After 24 years, Doom II's final secret has been found | Hacker News Reader

After 24 years, Doom II's final secret has been found

rockpapershotgun.com

529 pointssmacktoward131 comments

This would be a good time to remind everyone to read the book Masters of Doom. Such a great story of how these games came to be.

I recommend the book too. It is a great story on how passion drove the development of such great games.

I was sad when I read the book. I remember reading about how Carmack and Romero drifted apart. Though the consensus seems to be that it was better for id that Romero left, I believe that their games could have been so much more creative had things turned out otherwise.

Some of the greatest archievments are accomplished with people forced to work together who ditest one another. The creative Chaos needed to tell great stories, to leap beyond the barriers of imagination so far ruffles the feathers of those determined to keep everything efficient and on track, those responsible for planning and executing the techno-magic.

The creatives meanwhile rebell against the final say they never will have in such a project, to avoid it beeing burried by daydreams.

This is what a good manager actually does- keeping a volatile mixture of people detached just enough to avoid a catastrophe - and close enough to harness all the beneficial reactions. Like a force field contained fission reactor on leg.

Well said. It was a little sad to read that there is such a feud between them in the later years knowing that these games shaped some of our lives. Before reading this book I had no prior knowledge of what happened at the company during those days. It's also interesting to see what each person ended up doing later in their career.

Fantastic

Thanks for the recommendation, I checked out the book (I had never heard of it) and it does sound interesting, by chance have you listened to the audiobook? It’s read by Wesley and I haven’t listened to any audiobooks read by him. (https://www.audible.com.au/pd/Masters-of-Doom-Audiobook/B00F...)

It may be a regional difference, but the link goes to a book narrated by Wil Wheaton for me. I found Wheaton's narration to be a great listen. He's not the slow-paced, calm narrator you will find in many other non-fiction audiobooks, but rather an enthusiastic storyteller. For this book, I think it was a good fit.

Wesley Crusher is a character in Star Trek: TNG played by Wil Wheaton.

That explains! Thanks for pointing it out.

Thanks for the advice / review, yes I was referring to Wheaton - as @chaosite mentioned he’s most well known for playing Wesley on Star Trek TNG.

Wil Wheaton did quite a few good audiobooks. I also liked "What If?" and "Ready Player One". Even though I normally prefer to read a book myself.

Thanks for the input, I wasn’t sure how he’d be to listen to.

Wil is a very good audiobook narrator and does a fine job reading this audiobook. I listened to it a year or so ago and it was extremely entertaining.

Thanks for the advice / review!

If we're talking about Wil Wheaton I'll also suggest giving Ready Player One a try. It's a short but very enjoyable book and Wil does a great job at bringing it to life.

Somewhat related - "Game Engine Black Book: Wolfenstein 3D" [1], by Fabien Sanglard.

Of course this is a very different book: it includes detailed reviews of the engine's source code, and translates complex concepts with ease. Plus the print edition is beautiful and colorful (which is a must for a game book).

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Game-Engine-Black-Book-Wolfenstein/dp...

It's incredible, even if you don't like Doom or ID Software, it's still a good read.

Read it earlier this year. Surely one of the better books I have read in this year so far!

I second this comment. I own Masters of Doom, and have read it 4 times. I've never read any other book more than once.

I had forgotten just how fast Doomguy ran. Compared to modern shooters its like he's playing on fast forward. Good thing too since that level is so massive.

I also remember how bullshit the par times were on each map.

I was thinking that too. It's bought up a lot if you watch retro gaming videos that talk about this era. Doom was an incredibly fast game. It's pretty technically amazing to think about how the game was constructed to run so smoothly on a 386.

The game can still be jump-scary after all these years with the way the levels and sound effects are designed.

>The game can still be jump-scary

Isnt it amazing how some of these old games with relatively small budgets, teams, and difficult dev tools still seemed to capture great design characteristics, artwork and creativity?

The Game Engine Black Book by Fabien Sanglard[1] is a wonderful book that talks about some of the engineering challenges and tricks employed by id software to get Wolfenstein 3D working.

[1]: http://fabiensanglard.net/Game_Engine_Black_Book_Release/ind...

Same here. I definitely missed zooming across maps like CS' surf, Q3's defrag or Tribe's skiing. Is there any good fast paced modern game with good movements? And is there any with a decent single player experience?

Anarki in quake champions can move pretty fast. No single player though.

I've basically stuck to certain Q3/idtech3 games for that reason, they have pretty low player counts these days but the combination of skill involved in moving in these games combined with strategy is something i've not found in any modern games yet... I think most people would be too put off by them "not looking good enough" though.

I play urbanTerror (for the jumping element) and OA for similar reasons but mainly in railjump mode which can get crazy fast. Both of these make the original Q3 look slow!

Rail wars?

Wasn't familiar with it but had a look at some videos, it's similar in that it's also basically Q3A even some of the same maps and that it's rail, but the dynamic changes so much when you can rail-jump and rail-push (your team-mates), it's difficult to effectively describe and I can't find videos, maybe it's worth recording some time.

Afair it was possible to rail jump in rail warz. But maybe I’m confusing it with other mods. It was long ago.

But the grapple hook travel was dope and super speedy.

Edit: not possible to rail jump. But the laser grapple is the killer feature.

I always played the capture the flag version. The speed and precision of it was what really got me into it.

> Tribe's skiing. Is there any good fast paced modern game with good movements?

Well there's a modern tribes (ascend?) which is that same concept. Idk if you call it "good" movements, that's a personal thing, some people never get the hang of it.

Not single player though.

Have you tried Warframe? Tribes was a direct inspiration I think?

Skill movement is integral to high-level Soldier or Demoman play in Team Fortress 2, a game which is for most effective purposes a Quake (1) mod: bunny-hopping is defanged but explosive-jumping is as important as ever https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU-N2iWbhsY . The game also used to have a significant competitive jumping community: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAEOiIF8Piw

Not exactly what you're asking for, but the Brutal Doom mod makes Doom even faster and more difficult. Due to the speed and accuracy of mouse input, it's still quite winnable and very fun.

I will also randomly recommend Overload, Descent successor in everything but name. Movement isn't super fast but you sometimes need to waste the robots very quickly to avoid getting overwhelmed, or decide on a tactical retreat in a split second.

I personally like more Complex Doom. Modernizes weapons mechanics and adds random monsters variations.

Natural Selection 2. https://unknownworlds.com/ns2/

The Marine team plays much like a slow modern shooter, but the aliens move very fast, and each type of alien has a different movement mechanic for building and maintaining speed.

https://youtu.be/SbmH7mThwCU

Titanfall 2 has one of the best single-player campaign in recent shooters. You are highly mobile and it's possible (and expected) to parkour your way across multiplayer maps.

Warframe is different, it's focused on PvE (although there's a PvP mode if that's your thing). The premise is simple, you are a space ninja with supernatural abilities and you kill hundreds on enemies on each mission. The game is complex and you'll need to read the community wiki to understand some things, but the experience can be very rewarding.

I did enjoy Titanfall 2's single player campaign. The cinematics were quite amazing, almost as good as the cinematic feel of Mass Effect 3.

The trouble with it was that it was waaay too short. There are only 9 single player levels. I realize the game is geared towards multiplayer, but I honestly couldn't even get into multiplayer. Everyone was so good it made multiplayer insanely difficult. You pretty much have to be able to beat the game on hard to even begin in the multiplayer space, or grind a shit ton to get powerups.

On the flipside, I really appreciate a short but sweet single player campaign. Titanfall 2 had some truly awesome levels (time travel!) and ended when it had said what it wanted to say. I really dislike games that feel drawn out like too little butter on too much toast (some JRPGs come to mind..).

Oh man surfing on cs or cs:s.. those were some of the most fun moments I had in gaming. Also got about 2.5k hours surfing across those games :p

I do prefer faster paced games. Instagib jk2 especially though that might be the nostalgia taking.

Quake Champions - free to play on steam.

Quake Live also has very nice race mode, clone of defrag, and of course, defrag servers are still alive and have players on them!

Doom didn't run all that smoothly on a 386. A 486 was the 'recommended' system on the box.

Try Quake Champions :) Very fast and responsive.

I can assure you the par times are more than achievable. And I’m not a speed-runner by any stretch of the imagination.

Here’s the details: It’s only achievable on Hurt Me Plenty.* You have to start with the pistol: carry-over is cheating. If you’re having trouble, switch on invulnerability to plan out your route. Many peoples routes through levels are too slow.

A great example of the last one: in suburbs there’s a teleporter that take you up really high. It’s heavily used to kill spider demons on Ultraviolence. However, if you go _backwards_ from there, you skip 80% of the level. So the path is:

Pick up final key: clean out the ledge near the start “enough” then use the teleporter to go right to the end of the level.

Oh yes, and auto-aim is amazingly forgiving, you really don’t need to line up your shots especially when the monsters are close and there’s lots of them.

*Some are doable on UV, but sometime you literally can’t shoot them fast enough. However, there’s a separate UV challenge: get 100% kills starting with the pistol. This is easier than the par times (modulo monsters that clip out of the map).

Also if you move at a 45° angle you go even faster!

Maybe not quite as fast as Doom, but imo Serious Sam is up there too.

The old FPS games were much more like the bullet-hell shooter games, in 3D and without the spaceships, than like modern shooters.

I think Serious Sam was the last time I played that style of shooter, and while I've enjoyed tons of modern FPS games, they feel very different.

The latest Doom games (the ones after Doom 3, confusingly titled Doom and the upcoming Doom Eternal) do a great job combining that old-school shooter gameplay with more modern elements. I highly recommend them!

This reminds me of a quick in Kings Quest, which let you walk across the water to the island by ducking while slipping down the embankment. Apparently you couldn't duck and drown at the same time.

Haha, I remember playing a rpg game where you had to kill this undead boss, it's kinda hard but it turns out if you cast heal on him it killed him in 1 hit.

(spoiler alert) there is an undead boss in Final Fantasy 8 who is incredibly hard but can be killed using a "Phoenix down" (which is an item that revives dead players). As a kid, I got a real kick out of it.

And in FFX...underwater resurrected dragon, dead with two Phoenix Downs.

I remember fighting hard through that train level and being down to just a single Phoenix down for my battered party and no healing potions when that boss appeared. It was a kind of "here goes nothing" moment and I was so relieved when it worked.

It's a great Hail Mary play and I appreciate how well it works. I remember an LPer or reviewer (much the same honestly) was able to use L Mag-RF and Triple Triad to get Raise at that point, and that worked out pretty much the same. I do remember the first time I ever played it; I was honestly a little freaked out by that, "YounG LADY!?" line. For all the criticisms people level at FF8, there were several very well-scripted moments throughout the game that really got their intended mood across even in text.

Spoiler alert in FF2, IMO the single best RPG ever created in the history of history, there were a number of enemies that you could only kill by first casting a wall on one of your party then bouncing a spell off that wall onto the enemy. Great times...

Secrets of Mana, and Chronos Trigger, are my favourites.

As well as Shinning Force, Breath of Fire, Phantasy Star, and Illusion of Gaia.

Oh yes, Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana! So good! By the way: Octopath Traveler came out for Nintendo Switch a few weeks ago and is awesome (a modern JRPG). Its stories are good but not as deep. Gameplay and music are really great.

Planning to get it at end of October. Can't wait. Everyone has nothing but good things to say.

The music is phenomenal. Soundtracks are floating around on YouTube and such if you don't have time to play the game. I found it great to listen to while working.

I just replayed Secret of Mana on an original SNES co-op with my spouse and it was truly awesome. Many people who have played a lot of JRPGs still haven't played it.

And I'll second the Octopath Traveler recommendation!

Yep. The game had a “Wall” effect which would bounce any spell you cast on them back on yourself.

But, what if both the players and the monsters both had Wall active? That situation would have an infinite recursion problem. The solution for the game was to say that a spell could only bounce once. That solution led naturally to monsters that always had Wall up and would cast a lot of spells so that you could defeat them by using Wall on yourself.

For clarification to slightly younger readers who may not immediately think of it, unless this same boss style is repeated (which I don't believe is the case), you're talking about North America's original FF2 / Japan and modern release FF4 on the SNES starring Cecil & Co. with the first big appearance of the ATB gauge, not Japan & Modern NES FF2 starring Firion & Co. with the per-weapon experience and code-word system, correct?

Sorry, no disrespect meant — I couldn’t help but read this paragraph in my head as The Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy.

None taken! I know I sound pedantic, but I sincerely meant it to help anyone who grew up post-FF7.

This is actually what you are meant to do when you go to “purgatory” in MGS3. After walking up a river and meeting the souls of every single person you’ve killed that game, there is a boss who is already dead (so it is impossible to kill him).

The only way to win is to die and get a game over screen. THEN use a revival pill!

And Final Fantasy IX with soulcage. An undead tree weak to fire, but if launched a fire based attack at him, he would power up greatly. But since he was an undead, a phoenix down or any reviving spell would kill him instantly

Was it Final Fantasy VI (also known as Final Fantasy III in the US)? There's definitely a boss in that game that can be 1-shot with Phoenix Down.

The phantom train in VI/III, yea.

Hmmmm I don't think it was FF. It was on SNES. Trying to find the name.

Edit: mate said "Most likely FF Mystic Quest. Heal 2 different bone skeletons to kill."

Mystic Quest came to mind for me too, but I was thinking one of the final bosses takes 9999 damage if you use a heal spell on him. You have to do it a few times to kill him.

Final Fantasy VI/III was a SNES game. The other 2 SNES Final Fantasy games were Final Fantasy IV (Final Fantasy II in the US) and Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.

Great, yet common trope with a long history in fantasy RPGs:

http://allthetropes.wikia.com/wiki/Revive_Kills_Zombie

Most Final Fantasy undead monsters are vulnerable to healing or life-giving magic/items.

I think there were also some games where this happened accidentally... you'd have a difficult boss with 32767HP, cast heal on that, and surprise integer underflow.

There was a part in Kings Quest where I got stuck trying to cross a bridge from an island, and one of the planks kept falling out, and no matter what it seemed like I couldn't get by. Never played it again after trying what I felt like was everything...

I think that was in KQ4? Those games were all pretty much impossible to solve without a hint book or getting help on Prodigy/Compuserve back in the day.

The first one had a bridge that you could only cross once. Any subsequent times it would collapse. Really nasty "puzzle", especially in a semi-open map game.

thank you. that was a lifetime ago, but I feel like my life is more complete. :)

I believe that same logic was used in Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail.

I'm a grown man but Doom 2 still manages to scare me at times, I think that's a testament to the games level design, sounds and monsters.

The newest Doom was more like Quake and I didn't find many jump scares, still loved it though.

Just curious: what did you think of Doom 3, if you’ve played that? As I remember it, Doom 3 was far more influenced by horror as a genre than Doom (2016) was.

Doom 3 was really hard for me to play, I had to get the torch mod so that the battery never ran out :)

Doom 3 is great, but a very different type of horror game. Suspense more than jump scare, because of the pacing difference and how they play with the lighting.

Cheap scare tactics, painfully slow cinematic gameplay, boring level design and repetitive fights.

I made it about two thirds in until I had to give up for sheer disappointment. Disclaimer: I still play Doom and Doom 2 occasionally. Those are really good instinctive games to play while you're thinking of a problem. You basically focus on the tactical gameplay and at the same time free your mind to think freely about the solution.

I assume with cheats like noclip and the source dumps people knew about the secret area since forever. But were just never able to figure out you had to be pushed by an enemy to activate the teleport to it.

second paragraph:

"Prepare to put your Doom Pedantry Hat on for this one, because the secret has been known, and considered a bug."

I was curious about that. Did they mean that they knew where the secret was but not how to trigger it, or that people already knew how to trigger it?

And to be fair, finding the secret is often only half the challenge, actually getting it is the hard part. And I'm assuming this "bug" was intended, I doubt they would design the game with an intentionally impossible level to 100%.

Ya, it's not clear if they intended for the workaround or not.

It was a mapping error. If the engine works completely correctly, it would be impossible to flag the secret sector as found.

However, Doom has bugs... so it actually turns out to be possible to trigger it.

My guess is that a secret was placed there but the room was different, and playtested this way, then it was modified to add an elevator, but not playtested for the secret then, and the thing slipped through and sticked. Or that for some reason at a given point during playtesting the engine had a bug that would allow the secret to be triggered, and a later global fix for that situation made the secret impossible to trigger.

You clearly didn’t read the article.

So? He's better for it since he exercized his brain and the resulting educated guess is correct.

Wait, from what is implied by the creator's tweet, this was the intended method for getting the secret?

He says "Great trick getting to that secret!" - which seems to imply that it wasn't intentional at all.

I wonder if during that level design the devs were like, "This will be a tricky once, because you have to be pushed by a monster," and then totally forgot about it, under the mess over hundreds of other tasks to complete.

Maybe it was intentional and it was just so long ago, no one remembered it?

Seems weird if there's no reward for getting it though. In the original version there isn't even a message that pops up.

More likely that the devs were like: "Hey, lets put a secret in that no one can get, so when they won't be able to find it, they'll lose their minds"

Or simply, a secret was placed there but the room was different, then it was modified to add an elevator, forgetting about the secret being therefore unreachable.

There is also a bunch of stuff about the person getting to 100% on that level winning, so maybe it was intentional? I don't know.

He’s joking, it’s a reference to something his dismembered head says in the final level of the game

/edit: “To win the game you must kill me, John Romero”

Wait, you must kill John Romero, or John Romero must kill you? Commas are awesome!

At the end of doom 2 that is the annoucement (backwards). See https://youtu.be/9v_0HD7iOz4?t=304

Yes, I know, but commas!

To win the game you must kill me: John Romero

Not so much the commas, as the lack of declensions.

- You must kill me, Ioannes (vocative: John must kill you)

- You must kill me, Ioannem (accusative: John must be killed)

I very much doubt it, because unmodified DooM doesn't display the message about secret areas. There's only summary at the end of the level, on the score screen. So the only way to find this secret would be to complete the level with fewer than ALL secrets, then rerun the level and get actually ALL secrets (not necessarily in this order), then DEDUCE that despite getting the full secret score you didn't actually get to visit one extra area... then keep replaying the level essentially blind and randomly try very silly things until you isolate the one that triggers the secret and gets you there. Cheat codes would be most helpful for reducing the time needed in vanilla game, but is any secret supposed to need cheat codes to find initially???

https://github.com/chocolate-doom/chocolate-doom/issues/248

Sorry I'm confused a bit by your comment, can you elaborate:

> then DEDUCE that despite getting the full secret score you didn't actually get to visit one extra area...

I thought that before this, the highest secret score you could get at the end was 90%. Are you saying that this secret is extra, and you can get 100% without doing this?

I was confused. I thought everyone was getting 100% by default but unable to access the hidden room. I don't have DII installed at the moment.

It might have been one of those abusable game mechanics or behaviors (like movement that allows bunnyhopping etc) that no one got around fixing. If this is the case it is what I would call a "real" secret - it is not enough to look at the source code, open a map file, or use noclip to crack it, you have to understand how the game works.

Brings back memories. As a kid, my only chance to play Doom was on a computer in the electronics dept at Sears, at the mall. Good times.

the video linked in the article brings back a lot of good memory of the touch and feel of DOOM's shotgun, it is by far the best weapon in all FPS games. ;)

Agreed, seeing the run thru my mind kept going back to the "keyboard feel", for lack of how better to describe it, from playing it and the muscle memories associated. I was 17 when I was playing this game, there are other oddly specific memories associated with the game/time too, cranking Pearl Jam or Pantera while playing it and annoying the shit out of my parents... good times.

I kinda liked the double shotgun, it really packed a punch.

half rocket damage, if I remember correctly.

Fun read.

Been a longtime DOOM fan. I can bet that there are secrets like this hidden in the most recent DOOM game, and expect the same for DOOM Eternal.

The attention to detail that game developers have is unreal.

Wow! That is probably one of my favorite levels in Doom 2 as well. I love music too: a knock off version of Hangar 18

My favourite track

https://youtu.be/TnzRBZd5_uA

PSU early to mid 90's, this is what we did. Doom, Doom 2, multiplayers, seeing this made my day!

I find it funny that I feel Doom 2 is still more fearful than playing any far more realistic modern versions of Doom. Not sure why.

Also balance was awesome when even a shotgun guy at the wrong time can be critical to you.

Romero's claim that this was intentional stretches credulity.

I'm not sure he says it's intentional at all. He says "Great trick getting to that secret!" - which seems to imply that it wasn't intentional at all.

I take it to mean not getting to it was intentional.

And gamers have done amazing things for years.

This gets done, and Romero expresses the great trick that got that secret.

That boils down to a deliberate challenge, not necessarily known to be possible

Why would there be a secret (which would be a trigger area placed there on purpose) that cannot be accessed? Is the implication here that it was dropped into the map by accident due to someone misclicking?

Sounds to me like trolling. Pressumably they were using the map editor to make warp zones and trigger areas and discovered this impish creation by combining the two. I doubt Romero knew about this trick but I can imagine he left the question open whether ever a way could be found. Such things may not be obvious even to the programmer of the game.

https://twitter.com/romero/status/1035610814181462017

> By design all along....right? :P

> Of course.

Knowing Romero he probably thought it was impossible

IDKFA - Fill up Ammo

IDDQD - Degreelessness Mode

Shall i get up voted or downvoted? :)

Doom is the only game where I still remember all of the cheats. I actually struggle to exactly remember the Contra code, but IDSPISPOPD sticks in my brain for a quarter of a century.

Same here, IDSPISPOPD will probably never leave my brain.

By the way, a few years back, I was considering writing a POP3 server implementation, just so that I could name it that. :)

https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM/blob/master/linuxdoom-1....

I love the comments above.

    // Massive bunches of cheat shit
    //  to keep it from being easy to figure them out.
    // Yeah, right...

If you type those in Heretic the results were:

IDKFA - No Weapons No Ammo

IDDQD - 0 armor 1 health

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