As an environment artist and aspiring level designer one of my favorite aspects of games is exploration and discovering areas of a level that are off the beaten path. I was curious about how many players share my enthusiasm for environment exploration in games and discovering "secret" areas that are not integral to the core game experience. In a level-based FPS or action game for example would it seem overkill to have as much as 40% of the environment hidden from the main sequence of the level? Personally, I think it'd be rewarding to discover such a space and really add to the replayability of the level. It seems silly to complain about getting something for free that you weren't expecting but I can see some people thinking, "gee, why wasn't this actually part of the main level experience?" Thoughts?

For me, I like it when secret areas are slowly exposed to me. For instance, in Legend of Zelda games, oftentimes you cannot access any of the special areas on your first time through. Later on, you notice an oddly placed hookshot target or spinner rail (examples from Twilight Princess). It makes the world feel like it's growing... without it actually growing, know what I mean? This also keeps the secret areas fairly secret for most of the game because, until you obtain the right gear, the access points look like plain old scenery.

I love secret areas (and exploration in general), as long as there is some reward (items, secret boss, awesome scenery).

However, game projects usually have constrained schedules. Therefore, one easy way to know if you have "too much" is when you have so many secret areas that the main part of your game ends up feeling like it doesn't have enough content (due to scheduling limits).

Secret areas/levels are one of the things that I find missing in many RPG games.
Even when they are put in the game they are obvious or not very interesting.

Even MMORPGs could benefit from them. The only problem is that many of the secret areas would be well documented on most fan websites. In this case it would be a good idea to create some kind of random discovery system. For example, searching behind the Alter of doom this time through the instance might reveal a secret room with a random encounter and treasure.

I think secrets are important because they provide the player with a sense of accomplishment.

I'm a fan of exploration in games - a BIG fan!

castlevania symphony of the night is one of my faves due to how much hidden / secret content it had.

i mean heck, if you just stayed on the main path youd probably see about 1/8th the game had to offer.

there were a ton of secret zones and then of course you could get to the upside down castle which was a secret area that DOUBLED the game world size.

game companies are very much driven by money, timelines and profit and they want to make the best game that they can given those constraints.

Imagine if you put a ton of hidden content into your game that made it go from a 10 hour game to a 40 hour game but when the reviewers played it they didnt find any so they said "the game was good but it was just 10 hours long and not much diversity, i score it a 6 out of 10".

That sure would suck wouldn't it? If they knew about the secret / hidden content they may score it an 8 or a 9 so in that respect, hiding content from reviewers is not "smart" business wise (some people would argue), but yeah it can make for a great game.

check out this game, all it is is exploration it's kinda fun (:

http://armorgames.com/play/4850/small-worlds

Awhile back I posted about search gameplay in this post. The major point I was trying to make was that while finding secret stuff is cool, the actual activity leading up to it is often dull and even irritating in most games. Little to no thought seems to be ever put into the design of clues or how the player is supposed to detect secrets. Half-Life 2 gets this right with its little Valve logo symbols, but older FPS games were often just a hunt for the floor trigger (made 10 times worse if you had to press some button while doing it).

I think there's a danger to hiding 40% of your game. You run the risk of people only experiencing the remainder and judging it entirely on that.

You'll also need to be consistent in the implications made my your level. Hiding cool gear behind a waterfall or perilous drop, for instance, sets an expectation for all similar features.

One final thought: It would be nice to see hidden areas actually hidden for a reason in games. A false library shelf or chair that slides to reveal a hidden door would be cool AND make sense, and if the player knows this there can be a great rush of reward in logically figuring the game out. Armor and healthpacks hidden behind a sliding stone wall or in the rafters of a castle just for the heck of it-- well, maybe not so much.

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Original post by Wavinator while finding secret stuff is cool, the actual activity leading up to it is often dull and even irritating in most games.

Heheh, I just flashed back to Wolfenstein, 3D, beating a level then going back through the whole thing, dragging my face along the wall and spamming the "activate" key in order to find the secret rooms. The original Legend of Zelda didn't have a play timer, which is good, because I probably spent hundreds of hours trying to burn every tree and bomb every wall in that game. Not a good time.

I fall into the "make it worth my while" category. There's nothing I hate more than a game that has me save the world, and then leaves me with all my super powers faced with tracking down collectibles (Assassin's Creed) that don't require me to use any of my super powers. I think Zelda and Metroid games do it best (Shadow Complex, an Xbox Live Arcade game, is a great, recent example of a Metroid-alike). When you can go all the way through a game and come out the other side with an array of maneuvers and equipment that let you take every shortcut, open every door and breeze past obstacles with ease, it's very rewarding for the player, and even the simple task of gathering leftover powerups, exploring the whole map or participating in minigame challenges become a satisfying experience. Other good examples include Blaster Master for the NES, Spider-Man 2 for Xbox and the Fable games. Just romping around and revisiting old areas with your fully powered-up self becomes an absolute joy in those games, and you can bring all your great abilities to bear in pursuit of mundane tasks, including hunting down secrets.

It's also nice to include a threshold after which the player gets help with the little silly achievement stuff and the OCD-inducing nits that he must pick. Super Metroid had a visor upgrade that you could use to quickly scan a room for fragile walls or hidden items, saving you the trouble of bombing every single tile. Shadow Complex starts you out with a flashlight that can cue you in on what weapon or tool you need to get through a door or obstacle, and when you reach a point in your character development, it unlocks the entire map and puts little question marks on rooms that have points of interest in them. If only GTA would have given me a little Dragonball Radar that points out the damn pigeons and clamshells and whatever else they hid around town. Nobody finds those without GameFAQs anyway.

Do you expect the average player to play through your game more than once? I don't personally replay linear games, with a few exceptions. I also am often disappointed to find an interesting-looking area in a game but it doesn't _do_ anything.

If you do want to put bonus content in your game, here's my suggestion: make it only available after the player has beaten the game once, and make it change the story, because the most unpleasant thing about replaying a game is being unable to prevent mistakes/disasters/tragedies in the story that you logically ought to be able to avoid since you've seen them once. Time loop stories have tremendous replayability if you can actually make things happen, and your successive replays actually add up to some kind of meaningful progress.

I find it odd that the attention given to games created in the 80's is
not the same as it is today.

In the past I would play for the high score or replay the game to find secrets areas. Many of my friends would do the same thing with their Nintendo games.

With todays games that NEVER happens. Perhaps it's because games are far
too forgiving and high scores and secret areas don't mean anything.

In the past character death meant that you had to start over from the beginning of the game. That made finding secret areas more important. People judged your skill at a game based on the high score or how far you got.

Today people don't beat the game they simply run through the content like automatons. From that experience they get their unlocked features and it makes them feel good about themselves. That doesn't however mean that they are good at the game and it doesn't encourage them to be good either.

That's a good observation. Game reviews today often say, "60 hours of content" or something like that. I probably put 100 hours or more into Battletoads, and I never beat that damn game. Same goes for Blaster Master and Double Dragon and Ikari Warriors and Castlevania 2 and dozens of others, even with Nintendo Power open on my lap. It's just so hard, and you run out of guys, and if one kid at your school beat it, you'd invite him over to your house so you could see the ending.

The Smash Bothers Brawl story mode is like that. Even on the easiest difficulty, I probably used four or five continues to get all the way through it, and if it had a 3-continue limit like so many of the old games had, I'd never see the final boss.

That's a little off-topic, though.