Can't Find 100% Secrets in Zone 1 or 2

[Emerald Witch Seraphina]

I know you shoot the panels & the crystals in these zones to open the secret doors, but I have never gotten 100% no matter how hard I look for these extra panels. If I find 2 I get 66%, if I find one I get 50%, etc...

Are secrets hidden any other way?

[Cream-of-Plenty]

Yeah secrets are hidden in other ways. Some of them are walls that, after being shot, can be walked/jumped through (not sure if there are walls that can always be walked through, since I seem to always discover them after a firefight).

Other secrets can be hidden behind walls that are only destroyed via explosive barrels. I'm not sure how (or even if) you can consistently tell which walls are destructible and which are not (there seem to be a variety of opinions on those details right now, with some people saying it can be impossible to tell sometimes), but I can confirm that they sometimes look slightly different than the textures around them. In my case, I found a secret room/weapon hidden behind a wall that had a slightly misaligned texture earlier today.

I think there might even be stranger secrets--fake "glitches" and stuff--in the game. One of them that I've personally found involves clipping through the walls and "falling" beneath the level, which teleports you to an especially secret area.

[Emerald Witch Seraphina]

How did you find that misaligned texture secret, Mr. Lahey? Shoot it or walk through it?

[Cream-of-Plenty]

With that one, I had to pick up an explosive barrel and throw it at the wall in question. It wouldn't respond to gunfire or the "use" key (for some reason I want to say that the developers explicitly said that no secrets are activated via the "use" key, so you won't get anywhere wall-humping like you would in Wolf 3D or Doom). It was very clear that the wall hid a secret because the barrel completely destroyed the wall section--so there was no ambiguity like the walls that you need to shoot before walking through.

It kind of sucks because you'll naturally want to use the explosive barrels for killing enemies in firefights. Often times a level may not even have more than 3 or 4 of them, and a couple might get inadvertently destroyed in a fight. But if I want to find those kinds of secrets, I have to almost treat the barrels like explosive "keys".

EDIT: Also, I respect the fact that you know Mr. Lahey.

[Emerald Witch Seraphina]

So lets say I see a long passage on my minimap, with no obvious door or secret panel to shoot. This is where you would toss a barrel at that wall blocking you from the passage?

[Cream-of-Plenty]

Here are some screenshots I just took that should help:

Example of an invisible wall in a weird spot (centered on my crosshairs)[imgur.com]--not very obvious, right? Nothing about it looks unusual. In fact, not only do you have to shoot before it becomes permeable, but you have to jump into it because it's not on the ground.

And what's on the other side of this phantom wall?[imgur.com]

A part of the wall that is slightly different than the surrounding area[imgur.com]--note the panel (just to the left of where the crosshair would be) seems to be crooked, but it would be incredibly easy to overlook--and after throwing an explosive barrel at it, the secret area it hides is revealed.[imgur.com]

Another very suspicious looking misaligned wall section.[imgur.com] Note that the wall textures on the top-right don't seem to match up well with the wall textures on the top-left. I had no more barrels to throw, but I would have definitely thrown one at this to see if it would blow up.

[Cream-of-Plenty]

I'm still figuring out these secrets--and the community seems small enough that they haven't all been immediately discovered, cataloged, and posted online--but to answer your hypothetical question, are you saying you see an area on the minimap that doesn't seem possible to physically reach?

I feel like I've had that issue before. It MAY be a secret, but it may also be a rendering glitch where the game is showing you an area you haven't reached yet, but will become accessible as you progress naturally through the map (either by triggering a wall to open after picking up a key, or approaching it from a completely different and unseen direction later on in the level).

[Emerald Witch Seraphina]

Originally posted by Cream-of-Plenty:

I'm still figuring out these secrets--and the community seems small enough that they haven't all been immediately discovered, cataloged, and posted online--but to answer your hypothetical question, are you saying you see an area on the minimap that doesn't seem possible to physically reach?

I feel like I've had that issue before. It MAY be a secret, but it may also be a rendering glitch where the game is showing you an area you haven't reached yet, but will become accessible as you progress naturally through the map (either by triggering a wall to open after picking up a key, or approaching it from a completely different and unseen direction later on in the level).

I've noticed this on starting level 2 a few times, you go into a small room with some monsters, then the only way to advance is to the right. To the left there is a regular looking wall that doesn't respond to being shot, but I didn't try a barrel on it. If you open your map and run into the wall it shows a long passage going slightly upward on the other side, but I have yet to figure out how to get in there. Will try barrel next time I see it.

[Tombot]

These is supposed to be a glowing bug thing that pitters around then crawls into a secret wall. But you would have to be speeding through the rooms before you would have much chance to see it. theres a video of it somewhere.

The only other clue that can tell you if a secret room might be hidden is if there is a space where a corridor could connect in another configuration and there are no other rooms occupying that space.

Gotta say, these secrets are really obscure, I don't know if anyone has mastered them yet.

[Cream-of-Plenty]

Yeah based on my own searches, I don't get the feeling that there's a very accurate or comprehensive source of information for secrets in the game, either. It's kind of interesting because ordinarily you'd already have the game's guts cut open and spilled out across a wiki for everybody to see. Guess this game just has a small enough community.

I have seen one of the bugs that is supposed to indicate a secret wall. It was early on--probably within the first couple of hours of playing the game--and I had no context or understanding of it until long after the fact. If I remember correctly, they sort of looked like smaller versions of the explosive bugs found in Zone 2 (that can be used as ad hoc hand grenades).

[Shoogle]

I recently found a very odd little room: https://imgur.com/gallery/0CQ6G
I backed thru a wall and ended up here. A voice said something I didn't quite understand, but it sounded like a sample of the scientist from Half-Life to me. Weird.....

[Techno Brownie]

Originally posted by Shoogle:

I recently found a very odd little room: https://imgur.com/gallery/0CQ6G
I backed thru a wall and ended up here. A voice said something I didn't quite understand, but it sounded like a sample of the scientist from Half-Life to me. Weird.....

Without clicking the link I know what your talking about. Its definitly a line from Half-Life. Something about "Binary zone" ya? Found that while doing the "That was dumb" acheavement.

[Reb Militia]

How in the world did you know that wall in the first picture you posted was a secret, Mr. Lahey? Nothing about it seems like it would be one. How the hell did you know to shoot it?

[Cream-of-Plenty]

You want to know the truth? I saw somebody discover it in a STRAFE LP a while back, and came across the same room layout in one my own runs. Turns out that some specific secrets may spawn consistently in a particular room, I guess?

[Reb Militia]

Makes sense.
I agree with your earlier sentiment about the community being just small enough, by the way. There's definitely a secret on the ship before you port to Icarus. Not sure if it's accessible then or after you beat the boss, but there's definitely a secret. I've spent forever trying to figure it out, too.

[Cream-of-Plenty]

Originally posted by Reb Militia:

There's definitely a secret on the ship before you port to Icarus. Not sure if it's accessible then or after you beat the boss, but there's definitely a secret. I've spent forever trying to figure it out, too.

What makes you think that? Because I feel the same way--there's a shootable panel[imgur.com] (like the kind that can unlock secret rooms throughout the game) on the way to the default teleport pad. And what's the deal with that strange thing[imgur.com] floating around in space above the teleport room before you start a run?

Also, maybe I just haven't gotten to it yet, but I keep looking at this room[imgur.com] that MIGHT be accessible at some point, but would probably require getting those double-doors to unlock in the main starting room.