Secrets (topic==suggestion; topic==!help)

[Shadow Hog]

No, this is not a Help topic. It's the other word in the forum title this pertains to, since you can't (well, shouldn't) have discussions in the suggestion topic.

But anyway, yeah. Why not have it so that there's a secret room counter at the end of a level, like DOOM has? It wouldn't necessarily give you a higher score for finding all of them (although that'd be pretty nice), but it'd certainly add even more replayability. For those who don't already know where a lot of the secret rooms are.

It's not like you'd have to add much more to the levels; just make a linedef executor that toggles whether a secret room has been found or not. If it hasn't (and the player just found it), then play a little ditty (the Emblem/NiGHTS-star sound, or maybe ZDOOM's "secret found" sound), CECHO "YOU FOUND A SECRET!" automatically, and add one to the tally. If it WAS found before, don't execute anything like that. The rooms are already in there, considering that's where all the emblems are and everything. This just gives more incentive to remember their locations.

Now, I know that everything but the tally is currently doable (Linedef Execute Once Only, Play Sound, Execute Script), but why not make it an official thing? I'd certainly like to get the occasional Secret Bonus at the end of, say, GFZ1 for finding every hidden room that it's possible to get to...

Thoughts?

 

[Hyper Tails]

It's a good idea, but how would you define a "secret room"? It would be hard to tell the game what was a secret room and what was not. But I suppose it might work a bit like the emblem placer in the SOC Editor. Maybe it could be added to the next version.

 

[Shadow Hog]

If you know how to make maps, you know this isn't a hard thing at all. You just make a linedef executor that tells the game that there's a secret area in this sector, and the game counts the number of such linedefs and uses that as a total.

 

[SSNTails]

I don't really like the idea of it because it is very Doom/Quake-ish.

 

[Shadow Hog]

It is, but I don't exactly see how that's a problem.

 

[Shuffle]

I like the idea. It would keep anyone from saying "There's not enough secrets in SRB2".

 

[SSNTails]

It is, but I don't exactly see how that's a problem.

LOL HAY U GUYS ITS JUST A DUM DOOM MOD LOL

 

[Shadow Hog]

Well, when you gimme a way to keep track of variables, via scripting or linedefs or whatever, then I can just slap it into my maps, you can keep it out of your code, and we'll all be happy people. :P

 

[JohnnyWallbank]

It is, but I don't exactly see how that's a problem.

LOL HAY U GUYS ITS JUST A DUM DOOM MOD LOL

He's right. You'd be amazed how often we used to get that - in fact, one review on an old version of SRB2Xmas which criticized the lack of some Doom options led us to sarcastically add back them in as 'You want Doom options? You got 'em!' which re-enabled such wonderful options as 'Bloodtime'. ;D

Nonetheless, in addition to that, I think it's a little patronising to the player. It's always worth keeping a player thinking "Huh, gee, should I even be here? Did they screw up the level design?" and, indeed, for secrets-within-secrets, I feel it takes the edge off the whole 'how deep does the rabbit hole go' thing.

So no, it won't be featured in SRB2. If anyone else wants to code it back in however... ;)