Give me money on patreon and you'll get access to secret content!... I mean it's not *that* secret but it still counts, okay? :www.patreon.com/ArchitectofGames You fools! you morons! you incalculable ignorami!- soon I shall reach one thousand twitter followers, and with it, ULTIMATE POWER! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!: twitter.com/Thefearalcarrot

Ok I deciphered your secret. And I hate you. I really hate you. I feel let down, you made me cry. You told me a lie, that it would be worth it.

Not gonna lie, “Special thanks to Nomad Colossus and the 79 Steps to Enlightenment” still makes me tear up a bit.

Did you know that in Fez: 1. Monolith is probably still not solved correctly, as the relase date solution was debunked by the developer, and there is a high chance that no real solution exist. 2. You can find even more obscure secret with the hearts. You can make them disassemble by entering a special code while inspecring counting and writing artifacts in the inventory. After that there is one more "ending" sequence... and nothing more. It's unclear whether this is intentional or something left in the code by developers. 3. There are still some elements found in the game that nobody knows the purpose of: concentric squares, 4x2 code, soundtrack images. It's possible the intended solution for the Monolith is connected with one, or even all of them.

Look, I'm not going to get Rick Rolled. Thanks for the vid!

Yes, a good game will make you say "screw it, what if I..." And then shocks you into realising you totally CAN do that random thing you thought wouldn't even be considered to the Devs

I'm gonna be that guy. VVVVVV is just pronounced "V", confirmed by developer

13:49 Those numbers and capitals match just a bit too well to dQw4w9WgXcQ.......

13:45 I don't even need to open it, when you know you know

IDK about them being great secrets, but the songs playing during the secrets in battleblock theatre definitely make them great.

The Path of Pain holds a secret cut scene for lore hounds

0:33 how embarrassing he can't even spell folder right

9:01 "egglplant"..."intimacy" *snicker*

Scan the qr code on 2:45 for a very important secret

Also be sure to watch Jacob Geller's "The soul of a library" video, it's incredible

Even after all these years, working on brute forcing the monolith in Fez remains one of my best gaming memories.

Adam: "This secret was put here with an excellent thought and it creates this legendary moment which was a true masterpiece by the developers" Game dev who just put the secret in the game for fun while being drunk: "Uh... yeah, that was my intent all along."

10:50 I'd recognise that combination of capital letter anywhere

i spent way too long decoding that to be done like this EDIT: WAIT HE GIVES YOU THE CIPHER AT THE END I AM CRYING

3:26 This secret path in Hollow Knight can be reached from the beginning of the game by using pogo jumps on the spikes.

Ratchet & Clank's Insomniac museum's always a fun secret to collect in almost all of the games. It's packed to the brim with content, and has different stuff each game. Plus in R&C2, once you've gotten the Magnet Boots you can go to one of the first levels and walk up this magnatised ramp to fight this giant slug boss. I thought it was cool :')

The only secret that I can remember, that made me feel special as a player in the last 10 years, ist that Blue Heart in stage 2 in Celeste, where you have to learn about a mechanic I initially thought, was an unintended side-effect, but the devs actually completely accounted for it. It's incredibly rare, that my type of exploration is rewarded with anything more than a funky out of bounds or softlock - so that was really special to me Also yeah, go and check out Jacob Gellers video on Shadow of the Colossus. It's a really good one

Also there are the secrets that give character to the story and depth to the game before you find them but you know they exist (because you feel the game isn't telling you everything and so there is this sense of mistery and general depth). And after you find them everything just comes together.

0:35 Adam I am scared for your well being. You have too many folders that are empty, you need to fill them asap. Don't underestimate the health risks. I know that most people today use the online solution but you gotta do what you gotta do. If you need help just ask. : ^)

3:27 I didn't realise that you were meant to come back with the mantis claws so I spent ages parkouring up there with nail bounces

6:45 you forgot to mention the boss that spawns when picking up the orb, that is nigh-unkillable for anybody reaching that part of the game for the first time

I am 90 percent sure that “secret code” is a rickroll

It's nice to see secrets be catagorised at least on a basic level, because it helps narrow down a huge variety of possibilities! I am reminded in particular of DOOM (2016) and how for the most part, the game has "Secrets" which are all listed on the level completion screen and suchlike, which are of course very much intended to be found. But there are *also* much rarer secrets, which are not listed by the game at all as secrets, which fit into the final catagory of secret where the reward is knowing you found it at all.

One game I would add to the mix of secret hunting approach is Anodyne. At some point, by the end game, a player is given a tool that allows to "break" the environment and wander off-screen and there's a number of locations and secrets reachable that way. That is an another level for me.

As a finn it took me embarrassingly long to realize that noita means witch in finnish

For the secret URL in the end... decode it using a Vigenere Cipher decoder and use the key "secret" Its worth it! You wont be dissapointed.

Turning secrets into tutorial tips is actually quite ingenious thought! Especially for games that are supposed to be played over and over like rouge likes or platformers! Imagine you frustratingly dying from the first boss in the game and come back to the beginning of the level only to spot some crack in the wall you haven’t seen and blowing down that wall to find a tip that says: “The boss will die quicker if…” Of course the secret could be hidden better but you get my point…

I'm sad there was no mention of Super Mario World in this video. SMW's layers upon layers of secrets has really stuck with me all my life and I seldom run into other games so devoted to rewarding players who are willing to push themselves and explore everywhere.

Great that you shouted out Jacob Geller. His content is some of the best on this website right now

When I think of "secrets", the first thing that comes to mind are "hidden optionnal upgrades" in Zelda/Metroid games and hidden weapons or shortcuts in old school FPS and Immersive Sims. -Getting a Rocket Launcher in the first 20 seconds of Duke Nukem's 3D first level -Getting the chainsaw 5 seconds into Doom 2 -Unlocking the Chaingun and BFG early in Doom 3 buy finding a password to a safe -Finding the "secret" sniper rifle and rocket Launcher in Deus Ex Human Revolution -Getting some early Energy Tanks in a Metroid game etc Those are the kind of secret that rewards you the most : you feel like you're almost breaking the game by getting this stuff AND the fact that NOW you'll know where to find those means you "mastered" the game and you'll easily get your hands on those freebies on every next playthroughs, putting you at a clear advantage over first-time players.

3:30 you dont actually need monarch wings or mantis claw to get there xD

When it comes to secrets all i can think of is Iji, a beautiful indie game with all kinds of secrets and challenges and trivias. Also reallyjoel's dad difficulty.

The secrets in Braid and The Witness, were the kind that made me go WTF with a smile on my face. (Though I do feel sad that I looked up some of the Braid ones)

Your videos are so helpful for me to understand these game mechanics I know of and like, but never quite understood how to do it myself. I will definitely be using your videos to help build my games.

I loved Fez, but I had to Google so many puzzles. I wanted to get everything.

The schoolyard S on the halfpipe was a genius touch.

You can tackle the hollow knight one sooner just with raw skill but a certain upgrade makes it easier, there are a few examples like that

12:33 and this is why I was really upset when in enter the gungeons tutorial after firing all 1000 bullets emptying the clip. Nothing happened.

My favourite secret is Archdragon Peak in DS3. To find it without wiki, you need to: -Pass through Irrythil dungeon (easy, it's a mandatory area, and the specific spot isn't hidden and serves as a shortcut), where you'll pick up the Dragon Torso Stone (which has a lore snippet about dragon worship. -Beat the quasi-optional boss Oceiros (he's mandatory for one ending, otherwise optional), who through itemization and his similarities to Seath from DS1, we are told is obsessed with dragons. -Past his boss area, there's a small hallway, at the end of which is a statue making a pose which you can learn, called 'Path of the dragon' -Backtrack to the area in Irrythil dungeon and perform the gesture next to all the statues and corpses, which you'll see are doing the same, but are all missing limbs (hence why you can't learn it here). This unlocks the optional area, including two boss fights, one of which is disputably the best boss fight in game, perhaps even the series, and it's cleverly hidden behind world-design (you can literally see the peaks from the area) and flavour text, creating a sense of immersion you couldn't get if the game held your hand with it. A similar, but less complex secret is in Bloodborne. You'll learn a gesture called 'make contact' on your way of clearing the upper cathedral ward. The interesting thing, is that the gesture changes if you maintain it (switching your stretched out arms). Performing gestures in front of the Doll has her usually respond (ranging from a polite curtsy to a quizzical head tilt). When you do the gesture, she won't respond, until the change, when she suddenly gives mild-mannered applause. Performing the gesture later, in front of the Brain of Mensis (a special 'enemy' in the last area of the game, which requires some secrecy of its own to dispatch and later find again) will reward the player with a Caryll rune. What's fun is that these runes are mentioned to be the 'language' of the great ones, and the rune given increase blood echoes from kills. The Brain of Mensis replies to you saying 'hi' with 'kill me'.

Best secrets were the secret narrative in the Black Ops zombie maps hands down. Damn I still remembers the chills of rushing to discover the next step before another team each new DLC

'You aren't supposed to be here' First time I read that was in Duke Nukem 3D. You could get to this cave if you jumped on the heads of some floating brain-monsters, and it was written on the wall there. Sadly I never made the jumps back.

I game I really love that's absolutely packed to the brim with secrets is Environmental Station Alpha. There are secrets that don't do anything, secrets for avid explorers, an entire postgame full of weird puzzles for those who are into that, a secret map hidden in the postgame with locations of more secrets that don't do anything, a post-NG+ secret that completely screws up your save file, and even a secret for messing with your location in the game files. They're not implemented in the best way, (for example, it's really easy to stumble upon elements of postgame puzzles before you're ready to do anything with them) but the sheer amount of additional content there is that most players won't even get into is really mind-boggling.

To me, secrets are best when I feel like the game didn’t want me to have it, or to have it yet. Feeling like I tricked the system is really satisfying to me

God damn it Adam, Secrets like this make me question my patreon

One of my favorite secrets in a video game is in Shovel Knight. It’s in a hidden spot inside the Hall of Champions where you can dig in the corner and find a random scroll. After grabbing the scroll and finishing the level, on the Xbox/Steam version a new area will open up where you can fight the Battletoads, and defeating them gets you the Toad Gear. Also in the PlayStation version a cloaked figure will appear on the map, and walking to them begins a fight with Kratos from God of War, and beating them gives you the Grave Digger’s Shovel, which you can the give to the Armorer who will then give you the Armor of Chaos. I think PlayStation gets a better reward personally, but Xbox has a longer boss fight so I guess it’s great for both sides.

I think that this lil game named wobbly life is a great example, it looks like a childish game with simple puzzles but it develops into a full world with tons of hidden areas

Another arkham city Easter egg for arkham knight: if you visit one of the boats in the bay next to amusement mile: then you can hack a hatch on one of them despite there not being any computer. The password is a pretty obvious scarecrow reference, and the inside even more so.

4:53 Well, technically, that’s 30.

This is a great video. Explained some stuff I knew, but couldn't explain. Great work :)

This code is called vigenere cipher; the passphrase is 6 letters long and can be figured out on its own, but you can also skip to 15:22 to get it 👍🏻

Is it bad that I can recognize a rick roll even when its a coded cypher?

on the flip side though, sometimes the secrets feel like a slap in the face. I didn't have the (dlc) ancient saddle in breath of the wild, so i largely went through the entire game feeling like horses were just a waste of time and not worth using, since I spent more time going back to get my horse than i did actually going places with it. So when I came accross this ancient super horse, and spent a while figuring out how to get it. The fact that the game wouldn't even let me register it genuinely infuriated me. Since the lord of the mountain had infinite stamina, it was probably the only horse worth using just for overall speed, and then it wouldn't let me keep it. The same thing for all of the koroks, i got to about 600 korok seeds without looking up anything, just scrabbling around the world looking for secrets. You are directly incentivised to find the korok seeds, as they add to additional inventory space, which is very important for players in a game where all your weapons wear out. And yet, the reward for getting all of them is... a literal piece of poo? I almost ragequit playing the game at that point, because it felt like the developers weren't giving me a little secret, it felt like they were literally shitting on all the hard work I put in. It felt like they were going "wait, you actually bothered to find all these things? well aren't you a shitter, here's your poo!!" The red cubes in fez are a little bit different, because you aren't basically told to go find them, but for me, anything that requires that much effort with no tangible reward whatsoever really makes me feel bad about the game, like it wasted my time. I understand that a game can't have infinite content, and it also feels really bad to have actual rewards that change up the game locked behind rediculous challenges, but I feel like some reward besides a literal piece of poo would have been nice. Maybe the ability to make a weapon not break down? i mean you've basically mastered every part of the game at that point, why not let the player break the rules a little bit

hey Adam, I really learnt a lot from your videos. keep making em buddy.

Fantastic work as usual mate always love these :)

I really enjoy your content and I find your style to my liking and just want to say that I really appreciate your time and effort, so that you adam from the bottom of my heart thank you. We need more thoughtful people like you on this platform, please continue your great work. 👍😊

QR Code to the "Important Videos" playlist? I don't know how to feel.

In that hollow knight clip in the forgotten crossroads, you can actually down slash and skip up to that part within the first few minutes of starting the game, which just proves your point more

Definitely agree with the pitch for Jacob Geller at the end. Every single one of his videos have the emotional impact of a truck. I've never come away from one of his videos not feeling something.

I spent too long working on that code and all I'm really going to say about it, Mr. Adam Millard- excellent secret. Very much enjoyed. 10/10 do recommend.

This video covered it all. Great job!

6:45 So THAT'S what that (seemingly-stupid) cloud is for!

It was a bad idea watching a video about secrets when up i don’t like having things spoilt in games I intend to play

Duke Nukem still has some of the best secrets in video game history. Also shoutout to Dusk for having even better secrets than that.

"This video isn't available anymore" that wasn't worth it.

While working out the secret, I had this sneaking awful suspicion on what it was going to be. I hate the fact that I was right. I trusted you. I sat here for 20 minutes with two pieces of engineering paper working this out.

I think Ready Player One (The book, not the dumb movie lol) really follows the rule that the best Easter Eggs require an appreciation of the game. In the book, the creator of the virtual reality OASIS was an obsessive fanatic of 80s and 90s pop culture, and upon his death he created an Easter Egg that upon finding it would grant the player full ownership of the OASIS, but all the clues and challenges leading to it are buried in references that only one that has a love of the 80s as he did would be able to find them. I guess this is a bit different from what the video is saying in some details, but the core of it is that good Easter Eggs require great knowledge commitment.

3:26 you mean to tell me I spent ages bouncing off the spikes with the base skills, for their to be effectively *flight* your supposed to use...

DAMN THAT QR CODE, I saw de first video and laugh, after that was okay/meh, UNTIL THE MOMENT I SAW SANDRA ANNENBERG, WHY IS A BRAZILIAN VIDEO IN THAT PLAYLIST??? I wasn't expecting that, as a Brazilian watcher, thank you you made my day better with this dumb playlist

I know I'm not the only one not even well-versed in finding this kinda thing, and it took me less than a second to see the secret URL and understand where it lead. Nicely executed, though

I hate secrets you have to come back to to get, I always, ALWAYS, forget about them. I usually play games over at least a few weeks if not months or years. And I hate having to replay old levels just to do one part. Really sucks.

Spelunky solo eggplant run was supposed to be impossible, VB according to the devs. It was supposed to be done with a coop partner

I watched a video about the 79 steps and i almost cried at the end for how much work really paid off in the end

Hestu's gift is totally not worth the effort of collecting all 900 koroks. I'd call that a bad secret because it just feels like a slap in the face

What about Remar's IJI? That game has a really satisfying Secret room that really shares that mutual appreciation for the game that the dev and player feel.

I just spent the last 20 minutes learning about ciphers and such just so I could solve the secret on my own... the only reason it was worth it is because I learned about how to do that, solving it was the only fun part.

the moment i saw the :// in the secret code, i just knew what it would be. So i deciphered the thing by myself. I didn't even know what the code was called. I wish you followed what you mentioned in the video and maybe had a special unlisted video that only those who had solved the code could view...

The recent destiny two secret was what I think is the gold standard for community puzzles. The basic puzzle was a mysterious corridor opened. After a day of exploring, people found that inputting a certain code by walking through rooms would get you a unique hexagon configuration. Each hexagon combined to form a map of over ten to a hundred thousand pieces. It allowed any player to contribute a meaningful amount, while showing am excitement building progression in the map.

Your videos are the best video game training course, I find.

2:50 - Music from SteamWorld Dig. Noone asked for that - but I still answered :-)

Around 3:35, the hollow knight clip of using the wall jump and double jump powers to gain access to that secret, I just nail bounced between the spikes to get up because I had no idea what i was supposed to be doing at that point.

When you used the monarch wings and mantis claw to do a platforming section that you can do by simply pogoing on the spikes made me wonder why you didn’t know how to spike pogo.

Fez and The Witness had the best secrets. In fact, Metroidvanias in general are best for secrets. They're built for them!

The first red cube I got in Fez was by accident. I was just mashing the triggers at random. It wasn't until much later that I found the clue for the puzzle.

I agree with your definition of a bad secret, but like with anything, there are good secrets that don't follow your definition. Like, the head on a stick in Doom, or even the first secret ever.

Secret in 3:29 actually doesn't require anything. You can just pogo sword up the ledge.

An important thing of note with the Shadow of the Colossus secret is that there was no secret. People just went crazy and Bluepoint, who had very little interaction with the original team, decided to finally give something to the fans that had never existed.

I scanned the qr code in 2:45 and after finding that secret, no joke, I said out loud "Was that even worth it?" I don't know if that question was directed at you for doing it, or me for following it.

This video reminded me that I reached the mawlurk after fighting the false knight and got super pissed when it murderized me after the brutal challenge I went through to get there in hopes of finding some secret upgrade.

That QR code sure was important

6:00 I disagree. As soon as I saw that one night I tried my hardest to find the source

I've actually heard about an older easter egg in another game. It was very quick and was only known by a son of one of the producers of the game.

Koroks! Every time I spotted the hint that there was something off about the surroundings and got a seed, I got excited

very good video! but SotC's new secret was not put in there by the original devs team ico, rather, the studio that was in charge of the remake BluePoint Games. Maybe you meant to say that, but it came across differently

Hollow Knight has a secret charm on the Very beggining of the game that is quite good to experts. If ya are wondering, It is called "Fury of the Fallen".

Did you know KZfaq stop recommending me your videos after I subscribed. That, or I watched them all lol.