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40oz

Secrets in detailed maps

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In the iwads, secrets are usually indicated by a sort of "hint," be it a mistextured or misaligned texture on a wall, a blinking light, or some other peculiarity that is "just not right." Many of these conventions carry over into classic megawads and in many 1994 wads these habits are required knowledge to pass required obstacles in some maps.

However, blinking lights are difficult to make good looking, and mistextured walls are very likely to go unnoticed in a sector-heavy map. Likewise a misaligned texture or irregular structural pattern is very unlikely for an OCD mapper whos a nut about precise texture alignment. On average a classic doom map is more likely to have twice as many secret areas and are typically more fun to explore and more reasonable to find than in a modern detailed map.

I can agree that a map is much more difficult to add secrets as an after thought when the walls are already covered in support beams, computer terminals, light fixtures, trims, borders and gradient lighting. In my experience, most hints are limited to a candle, a dead body, a miscolored torch along a row of similarly colored torches, or a window showing something the player would want when the map is already detailed.

Since detailed maps break out of the normal level design quirks that classic maps use, but I think secrets are an important aspect of Doom and that even highly detailed maps should adapt to hinting towards secrets in such a way that the player is able to detect and perhaps not significantly damage the aesthetic appeal of the map. Perhaps we could use this thread to discuss palatable ways to hint at a secret that mappers could use in their highly detailed maps?

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What about....

  • Attention: Two torches in a wall, and between them is a secret door.
  • Exploration: A computer that activates a secret door in the previous room, rewarding explorers.
  • Force: A difficult-to-see number of parkouring pillars, the player runs into them (the floor difference between them is low enough that a player can just run and not need to jump, so it is rideable in vanilla).
  • Intelligence: A switch near a wall that opens a blazing, small-delay door in the other side of the wall. Needs wallrun to enter the secret before the door closes.
  • Dedication: Something like the portal in HR's MAP01. Run into it multiple times and you'll be rewarded! Just make it go to a secret instead.
Just my finest suggestions.

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One good example of secrets in highly detailed maps are secrets accessed via leaping over/onto platforms which aren't well noticeable or seemingly purely decorative, without anything implying that the player is supposed to be able to get there. Bonus points when the secret area itself is visible behind an impassable window, and the player has to figure out such an athletic or puzzling way to get there. Mechadon does this in his maps, and I like it.

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I love secrets and have added quite a few to the megawad I'm still hacking away at. I've used a lot of different ways of hinting at secret locations including the flickering lights and offset textures already mentioned. In some cases I've made a texture that only appears on the hidden door to the secret itself.... for example I've taken one of Doom's gray textures and added scratches to it. In a few places I've made floor buttons that stick up... might be a brick or the same shape as a tile but raised and if you walk on it, it lowers and so does a wall... I've used narrow ledges around lava. I've made very tiny switch textures that are hard as hell to spot but are not placed far away from the secret so some investigating is required. In one place a set of vertical bars in a pathway that acts like a platform (lowers then raises again)is activated via switch... well if you get on the top of the bars and let them lift you up you can get on a ledge and find a secret place up there. I've put a switch for some obvious function on a panel but you can walk behind the panel and there is another switch back there. Sometimes you can see a pile of loot through a window and nearby is a wall you can't see through but you can walk through. In some high up place you can look through a window and see a switch in some rock cliff that you have to shoot. I made a flat that hurts (not saying exactly) but if you look close there is a path of slightly darker 'material' that you can safely walk on that leads to some hidden place.. In one case when you teleport then turn around before walking off the tele-pad you can click the wall and it opens. Then there's secrets inside of secrets. Some secrets are just a small room / broom closet and other times some huge outside area. Hidden switch behind crates. Why is that one alcove without a torch like the others? That's all I can think of for now.

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IMO, secret is a secret. It should not be simple or extremely hard to find, so then, if something don't seem on it's place - maybe it help you to find a secret, da?

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Things that grab attention regardless of visual clutter include sound and movement.

So walking down a hallway and hearing something open nearby, or seeing something open and close in the distance, or even just a flickering light should all still work, once the combat has died down.

You can also teach the player to be suspicious of certain things, for example the presence of illusionary walls can be hinted at earlier in a map by showing the player a monster that walks through one.

One interesting aspect of Doom is that you sort of control the players vertical vision. So something can be placed that's only visible from certain heights.

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A pool of blood sticking out of a secret door.
A texture slightly different from the usual, like a computer tech panel that, if you pay attention, actually contains a switch.
A hint in the automap if the player picked up the computer area map bonus.
Some sort of noise (permanent crushers are great for that) telling the player there's some machinery beyond a wall.

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Hmm, there's the "Switch on the front and switch on the back" secret. One side of the sector has the switch you need to activate to move on, the other side usually activate a secret door somewhere in the map.

The best example would be E2M1 with the switch that gives you the optional red key.

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scifista42 said:

One good example of secrets in highly detailed maps are secrets accessed via leaping over/onto platforms which aren't well noticeable or seemingly purely decorative, without anything implying that the player is supposed to be able to get there.

I'd like to add that, sometimes, secrets like that don't even look like secret areas, even with iddt cheating, which is awesome.

As for what not to do: Having to resort to wall humping, because there is no indication whatsoever of the possibility of a secret, really sucks.

I always liked nested secrets that only all trigger if you run from one to the next, before the doors close.

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rofl I recently made a map that had a texture misalignment for a secret and one of the testers was like "you really should fix that texture"

Expectations and conventions have changed quite a lot over the years, you'll take my texture misalignment secrets when you pry 'em from my cold, dead hands!!

In all seriousness, I do love secrets that require you to spot things that are out of place.

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I'm not really sure I can give suggestions on the strictly best ways to have secrets (if we figure out the best ways then wouldn't we all start to look for these particular ways of discovering them? :V) but one thing that I think is super important is that secrets should be satisfying to find. More importantly, they should be super satisfying to explore once you've found them. I'm completely bored by secrets that give me a 64x64 box with a power-up in (*glares at the rocket launcher secret in E3M1*).

For example, map 01 of BTSX E1 has a wonderful SSG secret that, once discovered, takes you through a significant portion of otherwise unexplorable map space, complete with higher-tier monster encounters, windows overlooking other parts of map, and an alternate route into the Blue key area. Likewise, E1M3's secret exit is so fantastically elaborate that I didn't even know it existed until about 10 years after I first played the map, and quite frankly I love it to death. It's probably my favourite sequence of secrets in any iwad map - you are even given a hint to it if you fall into the nukage pit at the start of the map. It's fucking great!!!

When I design secrets myself I try my best to follow three specific rules:

1) make them fun to explore, as if you're accessing an area you shouldn't be allowed in* i.e. an actual goddamn secret area.

2) that the goodies of the secret are visible or otherwise heavily implied. The soulsphere secret of E1M3 (mmm, this map!!) is a great example, that does about five different things at once just by existing to you through a window you pass by whilst gibbing folks with barrels. When I say "or otherwise heavily implied" I can't actually think of a solid example, but I bet I will as soon as I post this and go to bed. Bleh.

3) that they're fair to find (i.e. not a random wall that you need to be telepathic in order to find) but they ask you to either be attentive or to actually look in corners, nooks, crannies, and so on. I actually create a lot of my secrets whilst playtesting my maps, when I spot areas such as ledges and corners that look like they should lead somewhere. Likewise, I try to avoid having the door/switch/line action that lets you access any secret too far away from the actual entrance point to the secret itself. It's confusing when I stumble upon a random secret room because I pressed its corresponding switch tucked away on the other side of the map ten minutes earlier!

Of course, I break these rules too many times. Map 15 of NOVA II breaks #3 a fair bit, now that I think about it. However, I think these are the keys to the coolest and most satisfying secrets in doom maps. :>

* a secret I'm thinking of creating for a map is one that will basically take the player through the equivalent of the map's backstage area, where you see the truly broken inner machinations of some kind of engine trick or vanilla exploitation. Something that is a crazy display of mapping eye candy that would break if you viewed it away from its intended viewpoint. Let's just put the player right in the middle of that mess of dummy sectors/midtexture structures/etc. etc. and make him think he might have possibly broke the map. Mmm!

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Well. Some secrets are so good hidden that even with Doom Builder you will some problems with searching.
For example in Sunlust.wad in Map24 i spent 6 hours to find out how exactly get secret with invulnerability. Or Map30 where impossible to understand how to get there because everything inside code.

In modern maps as in old maps: wall which is door, Shooting at switch, Non-solid walls

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Secrets that are implied with decorations used through the entire iwad are the worst! "Oh you used Lites everywhere and now decided to randomly place a door between 2 of them, sheesh". Still I'd take impossible to find secrets any day over mandatory ones (Like ones full of ammo and you realize the map is balanced against that).

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Secrets are a concern of mine too. I am currently working on a map that has a few (not marked yet), and I wasn't sure if one of them was too difficult so I increased the lighting in a 1px Sector that makes a line to the secret. I am divided. One part of me thinks, "just make it obvious" and the other likes, "the hunt."

http://imgur.com/a/KULnl <--- Images of my wad. (3) These show off the 1px sector lighting. Is that too obvious?

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That makes it very obvious in my opinion, but at the same time, it's a very nice idea. I like 'semi-obvious' secrets as they allow the player with less observation skill still feel rewarded.

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I always make my secrets harder to find depending on what the reward is. You might find a few stimpacks and a couple of rockets in a little alcove accessed via door cue, but a megasphere? You gonna have to earn one of those ;)

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