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Preface: In this editorial I will refer to many things as being too hard or
too easy or poorly designed and whatnot. I will be using real examples for
some of them. I have absolutely no desire or caring to hear that the
specific example I chose you found easily and that I see it as poor design
must mean I suck as a gamer and am just whining.
Secret(noun): 1 a : something kept hidden or unexplained.
This is the first definition in Merriam-Webster dictionary of 'secret'. A
pretty good one really. A secret is something kept hidden. Something folks
aren't supposed to know about. Could be personal, could be otherwise, but
either way, the world isn't supposed to know it. It isn't supposed to be
hinted at, suggested, or otherwise dropped in conversation. It's supposed
to be unknown -- a secret.
As far as game design goes, this is utter tripe. A well-designed secret
shouldn't be secret by this definition at all. In fact, those are the worst
kinds of secrets in games. In games, secrets are like easter eggs in life.
You want the people hunting for them to find them. You don't want to hear
about a rotten one in a tree six months later because no one ever found it.
You don't keep it hidden, you explain it, hint at it, suggest it, and
generally leave some path to it. In other words, a good secret in games
isn't a secret. A bad secret in games...IS ONE!
Why is this so? Why do such a thing? Well, because people are paying for
your game for one. Because they should get a fair shake of the dice for
seeing what the game designer put in it without referencing player's guides,
stat sheets, or any other forms of getting information that the designers
neglected to amply add into the game.
Badly designed secrets rely highly on luck or arbitrary decisions to pull
them forth. They can exist as items, special rooms, or super moves but they
all share the same trait that the only real way they show up is by chance or
a player thrashing at the system to ridiculous levels. A few examples of bad
secret design in games:
Tales of Symphonia is a great game. Fun, intuitive for the most part, and
with some well designed secrets. They also had some absoultely wretched
secret designs that largely depended on chance in their battle system. It
was almost as if they did not want these secrets to be found. Why were such
things as Indignant Judgement, Holy Judgement, or the various elemental
weapon attacks bad? They lacked 'background' in the environment to help
find them. Yes, there was, as I recall, a single hint that using elemental
enhancements with certain moves can create different moves. But that isn't
enough when blended with the fact it requires using an exact combination of
spells (relatively few weapons are elementally enchanted and you are
unlikely to carry these for the requisite time) and specific moves to get
it. While a hint is good, having it still require trying a very arbitrary
combination hundreds of times is poor design. It's too hard to find in any
sensible manner. Another equally good example of poor secret design is the
Indignant Judgement, requiring that you get the mage into limit break (An
event that will happen maybe three times over the course of the game's
eighty hours assuming you use him all the time) and then use a very specific
spell. This sort of arbitrary nature, while it definitly fits the
dictionary definition of secret, basically ensures most your audience will
never see what is usually a really cool effect. What's even worse is these
are battle abilities that really get relegated to only being found, if at
all, after you lose any and all need to use such abilities. This sort of
thing is bad. A good secret should be one that is found, used, and enjoyed.
A cool effect should be one that most folks will experience. Not stuff
that is only discovered by folks busy doing a full game wide stat sheet.
That's poor design.
Viewtiful Joe is another game I found to have poor secret design. There
were quite a few areas that could be gotten into that literally blended
right into the background. Not good. While a secret area shouldn't
contrast heavily with it, one should be able to look at it and say 'okay,
that looks like something I could break down and enter.'. And generally,
the best secret design keeps to a form of logic that is self-evident from
the first generally obvious secret. Occassions where the rulestructure
regularly breaks down are not good, they confuse the player and result in
secret finding of the 'hit every wall' type (Yes, popular in the 80s but not
really good secret design).
Good secret design doesn't rely on luck. Instead the game designer drops
hints using things like sign posts, in-game help, and discussion with npcs
to provide the necessary depth for finding the secret. If a secret depends
on a highly arbitrary combination, it should work every time that
combination gets tried, so players that do stumble across the combination
(preferrably hinted at somewhere in the game) don't conclude "Oh, no secret
here" and move on. If it's hidden, it should have hints to help find it
that aren't hidden. If it's in plain sight, but unexpected, it should have
something to indicate that it's a secret. There are a lot of ways to
accomplish this (RPGs have it easy in this regard, a castle just sitting
there is always begging to be explored. NPCs, books and signs provide
plenty of places to place the hint droppings). Anyhow, this has gotten some
what blathery but the main point here is simple:
Those of you thinking about game design in the future: when you come up with
a secret, a side quest, an easter egg, or whatever, remember the goal should
be that the players do eventually see it. They shouldn't necessarily be
forced into it, but there should be a generally considered from a player
view as something that can be found naturally, without knowing "There must
be secrets so I'll smack all the walls.". There are many ways to do this,
I'm a big fan of the teach the player how to find a 'secret', and then have
other secrets done in that fashion style, but in the end, good secrets in
games are secrets people are meant to find.
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