Well, this forum has died down significantly since a month a ago so how about some friendly crossfire on hidden buttons?
To start, I'm an Anti-fan of hidden buttons unless in extremely reasonable circumstances, and even then will not use a Secret Button. If it's part of a puzzle or progression [of any type] the notion to apply something "hidden" never arises. I always try to present dungeon progression as logical path, though with obfuscation, markers, story presentation, or visual representation.
With that said, I don't mind a module to have secret buttons either as long as it's a reoccurring mechanic that represents a facet of progression. So if I find one hidden button I expect to find another one some time down the adventuring path, as well. So basically, if I were to use secret buttons "I will want this to be a mechanic applicable to certain actions and events to keep concurrency."
While I very much enjoyed the campaign there was instance this occurred I thought the use of secret button was out of place. I don't remember the map name but the puzzle dealt with two movable push_blocks and the only way to solve it was to open a secret door and get behind it. Well, I could plainly see I needed to get on the other side of the wall but being I wasn't aware of "forest" type of secret buttons I was looking for much more complex ways of getting behind the wall instead of strafing around looking at every pixel of every texture.
My follow-up: all modules that have secret buttons "probably" should tell the user there will be secret buttons without getting into too many details. Modules that do not use secret buttons "always" should state up front there are no secret buttons (or at least in the case the secret buttons are never part of progression).
So, what do you onThink?
Re: Debate: Secret buttons
I feel like Secret Buttons can benefit a dungeon if used sparingly and correctly.
When playing through pretty much any dungeon there seems to be a motif that somebody set the dungeon up as some sort of trial. In Grimrock 1 there was a note Toorum left saying how the whole thing seemed like some sort of test and in Grimrock 2 the Island Master pretty much directly said the island was a trial. With this in mind, when making my own dungeon I've made the areas that are opened up with secret buttons appear as though they were not intended by the "dungeon masters" for any reason. In one instance a prisoner says he has nearly finished tunneling his way out of his cell. When the player obviously sees there is no tunnel in the cell they will likely take a closer look around the cell. When they find the secret button it feels like they are breaking into an unintended part of the dungeon, and I imagine it feels cool to break the bounds of the dungeon set by the "dungeon masters".
Of course, this falls into the same category NutJob made of leaving some sort of hint towards the button, and I agree that this is a good way to use secret buttons, but not all of the secret buttons in my dungeon are hinted towards through some sort of letter or clue. One of the motifs in my dungeon is also puzzles that are simple at first and solvable at a simple level, but go further and reward the player for taking the puzzle one or multiple, steps further.
My best example of this is a simple button that makes a daemon head shoot a blob at the player. The easy, and only necessary solution, is to simply move out of the way of the blob and let it hit the receptor to open a wooden door. The player can then immediately move onto the next puzzle, but an observant player will notice that as the wooden door opens, a secret door closes right behind it. Reactivating the receptor toggles the two doors. The smart player would then figure out that if they shoot the blob while the wooden door is open, then walk through the door while the blob is still traveling, they can then access the area behind the secret door. While not accessed by a secret button itself, this area behind the secret door goes into my aforementioned "unintended part of the dungeon," as accessing the area is relatively tricky compared to what is required to progress through the normal dungeon.
Because of this, when I needed to use a button in this secret part of the dungeon, I felt it would be most appropriate for a secret button, as a normal button makes it seem as though this part of the dungeon was intended to be stumbled upon by the "dungeon masters." When placing this button, I was sure to make it the only thing in the secret area to find. This way, the player knows there has to be something to look for behind the door, otherwise the secret the player had to cleverly get into would have nothing at all. Also, the total space this secret area covers is a single 5 tile long hallway, so there isn't too much area to look in. So while the button was not hinted towards with an in-game clue, I felt it was the most appropriate button for the region was a secret button and not a normal one.
tl;dr I use secret buttons in my dungeon for design purposes, that are probably so needlessly complicated that the average player would not even notice them. (But I still feel thinking too deeply into the design of the dungeon helps overall)
When playing through pretty much any dungeon there seems to be a motif that somebody set the dungeon up as some sort of trial. In Grimrock 1 there was a note Toorum left saying how the whole thing seemed like some sort of test and in Grimrock 2 the Island Master pretty much directly said the island was a trial. With this in mind, when making my own dungeon I've made the areas that are opened up with secret buttons appear as though they were not intended by the "dungeon masters" for any reason. In one instance a prisoner says he has nearly finished tunneling his way out of his cell. When the player obviously sees there is no tunnel in the cell they will likely take a closer look around the cell. When they find the secret button it feels like they are breaking into an unintended part of the dungeon, and I imagine it feels cool to break the bounds of the dungeon set by the "dungeon masters".
Of course, this falls into the same category NutJob made of leaving some sort of hint towards the button, and I agree that this is a good way to use secret buttons, but not all of the secret buttons in my dungeon are hinted towards through some sort of letter or clue. One of the motifs in my dungeon is also puzzles that are simple at first and solvable at a simple level, but go further and reward the player for taking the puzzle one or multiple, steps further.
My best example of this is a simple button that makes a daemon head shoot a blob at the player. The easy, and only necessary solution, is to simply move out of the way of the blob and let it hit the receptor to open a wooden door. The player can then immediately move onto the next puzzle, but an observant player will notice that as the wooden door opens, a secret door closes right behind it. Reactivating the receptor toggles the two doors. The smart player would then figure out that if they shoot the blob while the wooden door is open, then walk through the door while the blob is still traveling, they can then access the area behind the secret door. While not accessed by a secret button itself, this area behind the secret door goes into my aforementioned "unintended part of the dungeon," as accessing the area is relatively tricky compared to what is required to progress through the normal dungeon.
Because of this, when I needed to use a button in this secret part of the dungeon, I felt it would be most appropriate for a secret button, as a normal button makes it seem as though this part of the dungeon was intended to be stumbled upon by the "dungeon masters." When placing this button, I was sure to make it the only thing in the secret area to find. This way, the player knows there has to be something to look for behind the door, otherwise the secret the player had to cleverly get into would have nothing at all. Also, the total space this secret area covers is a single 5 tile long hallway, so there isn't too much area to look in. So while the button was not hinted towards with an in-game clue, I felt it was the most appropriate button for the region was a secret button and not a normal one.
tl;dr I use secret buttons in my dungeon for design purposes, that are probably so needlessly complicated that the average player would not even notice them. (But I still feel thinking too deeply into the design of the dungeon helps overall)
