crookeddy

Oh man, I honestly didn't think about that (and that's a bit embarrassing, because... duh). I do have dev brain! I even watch movies like this sometimes! I might not like a movie, but then I watch the extras for it explaining how it was made, and suddenly I become a huge fan for completely non artistic reasons. Honestly I think if i had more skill for path-finding and puzzle solving I'd have enjoyed this mod a lot more. I think using walkthroughs for this one kills at leas 80% of the enjoyment. At the same time, I am pretty bad at connecting with games emotionally on a more abstract level like this mod kind of requires, so I still probably would have missed out on a lot of the intended emotional response.

I don't think that's my only problem... Even if I was as surprised as the first person who ever played it blindly 1) I probably would've stopped after I ended up playing Doom 2 after the first key, because how are you even supposed to know there is more? 2) If I did somehow figure that out I'd get lost on a bunch of parts. My brain just doesn't work in game puzzle solving mode. In fact I am completely puzzled (pun half intended) by how anyone figures these things out lol PERHAPPPPSSSS I'd get the burning house ending, and definitely would've stopped there.

And after you do, you can still go back, but probably should read a guide to make sure you didn't already see everything. Chances are that you did.

I just wanted to share that reading everyone's reactions to this wad made me feel like I am a broken person. Let me tell you my story with it. I came to it at the peak of the craze - perhaps when PC Gamer wrote an article on it, or maybe even later, don't remember anymore. Given that there was already a craze I knew that there would be twists. So I finally get to playing it, get the blue key, leave the house and off to doom 2 level 2. So how am I supposed to know if I should keep playing or not? Have to go check a guide. Get spoiler that I should get the super shotgun and keep playing. Come back to the house, do stuff get through a few of the houses, see the dog(s), get lost in the brutalist house, try to figure out what to do for like an hour, get bored, turn game off to go watch videos on it. All the while I feel almost... nothing. Everyone is talking about having all these life changing or life affirming feelings and like... I just don't process games that way. I am trying to get to the end and that's all I am getting out of it. And sure, I can enjoy the journey but the game is going to have to spell out how I am supposed to be feeling for me to feel it. (Think of a sad death scene in an RPG. The game is practically yelling at you to be sad) And then figuring out where to go - I think some part of my brain just doesn't work or something. I think I could be playing this game daily until now and I'd never figure out the bathtub or the item collecting or some of those other puzzles. So I am just baffled by how people are getting so much out of this, and by extension from other games and even other media. I guess I am just broken, or not smart enough or something. Perhaps its that worst of all curses - being smart enough to know that you aren't smart. EDIT: I'd like to say that the strongest emotion that this wad elicited in me was amazement at the skill level, and time required to make this thing. I mean, imagine putting in all this time without knowing it would ever go viral - promoting it would obviously destroy the whole initial mystery of it all. So this person (who still posts on this board, as has been confirmed several times) put in soooo much time basically on the off chance that enough people would figure out that the whole thing is a mystery to be solved. Like, imagine if only a few people downloaded the wad, because who cares about another house, and those people just stop after the first house. Damn... And obviously knowing what other wads look like, I was very impressed by the technical skill behind it. So to me, the intended mystery doesn't matter too much. I don't get much out of it. I just want to understand what kind of person would invest their time on something like this, with no guarantees that enough people would ever... get it. And then I'd go and play this person's other wads (and they are surely an experienced mapper) to go try to figure out inspirations. Not because I actually liked myhouse, but because that's what I am interested in. That's MY mystery. And apparently people with that kind of thought process have been deemed evil on here, so maybe this will be my first and last post.