a few secret crushers in... :P

 

I'd come murder you but doomslayer will kill me first

[Maximum Matt]

On 10/8/2023 at 2:40 AM, Lila Feuer said:

I also look down very hard on whatever the hell Sandy was thinking with the secret area that closes within the first minute of MAP27: Monster Condo that I forget is there nine times out of ten, there's zero allusion to its existence.

There is an arrow pointing to it, if you notice...

Spoiler

Ol' Sandman with his arrows

 

[DRON12261]

On 10/2/2023 at 2:00 AM, Murderous Owl said:

So I'm just curious what's the "right" way to make secrets? What are some good ways to have indicators without it being obvious, and how do you gage how difficult it'll be to find a secret? Are there any major dos/don'ts when it comes to making secrets? I already know that secrets shouldn't just be a random wall that's openable, and that there should be some secrets that are their own extension to the map instead of just being a small room with items, but that's about it.

In general, I believe that the secret (the one that is the game mechanics and is displayed in the statistics counter) should always be a hint, no matter how realized, how much hidden, but there should always be at least some hint at the presence of the secret.

I usually approach secrets with the belief that it could always be found if the player wanted to do so. Make secrets for attention and intelligence. If the player will run like a stung on the level, he should not find them, but if the player will stop, think a little, wander around the location, correlate one thing with another, he with a sufficiently high probability should find the secret, no matter the first time he passes the level or not. I consider secrets as an additional quest on the level, the fulfillment, finding, overcoming of which will somehow additionally reward the player. 

Secrets should also be well suited either to a particular situation and location, or to the level as a whole. For example, there is no point in a secret with extra ammo, weapons or anything else at the very end of the level before the exit, they just do not give the player anything inherently. But if, for example, in front of some arena or even in the arena itself to place a secret with additional weapons, ammo, first aid kits and reinforcements, they will greatly reward the player for finding it. Also for the player himself will be a great motivation to find something like this, if he feels that ahead will be a difficult part of the level and he is not sufficiently prepared in terms of resources, because he made, for example, a lot of mistakes before reaching this area. 

Secrets can also be either just extra scenery, or some shortcuts, or extra optional special arenas (there's nothing wrong with hiding monsters in secrets). Or better yet, combine all of these. For example a secret that has extra ammo in it, and yet is a shortcut to another piece of the level. Or a secret that will hide a good weapon (bfg, plasmagun, rocket launcher), but to get it, the player has to overcome an additional arena in that secret. Or a shortcut, which in itself is some kind of great and beautiful view, for example opens up a view of a gorgeous, vast and detailed background. Or you can hide some narratively important element, some scene that will make the player look at the level from a slightly different perspective, like some hidden "mystery" or "plot twist" and all that. In general, you can think of a lot of things.

Separately, the secret level exits are still worth mentioning. Personally, I like the idea of secret level exits being more than just a regular secret. I like the idea when in order to open the passage to the secret level, you need to perform a chain of actions or "quests" throughout the level. For example, to click on several secret switches throughout the level, having previously at each switch cleaned up especially difficult, compared to the main level, arenas. Perhaps you can literally do a chain of actions, for example, at the technobase conditionally find a way to one secret piece of location, from which you can open a passage to another secret piece of location, where you can find a secret key to the secret door on the level, where you need to run, for example, some electric generator, which will start power in the section of the level, where the door to the exit to the secret level will open. Unravel such a tangle of actions is always particularly interesting. The main thing that it was all as hidden as the usual secrets, that is, they would always be able to find the same player who will carefully and consciously approach the passage of the level.

As for the automap, I always try to hide the secrets completely from the automap, as if there's nothing there, but immediately after that I make some additional markings on the automap itself, as hints that there's something in this piece of location and it would be good for the player to pay closer attention to it, if he saw it on the automap. You know, it's also that feeling when you find an automap and use it like, figuratively speaking, a treasure hunter who found a map with treasure markings.

Of course there are always some crazy secrets hidden behind 27 blending blank walls opened by random invisible lindefs on the other side of the map, but for god's sake, don't count such secrets in the stats. At least personally, I always consider such secrets (which are counted in the stats) to be the worst examples of how not to do things. (But if we talk about invisible triggers that open or lower something somewhere, a good example is when such passages are very close to the trigger itself and the player needs to navigate to the sound to find them, the sound itself is the very hint of the secret I wrote about in the beginning).

[Lila Feuer]

5 hours ago, Maximum Matt said:

There is an arrow pointing to it, if you notice...

  Hide contents

Ol' Sandman with his arrows

 

 

Yes, in the next room ahead of you lol. You won't even hear the sector close after a minute of play when you're engaged on your side with monsters.

[Mordeth]

On 10/11/2023 at 7:17 AM, Maximum Matt said:

There is an arrow pointing to it, if you notice...

 

I've watched a "let's play" youtube vid where the creator pointed out an arrow on the floor, commented "oh look! an arrow pointing at this wall"  and then proceeded to ignore it.

[spineapple tea]

3 hours ago, Mordeth said:

I've watched a "let's play" youtube vid where the creator pointed out an arrow on the floor, commented "oh look! an arrow pointing at this wall"  and then proceeded to ignore it.

If someone can't manage to figure that out then they just don't deserve the secret and instead should be given a 200-piece puzzle to finish before they're allowed to go back to Doom.

[Helm]

Here's some possible reactions to finding a secret most of us will recognize emotionally: 

What an easy secret that was (also '...this was a secret? ok.')
Fuck this secret, what were they thinking?!
I spent so much time trying to find this secret I completely forgot the flow of the map that led me here.
I knew all I would get for my trouble was a blue potion but it was worth it.
Wow... had I not tried to get all the secrets I would have never known this is in here at all!
I feel so smart for finding this!
lol
This secret makes sense for this map, somehow. It fits in here.
I feel so dumb for not finding this! Staring me right in the face!
the all time classic 'I would have never found this without cheating in a million years'
etc

All of these reactions are emotional reactions and making the player feel things is great. A secret that once uncovered gives no reaction at all probably is a bit weak. Adventure games (interactive fiction and point and clickers alike) hone in on the pleasures and defeats of making a cadence of secret finding feel involving and at times momentous. Looking at good adventure game riddles will help any Doom mapper imo, especially the more spatial ones in games like Myst, Riven etc. 

You cannot control the psyche and moods of the many players that will hopefully come to your map, so you cannot completely control the gamut of reactions to your secret making, but you can think about what sorts of emotional responses you're actually aiming for, which of those suit the vibe of your map and the flow of it. It's not a bad thing to frustrate players, it's not bad to reward them, it's all relative to what you're aiming to accomplish. If it's a run and gun map, prioritizing easy secrets with signposts so the player can fight and puzzle solve at the same time is an insane rush. A slower more methodical map might call for clearing out an area before any texture humping of merit can occur. One is grabbing an invulvn right at the last moment you absolutely needed it (what a rush), the other is essentially inch by inch map archeology.

Keep in mind that maps with 0/0 secrets are making a fundamentally different contract with the player. One they may hold to or break, but the initial communication is clear there as well as most people have their stats turned on as they enter a map.

Edited October 13, 2023 by Helm

[Xaser]

There hasn't been a ton of discussion about the automap yet, but definitely keep it in mind when designing secrets. Sometimes it might make sense to leave a "clue" on the automap, but often times I see maps that feature an otherwise well designed secret area (or monster ambush or somesuch) get completely spoiled by the checking the map 'cause the author didn't make use of the Secret/Hidden linedef flags. In most cases you probably want to conceal your secret on the map, otherwise it becomes trivial to find.

[Jayextee]

*goes into UDB's automap mode and cleans out anything from their megaWAD's maps that could possibly hint to the existence of something not on the beaten path*

Actually, I've been doing this for the past few days. ;)