REBUTTAL TO: IT’S A SECRET TO EVERYBODY
This is an elementary disagreement. I disagree with the base premise behind the rebuttal that most 'secrets' are not part of game design proper. I think that in fact they are. For all the DKC games they had secrets but they were totally irrelevent to beating the game. They were for the fun of finding the secrets. DKC one was notable for poor design on this... DKC 2 on the other hand is one of the better secret designs in gaming, fixing the large majority of problems with DKC 1 and being a very obvious example of the exact mentality I described.
As a rule 'most' secrets in a game should be found. Yes, there are the 'odd' ones that people will note as 'hee,hee' I found that. "Word of mouth" spread and all. But you know, if every secret in a platformer game was built how one built the contra code into the game and secrets were any reasonably sized bit of the game, then it'd be pretty sucky. Things aren't 'secret' because the designer is lazy, but instead an aspect of game design. Good secret design throughout a game bears some intelligent system. We're long past the day in which you had one or two 'secrets' in a game. We've long passed games in which the discovery of secrets is the real 'game'. You gave an example of this, certainly, but dismissing the fact that the secret design is the majority of the gameplay and instantly considering it therefore 'not secret design', ignores the entire type of game I was speaking to.
Reducing 'secret design' to be only things tossed in by the programmers as trite rewards for doing random things doesn't do much for any 'design' of it. In RPGs, you have dozens, if not hundreds, of secrets. These 'secrets' are entirely irrelevent to actually beating the game, but in a good game, they are part of 'completing' it.
Zelda games, as an example, have excellent secret design. Tons of things that can be done to get little perks through their games. They aren't necessary to finishing the game, but try and find me one person who'll give a good argument that because finding those extra hearts and gems and various special items they hide is unnecessary to beating the game that they should be hidden in some random illogical fashion not meant to be found? That LttP and OoT were NOT better games for intelligent placement of secret things, the various small hints that run through the game to their existence? I would be genuinely curious as to someone who could make the argument that intelligent secret design did not contribute to the success of those games.
I am not, just to make this absolutely clear, speaking specifically about easter eggs. Yes, that's a category of secret not intended to be found. But that's also a category of secret, at most, that one or two secrets in a game fall into. It has no bearing on a claim that the majority of secrets should be findable. Secrets have advanced in the last 25 years. They are part of game design now. Something that isn't randomly placed but is every bit a part of the game. From FPSes like Quake to platformers like DKC 2 to RPGs like Dragon Warrior 7, secrets have evolved into a far more elobrate thing then simply the oddball code/cheat or easter egg, and the games that have put a considerable amount of thought into the design of them are BETTER GAMES FOR IT.
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