The game is actually ridiculously easy, (on Medium, yet to try Hard) but some of the stupider medals like Sword Connoisseur would be great to have AoB swaps for. And yes, there are in-game cheats, i will check back to see if they disable getting medals or not.
Edit: Yeah, using the in-game cheats disables legitimate medal acquisition. Even Ultra-Gore disables medals.
And I did not get a single secret medal through my whole playthrough. Perhaps they only occur on hard, or require silly things like killing everyone in a level with down-whacks...
The secret medals are for finding the special swords. 8 secret swords, 8 secret medals.
One is in the swamp on a low platform (you swing over it) the other is in the middle of the underground pit on a low platform. They only appear in hard mode in the swamp, or hard or medium in the big pit.
Edito: If you get a special sword then refresh the browser, a different special sword will appear in the same place you found the other one. Either that, or somewhere else in the area (swamp has 2 verified sword spawn platforms).