Secrets and score

So the score screen is lot different from the classic Doom’s, this one is a lot simpler. This is to save the score you get and display it in the overworld map too.

Classic Doom score screen counted kills items and secrets in a percentage basis. Then it counted your time vs a level standard time. We wanted to take this into MiniDoom if possible but ended up making some changes along the way.

Ye olde screen

We don’t use percentages because we wanted to store and display your score for each level, and to display a score in 5 different parameters was a lot of info on the screen. So the score is just one parameter that goes from 0 to 5. If you meet one of the scores’ criteria for that level (like enough kills) you get one point to your score.

Also the “items” score parameter had to go. Its no fun to go grab every last health bonus, this isn’t Banjo Kazooie.

The score parameters

hmmmm dat screen melt

Kills: Of course you will be awarded this point if you kill most of the enemies you encounter. Summoned enemies (like lost souls from a pain elemental) don’t count towards this score, however enemies that respawn do count.

Deaths: If you die too many times in a level you won’t get this point.

Time: Gotta go fast. This score gives a margin for time wasted dying the allowed amount of times.

Difficulty: Playing in any difficulty harder than normal will award this point.

Secrets: You do not need to find all secrets in one go. All secrets you find are saved and you won’t need to find them again if you want a good score.

You can check your score and secrets from the overworld map

So since “Score” is one whole thing from 0 to 5 to get a perfect one you need to do all 5 things at once, you can’t get “kills” in one go, then try for “time” the next time you play. Except with secrets, take your time exploring.

Secrets

We want to include a lot of secrets in the game and we needed a way for players to know which secrets they already found and which are missing. So we use a collectible item to mark this: Runes.

Runes dont have graphics yet hehe… they will probably look something like that (Doom2016)

So secret areas may contain standard pickups or some other secret thing, in these cases the area will also contain a Rune. Runes do not respawn once picked up, so you will have a better idea of where you have already been if you reenter a level looking for secrets. Secret areas may also contain small upgrades to your total life, armor, or ammo; these count towards the total secrets found for each level. And of course they don’t respawn either.

Runes do not do anything by themselves but collecting them will unlock extra cool things in the game, if you are into that sort of thing.

3 thoughts on “Secrets and score”

  1. I still hope that if i’ll finish many secrets or all challanges my doomguy become Doom Slayer by model. …

    BTW you really need other name for Difficulty score cuz u know… not everyone read this posts and will understand that he need to play in higher lvl mode. Something that after first time will be clear (that u need to play in harder mode). Maybe – special difficulty?

  2. This score is somewhat misleading :
    -Since pentagrams are just on/off, with no threshold or % shown, it hints the objective is “round” : 100%, no death etc. Even when we get it, we still don’t know by how much we over or under shoot. Also, that makes no IG timer for speedruning.
    -Since pentagrams are stacked out-of order and not individually reminded at level start, we don’t know what we have to improve on. Or worse, get the wrong idea we miss the last-in the list.
    -The independency of secrets is not obvious at all. It is only natural to think one has to get them in one go with the rest, and it is confirmed by the “secret revealed” message
    -The score screen repeats info (pentagrams duplicated in score line *and* objective list), and does not regroup related info (secrets symbols with secrets pentagram, difficulty setting with difficulty pentagram).

    IMHO the synthetic score should be visible straight from the overworld ; and the detailed score more detailed, unified, and visible at level start, end, and during pause.

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