How are some "secret achievements" figured out?

Dooops

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#1 Edited By Dooops

I can't think of many off the top of my head. But I find that some secret achievements are next to impossible to figure out and I wonder if anyone actually figures them out. Or if someone that actually works on the game tells someone and then they tell someone else etc etc..

For example

Smile for Geometry Wars 2. It has no description and you have to end up failing some levels on a certain mode. When you fail a level you get an X and on the overworld screen that shows which levels you passed or not so the end result is a bunch of X and O that form a smile. It's not a super obvious smile either. So I tend to wonder how some people even figure this stuff out? Does anyone here have it on good authority that the people making the game might tell one person and like I mentioned before it just spreads through word of mouth/internet?

13 years ago

Video_Game_King

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#2 Edited By Video_Game_King

The developer leaks it, or hackers/awesome people figure it out.

13 years ago

Metroid545

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#3 Edited By Metroid545

or some people randomly get it, also smile is a bad example it had the numbers for the lvls in sequence that you have to fail to make a smile I figured that out a little while after downloadin

13 years ago

Shasam

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#4 Edited By Shasam

Usually leaks I would assume, or some kind of crazy back-end hacking.

But, yeah, Smile is a bad example. I figured that one out. It gives you the numbers of the levels to fail so it only takes a little bit of time to realise what it's on about. There's not much else that it could be related to.

13 years ago

dillonwerner

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#5 Edited By dillonwerner

Leaks Leaks Leaks

13 years ago

Linkin10362

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#6 Edited By Linkin10362

There are many programs available online that can unlock achievements for you, of course it isn't exactly legal and you can get banned by Microsoft by doing it, but when viewing achievements on there to decide which ones you want to unlock, you can see the description of the achievement before and after unlocking it, so hackers unlock secret achievements and then reveal how to get them online.

13 years ago

blazerx9x

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#7 Edited By blazerx9x

you could try achievement hunter

13 years ago

dr_pineapple

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#8 Edited By dr_pineapple

http://www.xbox360achievements.org/

13 years ago

Linkin10362

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#9 Edited By Linkin10362

@dr_pineapple:
They don't reveal secret achievements though, when they receive achievement lists, the secret ones are always keep out (like the Spider Man Shattered Dimensions list as a reference). They depend on their community to get the secret ones after the game is released.

I just thought of a achievement that is a good example though. In CoD: WaW, there was the achievement for activating the phone in Shi No Numa. Alot of people were having trouble with it as they didn't know what to do (since the achievement was secret), but then a hacker unlocked the achievement using a program and gave out the description, making it easier for people to find the easter egg.

13 years ago

Dooops

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#10 Edited By Dooops

I know of where I can find out about achievements. It's just sometimes I wonder why developpers make some secret achievements that are next to impossible to figure out without a leak of information or hacker.

13 years ago