It was pointed out to me this week that I missed some areas in Uncertainty Principle in my video playthrough, which is always a possibility when doing live playthroughs as you don’t want to bore the viewers too much.
Anyway, I am sure there have been plenty of mods released with hidden areas and secrets etc. The question is whether a mod author should eventually tell people about them. I feel they should but not necessarily in a readme.txt file or in the credits. I do feel that a player should be told exactly how many secrets there are though, as that encourages players to replay mods.
If my memory serves me correctly, The Citizen Returns had a system of 15 EEs to collect or maybe it was the first release. Anybody remember? I like that idea a lot, although it needs to be implemented really well to ensure it’s not frustrating. For example, letting a player know when the are about to leave an area that can not be returned to that has an EE they missed.
I’d love to hear mod authors’ point of view on this, as well as players of course.
Yeah, it should, because finding these easter eggs is always satisfying to me. I remember playing through Half-Rats yesterday and I found the C-Man watching me. That was really cool.
I’ve been working on a mod and during a play testing session a friend was able to get on a roof I hadn’t intended for players to be on. Rather than restrict access to that spot, I put a little easter egg in there to reward the player for be able to think out of the box.
That being said, as someone making a mod I like the idea of being able to reward player’s exploration with extra stuff and I think telling them after a while where the hidden stuff is and why it’s in there would kill the point of adding them in.
Easter eggs can give the player a peek into the thought process of building a mod and when the player finds one, they’ll probably want to go back and find the others, thus expanding the re play-ability of the mod with new secrets to find on every run.
Good question. While as a player I’d say Easter eggs should be found rather than exposed, I certainly understand why authors want to highlight them, especially if it took them some effort or trouble to hide them. I’m no modder, but God knows how obnoxious I’ve been in the past trying to shed light into little Easter eggs I hid in my stuff. I’m like the worst case scenario for that.
I’d suggest that, if the author truly wants players to find them, a good way would be to announce the existence of Easter eggs after the first playthrough. As in, the player is not told at all about the secrets or Easter eggs until they’ve beaten the game once, and then perhaps some message or something tells them there are secrets left to find.
Alternatively, if those could be implemented somehow, an Achievement system that hints at the Easter eggs and rewards players for finding them would be even better.
Some mods have a ‘you have found x thing! look for others!’ and I like that a lot. I do also like the idea of when you’re leaving an area you cannot return to, having a bit of warning that there is something there (like Bioshock did) but that to me is slightly more intrusive than having already found something and being made aware that there are others. A series of notes maybe, in the real world we have geocaching, leaving bits and bobs behind, and clues to go forward on your searching. I can’t see why that wouldn’t be something to do in a map or mod.
Hell Gmod has an entire game mode dedicated to it, why not? 🙂
That said I don’t think I want to know where they are, only that they’re around and at least one of them should be reasonably easy to find – so you know what you’re looking for in the future.
I like the hint idea. That could be done well with custom audio logs or something. Maybe even writing on the walls, like “hey, Gary, I left a shotgun by our old hangout spot, you know where to look.” Or maybe something more visual, akin to Lambda Logos, like corpses in odd places. Maybe have look outs to places the player’s already been too, they’re just seen in such a way that the secret is revealed (without revealing how to get it), so the player thinks “next time I’ll get that.”
What Zekiran said….
I can share the locations of the easter eggs in Uncertainty Principle if you’d like…
EDIT: SPOILERS TAG DIDN’T WORK FOR SOME REASON!
I know of a few;
Firstly; on the title there’s a vort behind the rocks, static gnomes can be found around the varous maps and on the airboat segment there’s a hidden room with borealis graffiti.
There’s also probably one for getting the gnome to the end but I lost it at a point of no return
I think its really interesting when Easter eggs is revealed by a player years after release. Like Halo: Combat Evolved. If you start the game on a specific day and wait a time in the start menu, you can see a subtle congratulation message for a birthday for the wife of a developer.
Its not a easter egg if someone tells you where it is. I mean, it still is, but its not fun to play Hide and Seek if everyone tells you where they are hiding, right?
The Citizen had 15 EEs to collect with actual EE icons next to them.
The Citizen Returns, on the other hand, has a collection of 16 letters written by an unknown rebel to his brother, explaining a side-story of sorts. The system has its share of problems, but the fact that there’s only one per map and is often associated to mailboxes makes it somewhat of an easier hunt.
Originally it was going to affect the final outcome of the mod, but like many other ideas it never came to fruition.