MyHouse.wad

[ultra_kek]

7 hours ago, mrthejoshmon said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Great news gentlmen, I've got the good mods working.

Don't you have better things to do? I was already annoyed at that person that was dualposting to tumblr and twitter about their attempts to get their various porn mods working in the #myhouse.wad tag the moment it was trending...

[ultra_kek]

6 hours ago, TangoBunny said:

 

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I'm personally of the opinion that the 'ANNA' reading/name is coincidental and unintentional - Just a bunch of corrupt text to distract you from the "Ma, aka, Help Me" message, and these scrambled letters just happen to rearrange the A and N twice.

But you could be right about everything else - things like having a period, HRT pills, and rolling for intercourse. I just think the 'A' is referencing the surname, like maybe instead of going by Thomas Allord, they go by Allie or Al (depending on which way around you want to believe) as a nickname.

 

Spoiler

To be fair, "Ma, A.K.A help me" is a very bizarre phrase in comparison. I've probably said 50 times by now that i'll always be critical of an interpretation involving an additional unnamed wife or female character, just based on Occam's Razor. I suppose if we want to interpret these familial allusions as involving a real mother, perhaps it could be either Steve's or Tom's, both named in the obituaries, in the same way that perhaps the dead man in the hospital dream could be Steven's deceased father. I personally interpret them as being metaphorically representative of Steve and Tom never having been able to be together to start a family of any kind at all, given how little weight the stillborn baby is actually given in the narrative (you'd think someone who has actually experienced it would react more to such a dream than Steve does).

 

[Far_reaching_consequences]

On 5/23/2023 at 2:59 AM, Gez said:

Dead Steve's Spooky Ghost, of course. That's the entire point of the Dead All Along trope.

I don't think it was. The journal describes a completely different relationship with Steve. I'd say theres some timeline shenanigans or something else going on a bit more than ghosts

[gayzad]

looks nice

[maurice]

Love this mod im glad after almost 30 years the doom modding community is still alive as ever

 

[OliveTree]

Spoiler

 

I'm of the opinion that, while its possible for a character like "Anna" to exist, and there are certainly some signs pointing to the existence of an unmentioned female character (the female restroom for instance), there's not really enough convincing evidence for it.

 

In a case where Anna is the mutual crush of both Steve and Tom, who passed away in some kind of tragic or violent circumstance, certainly some pieces of the mod would fall into place. S+A is a lot more readily resolved. The references to birth and babies ("It wasn't meant to be") are easier to make sense of. The aforementioned female restroom and its significance. If they hyperfocused on these details one could imagine a storyline where Anna and Steve got together, tried for a baby ("roll for intercourse") which had a stillbirth, Anna possibly self medicating as a response to the trauma of this until her untimely death. This ties a lot of those specific images together, and explains the blinding absence of the Steve's partner in his obituary.

 

But a staggeringly higher number of pieces would be left still up in the air. The parity between both Steve and Tom's "highschool crushes" and their moving back to the same place. The combined viewing at the funeral home. The lack of any real identified characters apart from Steve and Tom. The way that the gendered signs outside of the airport restrooms switch places after you leave (I almost wonder if one of these characters is supposed to be trans masc? It's a reach, but I'm not sure what to make of this detail). But it's also hard for me to make sense of the fact that these two men "tied the knot" on their relationship only to have supposedly not lived together for years before Tom's death. It's possible they separated after the stillbirth, whatever that represents? Or else, it's possible that Tom's death was actually much more distantly in the past than Steve is letting on? Ultimately, the idea of tending to the space you shared with someone else after their passing, only to find its not the same as you imagined that space to be initially....is a very cogent metaphor for the grieving process. I feel like if this mod represented some kind of manifestation of that grief, you'd see a lot more of the woman whose death preceded all of this tragedy.
 

Yet, I do struggle to make sense of the name Anna, specifically. Who is she? I'm not very ready to accept it as a total coincidence. There's no way its the dog, is it?

 

 

[CursedMatcha]

Spoiler

I was just messing around on the spiral staircase in the labyrinth, jumping off and landing on lower parts of the stairs. At some point I got teleported into that huge body of water - nearly had a heart attack lmao. It took me to a spot about 10 seconds of swimming time downwards, roughly in this position:


 
Has this happened to anyone else? Is it a random thing that can happen anywhere in the labyrinth, a feature of the staircase, or bug? Haven't been able to trigger it again... 

 

[TJG1289]

1 minute ago, CursedMatcha said:

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I was just messing around on the spiral staircase in the labyrinth, jumping off and landing on lower parts of the stairs. At some point I got teleported into that huge body of water - nearly had a heart attack lmao. It took me to a spot about 10 seconds of swimming time downwards, roughly in this position:


 
Has this happened to anyone else? Is it a random thing that can happen anywhere in the labyrinth, a feature of the staircase, or bug? Haven't been able to trigger it again... 

 

Yeah, someone posted a video of this same thing before. Probably a bug tho.

[Gez]

7 minutes ago, OliveTree said:

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I'm of the opinion that, while its possible for a character like "Anna" to exist, and there are certainly some signs pointing to the existence of an unmentioned female character (the female restroom for instance), there's not really enough convincing evidence for it.

 

In a case where Anna is the mutual crush of both Steve and Tom, who passed away in some kind of tragic or violent circumstance, certainly some pieces of the mod would fall into place. S+A is a lot more readily resolved. The references to birth and babies ("It wasn't meant to be") are easier to make sense of. The aforementioned female restroom and its significance. If they hyperfocused on these details one could imagine a storyline where Anna and Steve got together, tried for a baby ("roll for intercourse") which had a stillbirth, Anna possibly self medicating as a response to the trauma of this until her untimely death. This ties a lot of those specific images together, and explains the blinding absence of the Steve's partner in his obituary.

 

But a staggeringly higher number of pieces would be left still up in the air. The parity between both Steve and Tom's "highschool crushes" and their moving back to the same place. The combined viewing at the funeral home. The lack of any real identified characters apart from Steve and Tom. The way that the gendered signs outside of the airport restrooms switch places after you leave (I almost wonder if one of these characters is supposed to be trans masc? It's a reach, but I'm not sure what to make of this detail). But it's also hard for me to make sense of the fact that these two men "tied the knot" on their relationship only to have supposedly not lived together for years before Tom's death. It's possible they separated after the stillbirth, whatever that represents? Or else, it's possible that Tom's death was actually much more distantly in the past than Steve is letting on? Ultimately, the idea of tending to the space you shared with someone else after their passing, only to find its not the same as you imagined that space to be initially....is a very cogent metaphor for the grieving process. I feel like if this mod represented some kind of manifestation of that grief, you'd see a lot more of the woman whose death preceded all of this tragedy.
 

Yet, I do struggle to make sense of the name Anna, specifically. Who is she? I'm not very ready to accept it as a total coincidence. There's no way its the dog, is it?

 

 

Spoiler

Here's a potential scenario:

Steve and Anna were a thing, Steve even proposed to Anna (the ring), but Anna turned out to be Tom, so they separated, and after hearing that Tom died, Steve started thinking of what could have been, if...

 

[OliveTree]

2 minutes ago, Gez said:

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Here's a potential scenario:

Steve and Anna were a thing, Steve even proposed to Anna (the ring), but Anna turned out to be Tom, so they separated, and after hearing that Tom died, Steve started thinking of what could have been, if...

 

Spoiler

anna turned out to be tom??

 

[CursedMatcha]

7 minutes ago, TJG1289 said:

Yeah, someone posted a video of this same thing before. Probably a bug tho.

I see, alright thanks. Such a huge scare lol, thought I'd seen everything

[ultra_kek]

5 minutes ago, OliveTree said:

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anna turned out to be tom??

 

Spoiler

As in Tom is a trans man and "Anna" is Tom's deadname. It would explain the contradictions between the "S + A" and the implication of Tom and Steven being each other's high school crushes - Tom would have gone by a different name at the time and so the S+A, presumably done in their high school days given the association of such romantic etching with youth, was done with what was Tom's used name at the time. As mentioned by others, there are several hints to gender themes being involved, most notably in the bathrooms of the airport (same area with the "Anna" text) where the men's bathroom has a single bloody toilet, and the mirror of the women's bathroom causes the bloody monster ambush and ends with the bathrooms' gender signs becoming reversed, plus the frequent themes of duality and a happier "other" self and there being photographs in the album of both a Boy's and Girl's Cross Country club, even though only Tom and Steve are outright stated to have been runners.

 

[Gez]

2 minutes ago, OliveTree said:

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anna turned out to be tom??

 

See, this is why these spoiler conversations are annoying. We're just rehashing stuff that has been talked about dozens of time already. Occam's Razor says that Tom is a transman. Evidence:

1. In the documents on the Drive folder, the obituary says that Tom used to run cross country in high school. In the photo, there's a picture of a girls' cross country team. Why, if these are supposed to be pictures of Steve and Tom's past?
2. The bathroom signs swap after you complete the bloody loop. Inferring a trans narrative from this is the obvious step.
3. The name "ANNA" is written out of "CANCELLED" notices. As if it's the Anna identity that was cancelled. There's certainly no other mention of her anywhere...
4. ... except for the "S+A" heart that could mean Steve+Anna. Journal entry:
   Happy Valentines day to the only person I ever loved. For a short time, you brought a little happiness to this painful existence called life. I hope we can be together again one day.
   He only ever loved one person. Who is it, Tom or Anna? S+A implies Anna, but can you tell me the whole ordeal of making this tribute to Tom is not fueled by love? Also, their time together was short. Why did they break up? Was it perhaps because Tom came out as trans, and Steve had trouble accepting that? It's certainly not always easy... (And if you do get the hidden QR code graveyard ending, then they are together again in death...)
5. The whole journal is very coy about referring to Tom. It's always "my childhood friend" and there's never any pronoun, it's like "my friend's map" instead of "his map" or "my friend" instead of "him". Even though that makes the writing more cumbersome and repetitive, and avoiding that is the main reason why pronouns exist in any language.

 

 

[OliveTree]

10 minutes ago, Gez said:

See, this is why these spoiler conversations are annoying. We're just rehashing stuff that has been talked about dozens of time already. Occam's Razor says that Tom is a transman. Evidence:

1. In the documents on the Drive folder, the obituary says that Tom used to run cross country in high school. In the photo, there's a picture of a girls' cross country team. Why, if these are supposed to be pictures of Steve and Tom's past?
2. The bathroom signs swap after you complete the bloody loop. Inferring a trans narrative from this is the obvious step.
3. The name "ANNA" is written out of "CANCELLED" notices. As if it's the Anna identity that was cancelled. There's certainly no other mention of her anywhere...
4. ... except for the "S+A" heart that could mean Steve+Anna. Journal entry:
   Happy Valentines day to the only person I ever loved. For a short time, you brought a little happiness to this painful existence called life. I hope we can be together again one day.
   He only ever loved one person. Who is it, Tom or Anna? S+A implies Anna, but can you tell me the whole ordeal of making this tribute to Tom is not fueled by love? Also, their time together was short. Why did they break up? Was it perhaps because Tom came out as trans, and Steve had trouble accepting that? It's certainly not always easy... (And if you do get the hidden QR code graveyard ending, then they are together again in death...)
5. The whole journal is very coy about referring to Tom. It's always "my childhood friend" and there's never any pronoun, it's like "my friend's map" instead of "his map" or "my friend" instead of "him". Even though that makes the writing more cumbersome and repetitive, and avoiding that is the main reason why pronouns exist in any language.

 

 

The only part of this I already understood conceptually was the premise that Tom might be trans. I'm fully on board with the prospect of a trans masc element to the story. I actually referenced this in the post you were replying to originally. What confused me was that I fully misunderstood your comment to mean that, somehow, Steve proposed to Tom not realizing that Tom was the same person as his childhood friend, which is like, impossible to imagine. If the idea is that Tom coming out as trans somehow caused their relationship to crumble, that makes more sense to me lmao. But the phrasing is what confused me, not the story idea itself.

Edited May 26, 2023 by OliveTree

[mrthejoshmon]

6 hours ago, ultra_kek said:

Don't you have better things to do? I was already annoyed at that person that was dualposting to tumblr and twitter about their attempts to get their various porn mods working in the #myhouse.wad tag the moment it was trending...

For someone called ultra-kek I figured you, of all people, would recognise shitposting.

 

EDIT: Granted, it's not a very good joke actually, required more time in the oven, more thinking and a better delivery, quite a bad bit I must say probably top 10 worst bits I've done.

Was gonna slyly edit it out or delete it but I'd sooner just live with the shame and hope nobody would notice or bring attention to it...

hint

Edited May 26, 2023 by mrthejoshmon

[K_Runner]

Very well made and extraordinary WAD, easily one of the best ones i've ever played.

 

 

[NeoTrantor]

5 hours ago, Gez said:

...

5. The whole journal is very coy about referring to Tom. It's always "my childhood friend" and there's never any pronoun, it's like "my friend's map" instead of "his map" or "my friend" instead of "him". Even though that makes the writing more cumbersome and repetitive, and avoiding that is the main reason why pronouns exist in any language.

 

Just wanted to mention a post the author (Veddge) made on December 4, 2022 and that can (only?) be found on his profile page:

 

Quote

...

I’m trying to remember the layout of his house, it’s been almost 20 years since I was there and his parents don’t live there anymore. Since finding his old works, I keep having nights of restless sleep, and I keep waking up feeling exhausted. I hadn’t seen my friend for almost 10 years now but I keep dreaming of him.

...

 

I'm leaving to you how to interpret that ;)

 

*edit*
That's not the only post where he's referring to 'him'.

Edited May 26, 2023 by NeoTrantor

[LukeJR]

11 hours ago, LukeJR said:

Interesting, I think it would be better to hide this in the spoiler tag in the text editor.
Hmm... I'm no expert when it comes to technical information. That just looks like the file changed name to an error code.
I strongly doubt that the developer of this wad was able to make a file name change automatically to a code that means something...

While I can appreciate that there are so many people overthinking and trying to find more secrets... Listen, there isn't much more to this project.
We need to stop trying to fill in the spaces because that just shows that we are not satisfied with the wad itself. I think the story is not the main highlight here.
The wad experience is awesome! The story along with the journal is not on the same level of "I'm impressed"

Let's just stop trying to overthink this project. Let's just accept it for what it is and the experience it delivered on.

I've seen this happen countless times, especially in Nolan Movies. Some people just can't accept something for what it is.

Everything I said is still relevant to what is happening now. Look, we need to stop trying to look deeper into something that has already been discussed hundreds of times. Let's try to start talking about why we appreciate this wad. Let's explain what makes it stand out to us. If we keep focusing on the story while trying to ask the same questions that have already been answered. We may as well just be going in circles... And as much many of us may like/dislike Post Malone. We need to avoid going in circles just this once...

[PinKiSiDoR]

Entering the underwater section of the house just straight up crashes GZdoom, with the line "Render threads did not finish within 5 seconds!"
anyone know why?

 

I'm using latest GZdoom version, and I cannot figure out how to solve this. Anyone has any clue on how to solve this?

[Mando]

Beautiful

[aloysiusfreeman]

1 hour ago, PinKiSiDoR said:

Entering the underwater section of the house just straight up crashes GZdoom, with the line "Render threads did not finish within 5 seconds!"
anyone know why?

 

I'm using latest GZdoom version, and I cannot figure out how to solve this. Anyone has any clue on how to solve this?

 

I encountered this issue too (I am playing on a Mac). I was on a previous version of GZdoom, because for some reason I could not get it to load on the latest one. 

What fixed it the first time? I walked backwards into the underwater section of the house. That did it!

[Mr Masker]

It's really so surreal to see a mod that I played when it was only known to Doomworld folk, become talked about by SomeOrdinaryGamers, Vinesauce, Jacksepticeye and Pyrocyncial, get analysis videos that gain over 1M views and have actual effects on the sales of its inspirations.

 

I thought MyHouse was great when it came out, but I never expected this much attention towards it. I hope maybe this can inspire people to try out Doom mapping themselves and make their own interesting projects, whether on GZDoom scale or just mapping. I'm quite hopeful for the future this could bring. Well done MyHouse.wad... or MyHouse.pk3... or just "MyHouse"... something like that.

Edited May 26, 2023 by Mr Masker

[Static Hamster]

Made a video on how to get out of the Backrooms and find the exit every time.

 

https://youtu.be/68rHz2lEelY

 

 

Edited May 26, 2023 by Static Hamster

[aloysiusfreeman]

I'm going to try my best - it has certainly filled me with inspiration!

[OliveTree]

The thing about Tom being trans masc is that I'm not sure what to make of some of the info in that case. What does "Help me, Anna" mean in a context where Anna is the deadname of his late friend.

[Gez]

6 hours ago, NeoTrantor said:

I'm leaving to you how to interpret that ;)

I'm leaving you to interpret the word "journal on Google Drive" as something different from "Doomworld forum posts".

 

42 minutes ago, OliveTree said:

The thing about Tom being trans masc is that I'm not sure what to make of some of the info in that case. What does "Help me, Anna" mean in a context where Anna is the deadname of his late friend.

It could be:

 

Help me!

 

Anna.

 

For example.

[Groplaw]

12 hours ago, Gez said:

See, this is why these spoiler conversations are annoying. We're just rehashing stuff that has been talked about dozens of time already. Occam's Razor says that Tom is a transman. Evidence:

1. In the documents on the Drive folder, the obituary says that Tom used to run cross country in high school. In the photo, there's a picture of a girls' cross country team. Why, if these are supposed to be pictures of Steve and Tom's past?
2. The bathroom signs swap after you complete the bloody loop. Inferring a trans narrative from this is the obvious step.
3. The name "ANNA" is written out of "CANCELLED" notices. As if it's the Anna identity that was cancelled. There's certainly no other mention of her anywhere...
4. ... except for the "S+A" heart that could mean Steve+Anna. Journal entry:
   Happy Valentines day to the only person I ever loved. For a short time, you brought a little happiness to this painful existence called life. I hope we can be together again one day.
   He only ever loved one person. Who is it, Tom or Anna? S+A implies Anna, but can you tell me the whole ordeal of making this tribute to Tom is not fueled by love? Also, their time together was short. Why did they break up? Was it perhaps because Tom came out as trans, and Steve had trouble accepting that? It's certainly not always easy... (And if you do get the hidden QR code graveyard ending, then they are together again in death...)
5. The whole journal is very coy about referring to Tom. It's always "my childhood friend" and there's never any pronoun, it's like "my friend's map" instead of "his map" or "my friend" instead of "him". Even though that makes the writing more cumbersome and repetitive, and avoiding that is the main reason why pronouns exist in any language.

 

 

 

This is probably the best well rounded take that squares the most points in it.

 

There are some things that confuse it, the doomworld posts for example, but to be honest that could either be a case of Steve Nelson talking differently in public than in their personal journal not meant for others (i mean yes obviously its meant as part of the wad, but in fiction its just their personal journal), for example where they're supportive and using "he, him" etc in public, but in private their history together muddies those waters in how they still remember someone who in this scenario they loved as Anna first, and its a harder thing for them to go with internally than it is to show respect to them externally on a forum.

 

Or it could be a case, not to get too meta, of a mistake on the true author's part where, back when they made those posts they didn't quite have it nailed down so they stick out compared to the journal and everything in the wad in its release state.  I know saying "eh maybe its just a mistake" in something otherwise so thoroughly precise is a cop out (which is why i think the earlier interpretation of the doom world posts fits better), but sometimes they do happen.

[Ningen666]

Hey, if Tom was also a doom mapper, does Tom also have a account here? If so, what was it??

[TJG1289]

2 minutes ago, Polyg0n said:

Hey, if Tom was also a doom mapper, does Tom also have a account here? If so, what was it??

This is assuming Tom and Steve are real people and not just characters created for this story. I mean, some details about Steve's life don't line up with Veddge's past posts back from the mid 2000s, like college. 

[Ningen666]

1 minute ago, TJG1289 said:

This is assuming Tom and Steve are real people and not just characters created for this story. I mean, some details about Steve's life don't line up with Veddge's past posts back from the mid 2000s, like college. 

Good point, right now I am more focused on getting quake 2 running on linux, so my mind is not as focused right now.