scampie!!

Probably the most frustrating way to hide a secret is to have a path split and have one path be to a secret and another path be the way forward, especially if that path locks behind you when you take it. I'm also not a huge fan of any secret where you just have to rub your face on every wall to find a hidden pathway.

Personally, I like secrets when they're telegraphed by something that appears innocuous unless you know what to look for. Cocoon does this by having Fznyy oynpx sreebsyhvq-yvxr gbjref ng gur fvqr bs n fperra jurer n frperg vf.

Generally, if a secret is going to have interesting content behind it, like a character moment or worldbuilding, I want to be easily able to go back and get it if I find out I missed it later! Being locked out or practically locked out of seeing something cool really bums me out. It actually stopped my first playthrough of Bloodborne cold when an NPC joined me in a fight I wasn't expecting, died because I didn't know what I was doing, and then I couldn't see any of the rest of her story.

since metroidvanias are popular these days, i think secrets should make it obvious if they are possible to do right now. sometimes, i would waste time doing a secret not realizing i needed a tool from a future game state.

Might be a hot take but secrets you can naturaly figure out without doing stuff outside the game like not having to do ARG stuff and doing qbar code scanning stuff like how Fez needs you to go use your phone to do that shit and if you have to use like multiple screenshots from random rooms to piece stuff together to find a vague secret from a vague hint.

Keeping it as much in the actualy game and its mechanics and its rules/logic so mostly what tunic seems to do techinaly.

I love patterns. I love the secret exits in Super Mario World - there's an obvious but unexplained indicator (the level marker is red instead of yellow) that there's a secret in here somewhere, but you don't know where. But then the ghost houses go beyond that pattern - they have no indicator red or yellow, so you don't know if there's a secret there, but it doesn't break the pattern, it sidesteps it. It feels good because it's systematic - you're not just exploring the space but also the system. (To be fair, I played with no manual, maybe the manual explains these markers.)

I like when a game teaches you that a particular configuration is likely to have a secret. (E.g. Mario doesn't hide invisible power-up blocks indiscriminately, there are patterns to look for.)

I like when the reward for a secret feels special. New abilities are probably the most exciting, followed by hidden parts of the game. Fragments of plot or world-building are good. Game resources like 1-ups or money are the least exciting. Collecting hidden big coins in the New Super Mario Bros games is a fun challenge but doesn't feel magical and certainly doesn't feel secret.

I love finding unspoken clues in one part of a game (or manual) to use somewhere else. Like, they don't explicitly say they're a clue, but they stand out in some way and demonstrate a configuration or a shape or a technique that you can use somewhere else.

I like when a game has systems that encourage you to think about them and to wonder "what would happen if these two things happened at the same time". Where the game gives you an itch because you understand how two subsystems work independently but can't reason about how they will interact, and then you realise you have to go out of your way to do so, and that the game is challenging you to find a way to do that.

I don't like explicit indicators of what you're missing on the first playthrough. I sometimes like when there's some kind of mopping up mechanism that you can use towards the end of a game to help find stuff you missed. Though I also don't love achievement systems and think at least some secrets should be excluded entirely from anything tracking how much you've done and seen.

I will try to remember good secrets in games. I remember I liked Fez but it was so long ago I played that I don't remember the details.

I did like how the Anodyne games did it where you felt like you were breaking the game.

the secret character in RoRR is something you could probably put together if you played the game enough, but the lengths Hopoo is going to make sure people have to interact with other players is kinda rad lmao
like someone made a page for the secret character on the official wiki and like within the hour it was deleted cos they wanna keep it a secret

secrets are really hard in games that aren't about secrets. when you're allowed to just do them, the payoff can be so huge. just, look at all of Void Stranger. or my favourite moment from The Outer Wilds, when lbh svanyyl fbyir gur zlfgrel bs gur dhnaghz zbba; lbh znantrq gb ynaq ba vg, ragre gur gbjre, naq gnxr gur gbjre gb gur zbba'f cbyr. Lbh rzretr va n arj ybpngvba, gur Rlr bs gur Havirefr--gur guvat lbh'ir ernq fb zhpu nobhg!--bireurnq. Naq... lbh zrrg bar bs gur cebtravgbe enpr, jubfr jevgvatf lbh'ir orra fpnaavat naq genafyngvat. Naq lbh trg gb gnyx gb gurz. Vg'f na vafnar cnlbss gb n ybat fgevat bs frpergf, chmmyrf, naq pheironyyf.

something i don't think i've seen done, but that sounds really cool in my head: in a character-driven game, an extra scene hidden behind acting in-character during an otherwise unremarkable scene.

your main protagonist is in a relationship and her gf is sad for some reason or other. it's a short walking section where you just go to her to talk and initiate the rest of the scene. except you can go make her a snack. just a random interactable off to the side. this was earlier established (casually) as a thing you would do.

this is something that's been bouncing around in my head since I played Adios and read the creator talk about his thought process behind it.

my overall fav as a mechanics-oriented player is the "movement tech check". some pickup or door or w/e is in plain sight (more or less). the secret isn't knowing that it's there, it's getting to it. your character can get to it, but can you, with your current knowledge? the danger here is, if it isn't clear whether you could do it, people might try to do it when they can't. the metroidvania problem, basically.

but man, if doing shinespark carry puzzles in Metroid: Dread didn't make feel like an absolute ultragenius!

I'm ambivalent about the iconic game reference. My go-to example is Celeste: Bar bs Pryrfgr'f pelfgny urnegf vf n (V guvax) Fhcre Znevb Oebf. 3 ersrerapr, jurer lbh pebhpu (VVEP) va sebag bs n crphyvne oybpx naq gryrcbeg vagb gur onpxtebhaq.

maybe i'm just mad it was one I didn't get, and maybe there's more i can't think of right now where i immediately got it and just went "nod neat."

i think reading back what i wrote, my overall stance is that "the best secrets are slightly camouflaged puzzles".