Secrets in maps

[Maximum Matt]

Romero secrets A.K.A. the window to outside/another area that you can't find a normal door to.

Secret chains (different to secrets-within-secrets): secrets that have switches in them as well as goodies, that telegraphs something else has happened in the environment and encourages further exploring/backtracking. 

Also, nobody puts decorations in secrets. Put decorations in secrets.  Like in that one room in that TNT map, Nukage Processing I think it is

[SleepyVelvet]

Ideally, the more secrets secrets the merrier.  Regardless of modern Classic Doom being a canvas, for me, base Doom has always fallen into the collectathon style of games alongside Super Mario 64, Banjo Kazooie, etc., ("run-and-gun" my ass).  

 

Realistically, this means quality over quantity.  Even if it's a slightly discolored wall and "rewarding to discerning eyes", humping around only to reveal a rectangle room is usually kinda lame compared to more clever secrets.  I guess they're better than nothing, no shame in 'em, but they're usually D-grade secrets at best. 

 

It begs the question if you should shoe-horn D-grade secrets (or cut them) if your map ends up having better A,B-grade secrets by the end.  I've shoe-horned in secrets into areas that felt secret-starved just so the secret distribution was more smoothed out across the map.  But in this case, I usually tinker with them until they are "good enough", that's not always easy or worth it.

 

These things apply for more layout-oriented, collectathon style maps.  I suppose the less layout oriented a map is, the less secrets it would benefit from in the first place (ie: big fancy room slaughter maps).

 

Then: should you even mark all your secrets?  Unmarked super secrets are fine, and maybe one shouldn't mix more obscure secrets into the same basket as less obscure ones at all.  Also, the map can speak for itself if it's fun to explore, and some mappers are going so far as not even marking any secrets at all.  Marking secrets really only exist for a couple reasons: 1) giving a haptic dopamine *ding* when players find it in advanced ports; 2) For the intermission screen tally, of which maximizing is a subgame in and of itself aside from just killing monsters and exiting.  -  Harkens to the present completionist-critic vs prideful-mapper dilema.

 

Which subgames are you mapping for?

Edited April 10, 2024 by SleepyVelvet