MyHouse.wad

[Groplaw]

I think the author is a bit of a victim of thier own success here as well.  i can't imagine when they released this they ever thought it would be anything more than "that was neat, cool map" and maybe a cacoward at the end of the year if people really like it.  Certainly not that it would be viewed by millions of people and explode into massive theorycrafting over the narrative of it.

 

That out of nowhere success i think has put a lot more spotlight on the metanarrative of it all than could ever have been intended.

[Not Jabba]

13 minutes ago, Groplaw said:

That out of nowhere success i think has put a lot more spotlight on the metanarrative of it all than could ever have been intended.

 

Relatedly, I feel kind of sorry for the person who made "Myhouse2.wad" back in 1995, who couldn't possibly have expected all the people suddenly snarking their map 30 years later.

[i suck at nicknames]

watching decinos stream.....how do you

Spoiler

get out of the backrooms anyways

?

[Not Jabba]

7 minutes ago, i suck at nicknames said:

watching decinos stream.....how do you

  Reveal hidden contents

get out of the backrooms anyways

?

Walkthrough here, but it doesn't work in the mirror version. We don't think there's a way out of that.

Edited May 27, 2023 by Not Jabba

[Misty]

33 minutes ago, Not Jabba said:

Walkthrough here, but it doesn't work in the mirror version. We don't think there's a way out of that.

Maybe route to exit is flipped in mirror world(just hypothesis), but I believe that any layout of myhouse.wad backrooms has same exit route. Didn't test, builder is the best friend. 

[thomasthetankengine]

yo can someone make a short version of all the lore of myhouse.wad cuz like i lost track of what's been going on ever since the tom is a trans man theory

[TangoBunny]

I think it's pretty cool how they didn't just bring back memories of early doom mapping, but early forum drama too!
 

Spoiler

The burning house is clearly a reference to Steve and Tom having an argument over whether rap music counts as music and they started FLAMING EACH OTHER 

and then tom was like "get out of my house steve!!!!!"

and steve was like "I'm gonna make my OWN house!!!  you're dead to me tom!!!!"

and then tom said "FINE" and went back to his xbox and started screaming "MOM I WANT CHOCOLATE MILKSHAKE" down xbox live and the mom was like "sigh. kid wants a milkshake"

meanwhile steve started writing emo poetry while listening to lenny kravitz 'i want to get away, i want to flyyyy away' and that's the plane sequence came from

 

[Major Arlene]

1 hour ago, NoisyVelvet said:

WOAH.  spoilers, people.

edit: i haven't played this thing yet but got a lunchlunch notification.

you control the notifications you click on

[ebrl]

6 hours ago, SiFi270 said:

I'm beginning to think the QR code ending was a mistake. Without it, people might have taken the story at face value and not dug any deeper than the author intended.

That's an odd thing to say, since there are both people who suspected it wasn't meant to be taken at face value before even downloading the wad, and people who still take most of it at face value even after having played, seen and discussed all of it. The audience it has attracted is quite.... varied, and I think a detail more or two less here and there wouldn't change the reactions that much.

Edited May 27, 2023 by ebrl

[Tony D 666]

This was a rough one. I sat through some play throughs as I’m not sure I have the patience myself to play this. I’ve played maps before that invoked feelings. All types of feelings. This map made me depressed and uncomfortable. Almost the entire time. It’s almost palpable. Which I suppose is a credit the mapper. I liked this a lot but I also didn’t like it. It was heavy like bad news tends to make you feel. Like an oppressive heaviness. This was a one and done for me. Glad I got to witness it and I appreciate it for what it is - but I wouldn’t play/watch this again.  This was a lightning strike of perfect gameplay, setting & atmosphere. 
 

I do have my reservations that this was created during the time it was claimed to have been made. Some of the trickery here is advanced IMO. Not sure if the dates were proven or not. 

[CuppaBro]

7 minutes ago, Tony D 666 said:

This was a rough one. I sat through some play throughs as I’m not sure I have the patience myself to play this. I’ve played maps before that invoked feelings. All types of feelings. This map made me depressed and uncomfortable. Almost the entire time. It’s almost palpable. Which I suppose is a credit the mapper. I liked this a lot but I also didn’t like it. It was heavy like bad news tends to make you feel. Like an oppressive heaviness. This was a one and done for me. Glad I got to witness it and I appreciate it for what it is - but I wouldn’t play/watch this again.  This was a lightning strike of perfect gameplay, setting & atmosphere. 
 

I do have my reservations that this was created during the time it was claimed to have been made. Some of the trickery here is advanced IMO. Not sure if the dates were proven or not. 

I mean, with the amount of UDMF embellishments that the journal implies were added within as recently as the past year, I think it's safe to say that it's hard to debate that they were made when they were stated to be. The "original" .WAD has some Boom hackery with silent teleports, but otherwise could've been made at pretty much any time since that port was created.

Edited May 27, 2023 by CuppaBro
Improved wording

[Tony D 666]

2 minutes ago, CuppaBro said:

I mean, with the amount of UDMF embellishments that the journal implies were added within as recently as the past year, I think it's safe to say that it's hard to debate that they were made when they were stated to be. The "original" .WAD has some Boom hackery with silent teleports, but otherwise could've been made at pretty much any time since that port was created.

Makes perfect sense! It was “dressed up” a tad. I’m still learning about this topic to be honest. There’s a lot to unwrap here!

[NoName667]

I would guess that no custom mod has ever been as popular as My House. Jacksepticeye has played it, Moistcriticle has played it, and Vinny has played it. It's insane how many eyes are focused on the doom-mapping community right now. So with all this attention, do you guys think there will be a high increase of members in the mapping community?

[Mr. Alexander]

Speaking for myself, I don't know who any of those people are. It would be cool if the attention paid to MyHouse.pk3 brought in a lot of interested people willing to tough it out and make levels inspired by it. It'll be hard for any event to match the mapping boom of 2020-2022 when so many people were stuck inside and needed a hobby to pass the time.

[dasho]

34 minutes ago, NoName667 said:

I would guess that no custom mod has ever been as popular as My House.

 

Surely Brutal Doom hasn't been dethroned.

[kwc]

I suppose we might see more attempts at making "out of the box" maps that are more about tonal, aesthetic, or novelty qualities and less centered around Doom's core gameplay.

Since we can't mentionate, I nominate MyHouse for the InstaDoom/SelfieDoom Award.

Edited May 28, 2023 by kwc

[Biodegradable]

5 hours ago, NoName667 said:

It's insane how many eyes are focused on the doom-mapping community right now. So with all this attention, do you guys think there will be a high increase of members in the mapping community?

 

The community has already been enjoying a steady flow of new members since the success of the nuDoom games, but sure, there could likely be a new influx of newbies who were probably inspired by MyHouse specifically and want to try mapping for themselves. Incidentally, this might be the most successful mod project to get this level of attention outside of the community since Linguica's InstaDoom mod back in 2015 in terms of news coverage and the like.

Edited May 28, 2023 by Biodegradable

[Dubbag]

Whatever draws new people to this game I'm all for it!

[MissArgent]

The sheer ingenuity's gotten me to start taking my plans to make a raycaster more seriously. That'd take more after Goldeneye/Perfect Dark/TimeSplitters, though. (and i'd want to do some extensive studies of iD and Raven's map designs before I go trying to make a TC anyhow)

[Dweller Dark]

Probably, but I'm not so sure if those future WADs/mods will get the same external attention that MyHouse has, at least when it comes to the very influential YouTubers/streamers. As much as I dislike it sometimes, YouTubers/streamers will just jump forward to the next big thing and never look back unless it's something they have a personal history with or if it's unique enough to gain their attention like MyHouse did. A lot of them miss out on truly amazing games and mods because of that or something else. Once the hype dies down, I'm not really expecting people like Jacksepticeye to come back and look at other, high-quality things like MyHouse. People already in the retro/boomer shooter scene will notice them, though, and that's something. And maybe some people who follow the YouTubers/streamers will. 

 

But you never know, so maybe something in the future will catch their eyes once more and make it widespread.

[The Lag]

This is the first time in years I've actually logged into my Doomworld account. I usually just lurk whenever I check in. Anyway, I logged in just to say that I've been playing Doom since 1994, have played thousands of wads through all of those years, enjoy every kind of map, used to keep my own personal mirror of the idgames archive because I was so obsessed with trying to play every single one of them, and dayum I really enjoyed this one.
The more secret-huntery gameplay really got me, since I'm totally into that, and I came here to this thread to see if anyone had found a purpose for unplugging the TV, or any other discoveries...and I see drama. I guess I'll read through the monster of a thread. Have fun.

Edited June 17, 2023 by The Lag

[DeafPixel]

Need to do a bit of analysis-dumping because I can't get this mod out of my head
 

Spoiler

I think the reason this mod works so well is because it taps into doom's pre-existing uncaniness. All the liminal space stuff works because doom as a game is already kind of liminal. The limitations of the engine make all the levels in this eerie space between abstraction and reality, and this mod magnifies that tenfold. The doomcute starts off as adorable, but when everything starts to unravel it just adds to the terror of everything else. Doom always renders realistic spaces in a somewhat surreal manner. You couldn't make this mod in a more advanced engine, not only because of how the fuckery of doom's established rules serves to enhance the experience, but because they're just too realistic.

Another detail that I don't see people mention nearly enough is how unexpected and offputting the mp3 audio is. Not the song itself, but the fact that it isn't a midi. The whole housefire section is immaculately placed to suddenly drop you into the deep end after things have been slowly getting weirder for at least 10 minutes now.

Also, shoutouts to Not Jabba, the real MVP here

[CBurn]

It helped reignite my interest in doom mapping made my first map and now working on a mod

[Dreamskull]

No, I dont think it will. It may inspire something that could temporarily boost the scene, but If you actually want to see an explosion in people making maps, the maker of the map has to drop information on how how the map was made so people can build maps like it in its "style" using its method. It might benchmark things though and I think thats fair.

Edited May 28, 2023 by Dreamskull

[Arctangent]

6 minutes ago, DeafPixel said:

 

  Hide contents

Doom always renders realistic spaces in a somewhat surreal manner. You couldn't make this mod in a more advanced engine, not only because of how the fuckery of doom's established rules serves to enhance the experience, but because they're just too realistic.

 

 

when you put it like that, sounds like source would make for a perfectly fine candidate, too

 

naturally, the tropes at play and the specific surrealities would differ, but there's nonetheless something about the source engine that makes its levels quickly turn liminal if you so much as stop to smell the drywall

[Connor Reagan]

 I wonder how my house wad would go with pi over 2.

[Zulk RS]

No I don't think it will cause a mapping boom

 

 

BUT it might get a new wave of Doom Players in the community.

[LukeJR]

I'd now like to share my thoughts on the myhouse.wad:

The atmosphere of this wad is absolutely unsettling... It feels like you shouldn't be there. From the very moment the music goes weird... That's when I felt that feeling intensify. The heaviness within this wad is unreal. When people say that it makes them feel depressed or broken. Listen, I understand that too. It really does feel broken. There's just something about it that makes you think that you are experiencing something from your own life. I don't think the story is what makes this wad unsettling... The design of the map may be the main contributor. The music doesn't really unsettle me and my friends played it without the music because they said it hurts their ears. Which I think is completely valid.

My main criticism would be that the music doesn't do enough. The story itself can be more interesting the longer you read into it. I honestly think it's the story that the Player makes in their own mind that makes this wad the best it can be. Because there is a story through some environment story-telling. That's something that I really enjoyed in this wad. My friends have asked me to share their thoughts in my comment so here it goes:

Alex:
"It's not that I don't like the wad. As someone who's played DOOM for 20 years, I honestly am very impressed with what it has achieved. I know people will say it is overrated and that's okay, I agree to an extent. I just think it's unfair to blame the author since the audience will be the problem for why this is overrated"

Sarin:
"Considering you asked me to play this as a prank... I don't forgive you... I won't forgive you... you have given me many nightmares!"

Jennifer:
"If I could describe this in one simple word. I'd say that it is "MONUMENTAL" because it really is... I got lost in this maze of a house... I got lost for so long... I had to watch videos on how to understand this silent hill nightmare"

Edison:
"I can't blame the author for why this wad exists... but I can blame myself for playing it"

There's also a few comments shared on my Discord from close friends of mine:

Jasper:
"I think what this is trying to be is a shadow on Doom... it's trying to be what we wanted it to be... I can't explain in words alone why this map is so beautiful. Maybe it's the fact it is a house? I mean I like house and I'm not even a music fan"

Sophia:
"Well... I HATE YOU GUYS! You made me play this instead of Valorant? I missed ranked because of your prank! I'm now stuck thinking about that maze... Oh god... that maze... Can you please never recommend me this again? Promise? PLEASE! Can we play a game together now? ^-^"

That's all for now... I'll be sure to share more of my friends thoughts later and also my other friends may even sign up on the forum to comment for themselves. There's a few friends of mine that didn't want me to share it so I've respected their wishes. Overall, I really love this wad! Great work anonymous!

[Not Jabba]

It's fair to ask that question, but what you need to realize is that there are already more Doom maps/mods being released in a year than any one person can possibly play.

Edited May 28, 2023 by Not Jabba

[SakuraFalls]

12 hours ago, Insaneprophet said:

  I make no judgements but that generally works alot better when presented as a work of fiction rather than presented as being by and about real people

  And this would again have worked better if it was not being presented as just more puzzles in a giant mess of different puzzles to figure out.

  I cast no aspersions though. My own thoughs are that this is a work of art well deserving of the award its sure to win but is it perfect... no, nothing is.

 

This deserves a bump for sure!