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Comment by guicho271828 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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.

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)

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