MyHouse.wad

[Major Arlene]

4 hours ago, ebrl said:

Well, now certainly not, but in the first couple weeks or so - to be fair, long before the creepier stuff started happening - there was a strong feeling among some people that Veddge could be a prominent community member simply setting up a big reveal, so the "real" identity - which is to say, the real doomworld identity - looked like a rather inoffensive thing to pursue at the time.

 

Mostly agree here, only Veddge's account is bloody old so even this doesn't line up super well. It can be true at the same time that someone could be prominent but also inactive in the community for a while.

 

4 hours ago, ebrl said:

Oh, and also: "how many other people have made a My House style wad?" sounds straight up disingenuous, the kind of comment that only risks riling up people still not satisfied with the conclusion into thinking they're being played for fools. This is about on par with Veddge saying that he "took the plunge and installed Doom Builder in order to polish up his map and add a few modern amenities just for convenience sake". I'd say there have been enough misunderstandings already to be this careless with words. I mean, you were just a bit careless there, right?

 

I promise that wasn't meant that way lol. It's exasperation that people took it to this level. Regardless of what peripheral information was given, etc. I don't think I've ever heard of a situation in which someone who made a My House map was then hounded for MORE of their IRL information.

 

On a side note, I think I can pinpoint at least some point of where this behavior is coming from, and that is from Some Ordinary Gamers' video about My House, in which he says in the description is "an amazing ARG experience".

 

sigh

 

This is part of the reason why people treat it this way, and I'm really annoyed I missed this bit of crucial information when I made my video about My House because it's coming from a 3.5 MILLION subscriber channel. SOG is known for some internet investigation content along with everything else he does on his channel and it's the type of people who don't understand the "my house" etiquette, not coming from within our community but from the outside but unfortunately has had some effect on the discourse here. ARG "investigators" get REALLY into what they're doing and are quite relentless from my limited exposure to them through channels like Nexpo.

 

I'd say My House has revived interest in modding, which is awesome! But at the same time it's also caused a lot of painful information and interactions to be shared, so I'll call this a period of growing pains for the community.

[ShallowB]

I had a few people tell me the term “unfiction” is “cringe” and I should just call it an ARG… but there is a difference.  MyHouse is absolutely not an ARG.  The entire “puzzle” is contained within elements given to you at the outset.  Hunting for stuff outside of the link provided by Veddge is not necessary or intended the way it would be in an ARG.

 

This is a particularly annoying trend, but overall I think MyHouse has had a very positive impact on the Doom community. I’ve seen loads of people rediscover the game recently or even start mapping themselves. And sure, some of those people are trying to make the next MyHouse (which isn’t a bad thing. Veddge’s map was not the first of its kind, nor should it be the last), but there’s also plenty of people that are trying their own unique things, or rediscovering how fun classic Doom gameplay can be.  I’ve even seen an increase in Doom64 and PSX Doom interest. 
 

Theres certainly been an increase in pesky weirdos causing problems, but they’ll lose interest as soon as the next FNAF game comes out or whatever.  The longer-lasting effect of MyHouse will be the encouragement to be imaginative, inventive, and passionate with Doom.

[sock]

hello i have been trying to play this for a few days now but every time i beat it it takes me to the second lvl of doom 2 i followed a few youtube tutorials but to no sucess if anyone knows how to fix this it be nice

 

[ShallowB]

14 minutes ago, sock said:

hello i have been trying to play this for a few days now but every time i beat it it takes me to the second lvl of doom 2 i followed a few youtube tutorials but to no sucess if anyone knows how to fix this it be nice

 

make sure you are playing the .pk3 version!

[CaptainLeBon]

If you are running the .pk3 file and if you beat the 2nd level it brings you back.

[ENEMY!!!]

I'm hoping that in the long run Myhouse might inspire some mappers to experiment more with different ways of playing out the "civilization being slowly corrupted by a demonic infestation" narrative of the Doom series.  Traditionally you start off with a series of maps on Earth or Mars and they gradually turn more hellish.  I could imagine the general Myhouse concept being applied where you start out in a map where everything appears okay and then the player gets silently teleported to different copies of the map which get progressively more hell-infested.  We aren't seeing the fruits yet because maps using that sort of idea will take a fair amount of time to create, but I won't be surprised if we see more experimentation along those lines in maps towards the end of 2023 and through 2024.

[Sunroses]

Hearing about this is what inspired us to get into doom modding. Phenomenal work <3

[Sunroses]

2 hours ago, ENEMY!!! said:

We aren't seeing the fruits yet because maps using that sort of idea will take a fair amount of time to create, but I won't be surprised if we see more experimentation along those lines in maps towards the end of 2023 and through 2024.

We definitely have plans for something similar... with equal inspiration from the "Time Warp" map in Going Down tbh.

[ShallowB]

2 hours ago, ENEMY!!! said:

a map where everything appears okay and then the player gets silently teleported to different copies of the map which get progressively more hell-infested

 

Of course the earliest example of a map like this is probably Worm Hole in Evilution.  I was just playing a 2021 RAMP map the other day called Interstellar Domine that does this with a hub area you return to several times slowly getting more worn out with hell seeping in over time. 

 

From what I've seen of RAMP 2023 (lots of newcomers and people inspired by MyHouse this year!) that sort of thing is definitely becoming a favorite theme for many mappers!

[aloysiusfreeman]

Decided to open up myhouse in Slade to see how it looks in there

 

....jesus. My body shriveled into a worm trying to comprehend all of that wizardry. 

[General Rainbow Bacon]

There's a 2d sidescroller game called "Eversion" which does the increasing levels of messed up very well.  Great little game.  A doom mod like that could be pretty cool if done well.

[LadyMistDragon]

5 hours ago, ENEMY!!! said:

I'm hoping that in the long run Myhouse might inspire some mappers to experiment more with different ways of playing out the "civilization being slowly corrupted by a demonic infestation" narrative of the Doom series.  Traditionally you start off with a series of maps on Earth or Mars and they gradually turn more hellish.  I could imagine the general Myhouse concept being applied where you start out in a map where everything appears okay and then the player gets silently teleported to different copies of the map which get progressively more hell-infested.  We aren't seeing the fruits yet because maps using that sort of idea will take a fair amount of time to create, but I won't be surprised if we see more experimentation along those lines in maps towards the end of 2023 and through 2024.

well, there is this....

 

 

[CaptainLeBon]

I mean at some point they would have to make it.

[SkeletSpook]

I made a stupid meme

Also, same meme, inverted:

 

Spoiler

 

Edited July 20, 2023 by SkeletSpook

[philcul]

1 hour ago, SkeletSpook said:

American Football-meme

 

 

 

haha, I love it! Never would have thought of that!

[Avanguardian]

Has anybody noticed the initials of Tom and Steve in the shape of heart on the tree and on the sand? Was it a hint of some sort? I suppose that "S" stands for Steve. What does "A" stand for? Does it mean Allord?

[Astar]

Excellent wad. For the first time, I was skeptical about it simply because of the name of something like "My first wad don't beat me plz". When I started to play through, the first thing I immediately noticed was that the main character was significantly taller than the monsters (or the monsters were lower than doomguy). I even got into the settings because of this, to see if I screwed up anything, lol.
And then, as they say, shit gets real. Aaand I really liked it :)
I noticed, how familiar and millions of times listened to Entryway music, began to slowly distort. At first it was separate notes that obviously was off-beat, then the drum section became different, some strange snares appeared that were not in the original track, then a lot of high-hats were added... And then the whole melody moved one or two notes down - it sounded so alien and unnatural.

It also really cool how wad literally takes us from one era to another. 

And of course, the most important - the atmosphere. Violent, gloomy and sad. When I played MyHouse, I was thinking about games like Silent Hill, Downfall and The Cat Lady. Wad itself IMO is similar to a kind of mixture of these games.

 

Honestly, I would like to tell much more about MyHouse.wad, but unfortunately I'm not very strong in English

[aloysiusfreeman]

17 hours ago, Avanguardian said:

Has anybody noticed the initials of Tom and Steve in the shape of heart on the tree and on the sand? Was it a hint of some sort? I suppose that "S" stands for Steve. What does "A" stand for? Does it mean Allord?

 

 

This is only speculation, but in the airport on the terminal screen a lot of the words are jumbled up. If you read the first letters of one part (forgot which it is exactly) it will say HELP ME descending. A little more to the right, there can possibly be another message that says ANNA. 

 

With the other bits and pieces that hint toward a transgender allegory, my interpretation is of Tom being a trans-man, with a deadname of Anna. 

[Avanguardian]

6 hours ago, aloysiusfreeman said:

 

 

This is only speculation, but in the airport on the terminal screen a lot of the words are jumbled up. If you read the first letters of one part (forgot which it is exactly) it will say HELP ME descending. A little more to the right, there can possibly be another message that says ANNA. 

 

With the other bits and pieces that hint toward a transgender allegory, my interpretation is of Tom being a trans-man, with a deadname of Anna. 

I have not played the mod completely. It doesn't run properly and teleports me to the Gantlet and not back to the house as intended after beating Underhalls. But I have watched multiple walk-throughs and read the materials that came on google drive. I have not seen anything linked to the name Anna anywhere. What did you mean by "other bits and pieces"?

[aloysiusfreeman]

@Avanguardian Here's a screen shot of the terminal screen: 

 

When looking under Flight , at the bottom the first letters make up "HELP ME" 

 

Under Remarks the four cancelled are jumbled up intentionally. For the second letters of those four cancelled, they make up ANNA. That may not be actually intentional, but hey this wad is filled with potential meaning everywhere.

 

 

Back to what you were saying about the mod not running properly, make sure the file you want to run is myhouse.pk3, not myhouse.wad. 

[RollerMobster2137]

I've finished rereading House of Leaves, which much like this mod I've discovered thanks to PowerPak video. This time I decided to note passages that stood out to my during reading. 

Here are the ones that seem to have inspired elements of this wad or the diary. I'm noting the pages and chapters of their apperance (my book is a full-color second edition version), and hiding them and how they relate to the mod to avoid spoiling both MyHouse and House of Leaves. I'll also note the severity of spoilers for both works.

I'm done with this book for now and won't read it to hunt for clues for some time, so I'd like to encourage other to do it. Hell, you can just read it for the sake of it, despite its confusing nature, well, because of it, it's really great.

 

Introduction, page XV, virtually no spoilers for both works

Spoiler

Quote

"The first peculiar thing," Lude told me, [...] "Were the cats." Apparently in the months preceding the old man's death, the cats had begun to disappear.

In Johnny Truant's notes, Introduction to this book being one of them, he noted that Zampano owned cats. It could be an inspiration for Tom, the apparent original creator of MH, to own one.

 

Chapter X, page 168, very small HOL spoiler and a big MH spoiler

Spoiler

Quote

When revisiting places we once frequented as children, it is not unusual to observe how much smaller everything seems. This experience has too often been attributed to the physical differences between a child and an adult. In fact it has more to do with epistemological dimensions than with bodily dimensions: knowledge is hot water on pool. It shrinks time an space.

I can't believe I didn't catch this one during my first read. It obviously would serve as inspiration for the differences in dimensions of the two versions of the house in the brutalist maze, as well as height difference between the .wad and .pk3 versions.

The latter fragment about the knowledge making things seem smaller apply to the dog in the brutalist maze - the big (childhood) version has Cerberusg, while the regular (adulthood) one has a normal and friendly dog, with a common interpretation that Cerberus is meant to represent his vision of the family dog, while the normal one is meant to show how Steven/Doomguy/"narrator" sees him now that he knows he can do him no harm. 

 

Chapter XXI, page 503, big HOL spoiler and virtually no MH spoilers

Spoiler

Quote

June 21, 1998

Happy Birthday to me. Happy fucking Birthday. Whatever the fuck will be fucking be sang momma D-Day. Bright as an A-Bomb.

It's from Truant's diary. Yeah, he used a diary for once instead of writing about his life in his notes.

Another minor thing with not much to note: in tone and short from it's reminiscent of the Valentine's Day entry in the Google Disc diary. The whole thing was inspired by Truant's notes and servers the same function in MH's narrative, borrowing liberally many things from it, but this entry stood out for me the most. 

 

Also relating to the Google diary: At the end of his story Johnny was given a book: House of Leaves, with him credited as the author of the introduction and notes. The book somehow found its way into the internet and was distributed there without his will. Sounds familiar? No? Maybe check the last entries in the Google diary, Steven describes the similar thing happening to him with the wad.

 

Chapter XXII, pages 524-525, big HOL and MH spoilers

Spoiler

This is a fragment of the interview with Karen, Navidson's wife:

Quote

Q: How did you get him out of the house?

Karen: It just dissolved.

Q: Dissolved? What do you mean?

Karen: Like a bad dream. We were in a pitch blackness and then I saw, no . . . actually my eyes were closed. I felt this warm, sweet air on my face, and then I opened my eyes and I could see trees and grass. I thought to myself, "We've died. We've died and this is where you go after you die." But it turned out to bu just out front yard.

Q. You're saying the house dissolved?

Karen: [No response]

Q: How's that possible? It's still there, isn't it?

The house just dissolved and it was over... It's the ending of the burning and empty house. 

 

[wormslayers]

On 5/21/2023 at 11:34 PM, DorkToast said:

A small 'mistake'/curiosity:
 

  Hide contents

 

In the secret obituary image from the QR code, it shows another obituary for a man named Norman Edward Penske. Not only did Norman die in February 2023 (which makes no sense to be on the same page as Steven's obit from 2022) but curiously a real person named Norman Edward Fenske did die at the end of January of this year.

 

 

Spoiler

Thanks Dark Toast for sending me down a rabbit hole.  I started doing alliterations of names in the obituary and turned up some really interesting information.

First of all, there was a Catherine Fellbaum who died Jan 31, 2023 (it says Jan 12th in the obituary from the mod), the dates of birth are also within two years.  Also, this may be a coincidence, but I thought it was worth noting that in real life she had a service or something at Shelly Funeral Chapels when in the mod it says Shirley Funeral Chapels.

Now is where things get a bit crazy, I found an article for a Thomas K. Allard who is an actual person who died in 2016, only here is the weird part, the headline for his article misspells the his name as "Thomas Allord" and also says he passed away on Aug 3rd when in reality this person died on October 12th, and finally it says he was a Plano Illinois native, which is where they are from in the mod, but irl Thomas was from New Fairfield, CT.  There are other very odd things in the article "What transpired was the fault of Thomas K. Allard" it says, but never what explains transpired.  It also says he spent his whole life in New Fairfield.  I am not going to post the link to the article because the page seems super sketch, but if you search "Thomas Allord obituary august 3rd" it's the first result from theguardianobits.

Let's move our focus to the real Thomas K. Allard, at first I thought there were too many discrepancies, but then I began to see some commonalities that are hard to explain away, on the left I'll list Thomas from the game, and on the right Thomas irl:

Worked for National Park Service > "loved being outdoors"
The mod ends with a sunset > "He was especially fond of taking sunset photos."
His smile and laugh was said to be infectious > "He will be forever missed for his uniquely infectious laugh and smile."

The death year being so far off does seem odd if this is indeed who the mod is a tribute for, however this would put the Thomas' birth date within 2 years like Catherine's.

Edit:  Oops, posted on accident before I was finished.

A couple other things worth noting is that the irl Thomas had a love for photography and collected old cameras, also the tribute photos his loved ones posted contained a lot of bicycle pics, let me know if you are aware of any corollaries there as they seem to be an important part of his life.

I would also not that he was married to a "Mary, of Acton, MA".  And finally, due to the request to donate to suicide prevention instead of giving flowers as well as the article which said that what transpired was his own fault, this leads me to believe he committed suicide.

Something else that is likely just a coincidence but is still worth saying is that Thomas' funeral was at 57 Main Street and Norman Fenske died at 57.

Edit 2:  I may unironically be going mad, but I just noticed that Catherine Fellbaum is from a town (Swanville, MN) 70 miles north of where Thomas' wife Mary was from (Acton, MN).  Also, upon further inspection, the Shirley Funeral Chapels logo is a clear parody of Shelly Funeral Chapels where Catherine had her funeral.  And in addition to this, Norman Fenske was from a town (Norman, MN) 20 miles north of Swanville... this surely can't be a coincidence.

Edit 3: wanted to add an additional note that Thomas' wife Mary is not in any of the pictures posted of him and is not mentioned in several of the obituaries I found, this leads me to believe that they were potentially separated.  But also, I can't find any marriage records for the, in CT or MN.  I'm starting to think this may all hinge around Mary, especially considering the two obituaries where are clearly related to people from central MN... she seems to be the piece that ties this all together.

I can't quite shake the feeling this all gives me, digging into this is honestly just like playing the mod... a desperate attempt to make meaningful connections in an increasingly bizarre and acausal environment, until your sanity begins to wain and you are unsure if your "discovery" has any meaning or if it's just all some absurd joke from this thing we call life...

Edited July 28, 2023 by wormslayers

[SuperJroop]

I started an account just so I could post this. I haven't seen anyone mention this yet, (I haven't looked that hard though) but the images in the google docs are photoshopped in. You can see the cropping of the original photos peeking around the edges of the images of the interior of the house. Also, the obituary photo and the photo in the frame have the same exact pose of the man who passed, just mirrored. Someone deliberately edited/photoshopped/faked these images for the sake of the story of the house, which only adds to the mystery. Nice touch, IMO.

[wormslayers]

20 hours ago, SuperJroop said:

I started an account just so I could post this. I haven't seen anyone mention this yet, (I haven't looked that hard though) but the images in the google docs are photoshopped in. You can see the cropping of the original photos peeking around the edges of the images of the interior of the house. Also, the obituary photo and the photo in the frame have the same exact pose of the man who passed, just mirrored. Someone deliberately edited/photoshopped/faked these images for the sake of the story of the house, which only adds to the mystery. Nice touch, IMO.

Look at his collar/tie in the pic, it's clearly AI generated.  I believe all the images in the obituary are AI generated as well.

[strike]

On 7/15/2023 at 4:51 AM, Geniraul said:

For those who are interested, here are some MyHouse.wad commentated playthrough videos (+ couple of analysis videos + a speedrun + a review) that I found and I think are worth watching. I haven't watched them all yet, but based on the snippets I've seen so far, I'd like to mention these ones.

 

 

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https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1837899879

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• @DavidN

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• @RCooper

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• @BigMacDavis

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• @Vytaan

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• @ShallowB

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• @Spectere

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• @DeathwingDuck

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• @RoastDoom

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• @Matt Eldrydge

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• @MisterIcarus

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• @DavidN

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• @ShallowB

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If I may add mine, it got some good feedback (please disregard the clickbaity title, I don't upload to YT often, I concentrate on Twitch):

 

[SupremeBioVizier]

I really don't see the whole lifestyle all these youtubers have suggested...to me it is just a surrealistic approach to growing up in the suburbs nostalgic mindphuk of a masterpiece, if I had to sum up the game in one word it would be, puberty. I like how it's so open-ended people can see what they'd like. 

[zhutwo]

On 4/12/2023 at 9:35 AM, esselfortium said:

here you go

I'm listening to the rest of your music, and so far every track has been a banger. Good stuff!

[TasAcri]

On 8/1/2023 at 1:30 AM, strike said:

 

If I may add mine, it got some good feedback (please disregard the clickbaity title, I don't upload to YT often, I concentrate on Twitch):

 

 

Sorry man, i'm sure the video is great but it's not just the title. There's no way i'm clicking on any video with that kind of face on the thumbnail.

[Feldup]

Hi everybody, my name is Feldup and I'm about to make a video on this map.

Since the french community is not yet familiar about Myhouse.wad, I want to make things right and not have a negative impact on the doomworld community.

Is there anything you want me to say ? I'm gonna try my best to introduce people to the doom community, tell people to check other wads, even non horror themed ones. I have over a million subscribers and the last thing I'd want is for people to come here and flood the thread with things that you never wanted here.

[Scuba Steve]

Moderators have locked this thread when people started posting personal information from social media that isn't part of the Google doc folder or the wad itself. I'd wager that would happen again if new members started posting links to tiktoks or real-life information related to people involved or the location of the real house.