Two thoughts here (I am still pondering these myself for my project):
1: If you plan on publishing to Steam, they will all be listed through the Steam interface - those that want to spoil their own story will do so (think of this as them looking at your scripting comments and variables). With that said, the hidden achievements would be what I use as @Minnow suggests - as a tracking token and I’d label them thus in their names.
2: Open achievements for everything else seems the most transparent way of treating the non-code-walkers - meaning normal readers who chose not to view code or achievements through Steam would be as up to speed and as informed as your other readers.
Hmm… hidden achievements
When I encounter a hidden achievey, I’m expecting “an unusual” scene and getting rewarded for doing stuff that is unusual as well.
Take an example of Portal’s cake.
Perhaps, you chose to heed GLADOS’s “command,” and then there you go.
“The cake is actually not a lie”
hidden achievements could be used for unusual paths and spoilery things but no hidden achievements would be good because you can say - kill vampire in your first encounter and then the reader will try his best to do that and will replay the same scene until he get it but if its hidden he would not even know what to do and that would get annoying for readers. ( and then google comes in )
for those that like to keep things immersive ( like me ) - they wont even open achievements until they have completed atleast one playthrough.
Having achievements in games like COG and other written based games make me replay the game so that I can try to earn them but that what I think this is your game so the final choice is your.(Great game by the way )
I love achievements and the more there are the longer I am likely to play to try to achieve all of them. For me they are like goals to work towards. The average user doesn’t always know all the paths a story can take but if you give them achievements it can keep them reading to try to get the relevant paths.
I like achievements, but I also really hate having a ‘wrong’ way to play the game and end up with some horrible or bizarre endings. To that end, I think they should be guidelines or even just a little joke between the author and the reader. However, too many seem annoying and it shouldn’t actually give away spoilers because that would be dull and entirely ill thought out. Shame. Achievements that are just a bit more light hearted, or just optional should probably be hidden as easter eggs along with the major plot points. I mean, who makes achievements detailing specific plot points, though?
My view is, it doesn’t take long to add achievements and they’re one way of signposting extra content or other ways of playing the game, and are beloved by a subset of the players.
Appealing to a wide range of playstyles is something that CoGs do well, and so even though I don’t tend to hunt achievements and sometimes don’t even look at them, its a big thing for other players.
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