When should the "secret revealed" message appear?

A secret can consist of many sectors. Which one do you mark as secret? Should the message appear as soon as the player enters the secret area or maybe when they pick up the soulsphere or whatever?

Given that the secret registers when feet touch floor in a marked sector, it's sensible to mark any sector that is mandatory to cross in navigating a secret area. If you want to utilise sourceports' message text to dramatic effect, I'd say to keep this in mind and try to make it a sector in which the player will see the contents of the secret.

kuchitsu said:

Should the message appear as soon as the player enters the secret area

This one seems more logical, and, afaik, in most iwad maps secrets register as soon as you enter them.

kichitsu said:

or maybe when they pick up the soulsphere or whatever?

What if i don't want to pick up that soul sphere? The secret i entered won't register? That's not ok.

I think vanilla didn't have any secret messages so the iwad design is mostly irrelevant here. But good point about not wanting to get the item yet.

A secret should be (reliably) registered as soon as the player enters the non-obvious (=obviously secret) area, that's what I agree with. Items inside the secret are supposed to be a reward for entering the secret, and it would be a poor reward if the player was forced to pick them up against his will if he only wanted to register the secret as being found.

Just wondering: let's say you have a switch that opens a door very visibly when activated, would a Boom voodoo doll and conveyor setup to a secret sector flash up the message remotely, so to speak?

I tried it and it didn't work.

Try like this: mediafire.com/download/8u9428zgii204di/secretrev.zip]secretrev.wad

Yeah, sinking the secret floor in the regular floor seems to be a good solution. Too bad I didn't think of it when I needed such a trick.

Given that player's maximum press use distance is significantly longer than his radius, it's quite tricky to set the secret floor sector so that it would reliably be right below the player who is pressing the switch from any possible position. Either make a really narrow corridor leading to the switch, or make the sinked floor cover a large area and have something like 1-pixel-sized non-secret-tagged square sectors inside it, preventing the player to fall into it.

kuchitsu said:

Try like this: mediafire.com/download/8u9428zgii204di/secretrev.zip]secretrev.wad

That's pretty clever. In combination with voodoo dolls and Boom conveyor belts it also works for some other line specials, like S1 Door Open Stay: http://88.198.197.45/boris/doom/door_open_secret.wad

I like to make every sector in the secret area make the sound so it surprises the player with it's loudness.

I think the iwads made it so that the secret is activated as soon as you go enter it. So if for example you pressed a switch that opened a door into a hallway that had a power up at the end, the secret sector should be right in the doorway or at the start of the hall, not when you reach the power up.

That makes for some interesting choices in certain speedrunning categories. Do you spend 10 seconds to run to the other end of that hallway, pick up the soulsphere and get back? Or do you just trigger the secret and go back to fighting?

I think it should be depending on what the secret actually consists of.

Some small closet with a bit of ammo should obviously trigger as soon as a player sets foot into the closet.

If you have larger secret areas with multiple sectors, why not consider making the area count as multiple secrets? Like one secret for entering the area plus another one for picking up the soulsphere (or whatever), as a reward for passing a crusher gauntlet, or some pole jumping section, or triggering a nasty ambush? If you place a secret, and there's one or two items at the end of a hallway, why make it a hallway in the first place? Wouldn't a smaller room, with some nice details, suffice as well?

If you have a larger secret area in which the item(s) is not on screen as soon as the door opens, give one secret for entering the area, and another one for spotting the item, in case there is a search involved.

I'm looking at this from the effort-point of view. Walking down an empty hallway is not an effort, it is rather a time-sink.

I think it best to activate the secret as soon as you enter it but here are a few tips.

1. Don't create the secret room and tag every sector as secret.

2. Don't tag tiny sectors as your secret. (you need a sector large enough to trigger it as you walk into it)

3, Make your secret not that obvious. I prefer to make them into a small side puzzle not related to the overall map progression.

4. Make your secrets mean something. Don't just put in a small clip or two. You need to put something important in there not just a few drops in the bucket.

I really wish vanilla had the secret message, it helps so much