MyHouse.wad

post airplane exit, then had to come to the forum to see how much I'd missed... Holy ...

House of Leaves'y (when I saw the Navidson Realty thing, the smile that went across my face was palpable)

This map is a complete descent into madness, especially on the first go. I actually went through this once without anything happening and thought nothing of it, but when I went in again I accidentally triggered the different map. The way this map subtly eases you into its true form is perfect, from the change to smooth weapons, to the music. Then finally, I stumbled my way into the burnt house ending, it was such a brilliant experience.

Stuff like this is why I like this kind of horror. Jumpscares make you jump or whatever, but this stuff sticks in your mind, especially when that fear turns to curiousity... that's when these sorts of projects truly shine: A seemingly infinite amount of secrets and areas to uncover, to the point where I probably won't be able to uncover it all untill someone makes a fancy walkthrough to guide my ape brain.

I don't know if I'll be able to go through and get all the artifacts and stuff, that's a bit daunting. But from I've played already, this shows a great use of uneasing horror, replayability and subversion of the player. Good job

Regarding the windows in the brutalist area - you can get to at least one of them legitimately, by doing a jump from here. There is a TV in that room, which shows you the very same room with the TV; you can unplug it, and the screen will go black - apparently, you can't move, but it is possible to shoot (but there's no sound or anything). Pressing the use again plugs the TV cable back, but it is now shows only the white noise. Idk if this changes anything on the map - when I was doing this I was already locked on bad ending. The only way out is through the dark abyss/endless staircase - the same story as with the Mega room.

After plugging the TV back in, the same white noise and “CH03” also appears in the ruined house basement TV (IIRC from my playthrough). Not sure if there’s any further significance…

Unplugging the TV and having the whole game go black was a real “wow I can’t believe they thought of this” moment, heh.

• The "unreachable" berserk can be reached if you hit use on the wall behind the closet you see it in. You'll "punch" the wall and dislodge the berserk pack from the shelf.
• I haven't been able to replicate the item count going higher. Nothing in the scripts appears to spawn new powerups.
• The dark labyrinth seems to join a few areas of the map together but that's it. Nothing is gained from exploring it or going down the spiral staircase. It seems to be there purely to drive players to insanity.
• The Backrooms are there to discourage noclipping. The computer is a red herring. You don't get anything in there.
• The Skinstealer is not killable as he has (literally) 10 billion hit points.
• Underhalls nets you an SSG and a blue armor so it's quite useful to visit and come back, but you have to do so early on, as you can't carry artifacts between levels. It's therefore not advised to visit Underhalls after getting any artifacts, and certainly a bad idea to visit sllahrednU at all, as that map actually forces a complete pistol start. It will also start you back at House 2 upon completion, stopping you from accessing the blue keycard and getting the plasma in the Brutalist house.
• sllahrednU's Backrooms also don't seem to hold anything, they're there again to just discourage cheaters.
• Looks like a few windows in the Brutalist house are available to jump into but only that megasphere and that TV screen appear to be what you get out of them... so far.
• The IDCHOPPERS secret does indeed refer to the BFG, and the idea is to leave the restroom entrance clear of blood as you enter. It's a bit tricky to do so but on the wiki page I describe a reliable way to get it.
• The dogs just seem to affect the ending. If you're a dog lover, try and leave them both alive, although the cerberus will definitely cause you problems if you don't know where to go.
• Not sure!
• Also not sure! We might have cracked most of this map by now but I'm sure there's some more little idiosyncrasies.

I think we've found something that has gone undocumented so far, if you find enough mementos to unlock the petrol station area in the Regular House 2, but then destroy it via the fuse box in the basement to get to the Brutalist House (we didn't know about the route back to the Brutalist House that didn't involve destroying Regular House 2 at the time) then in the ending after the house has been sold, you can still lower the fence in the same place that would normally go to the petrol station. Instead, it leads to a small clearing with a gravestone that has a QR code on (posted in the spoiler in case you want to find it for yourself)

In some ways, I think the experience of the wad was improved a lot by playing through it with a friend, since talking about the map, coming up with theories of how to get to certain areas or what the meaning behind certain parts of the map were some of the most engaging moments I've ever had in Doom. I'm not sure I could summarise my feelings towards this in a forum post, but suffice to say that this will stick with me for a very long time.

QR Code link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wNdWb4JkdaZn2M5B8MhFLrapsYFYvLOv/view

Well, on one hand, this map might have absolutely nothing to do with the two fellows who passed away on the same day.

On the other hand, Veddge might have known Steve well-enough to get the map from him before or after his passing. Perhaps the original credit for the map given to Steve is more appropriate than Veddge putting his name on it after the edits were made.

I'm honestly leaning towards the former, but I would just as likely believe the latter.

A ghost making edits to maps? No.

A ghost afflicting those who try to edit their maps? Perhaps...

I couldn't get in the plane, I couldn't find what I needed to open the door so I just IDCLIPped

Judging from the fact that both Thomas and Steve died on the same day, I would say they died together. Also, I noticed both obituaries mentioned that they reconnected with high school friends/crushes and ended up together, but neither obituary had a spouse or partner listed in the "survived by" part. Plus, their services were at the same time in the same place. I'm going to assume they were actually a couple who died together. I don't know how exactly that affects parts of the story, especially since the way the journal entries initially read seem that the author hadn't really seen his childhood friend in a while. It would explain the wedding ring at least. If this is the case, then this story this WAD/ARG is telling is just absolutely tragic. Just 2 ghosts trying to get their story out. But I also feel that would make the scene in the women's bathroom at the airport not make sense. That seems really symbolic, and wouldn't make sense if this story is about a gay male relationship. I'm probably wrong about this, but the ambiguity is just making me try to make sense of it all. There may be more to the WAD that hasn't been found that could make the actual relationship between them clearer. One thing I am for sure is that this ARG aspect to the WAD was very unexpected for me, and has made an already very interesting WAD into something more. I didn't think I would be sitting here for, like, and hour trying to make sense of the story the WAD didn't tell us. Easily the best storytelling I've seen in a Doom WAD ever. 

Them being together when they died makes the hospital scene make sense, since the emergency switch that brings you back to life is in a room with another person in it: Thomas.

Absolutely phenomenal use of playing with expectations, for example how the start of the map uses only vanilla Doom 2 textures before the custom stuff is slowly introduced later on.  I haven't begun to scratch the secrets of it (I think I did the same basic first-time playthrough as everyone else) but the way the level slowly builds the feeling of dread until I was genuinely jumping out of skin is absolutely masterful.  Simply incredible.

I also think the whole backstory of the WAD is fictional, since how could a dead person upload this? If you can find some real evidence tho, that would be very interesting. 

I was thinking the same thing but, rereading all the material, I can't find anywhere it explicitly says he hasn't seen him in a long time... It only talks about "childhood friend" and alludes to their past relationship. I think this is an example of the fallibility of memory; we made an assumption about their relationship and our brains simply filled in the rest. I would wager the nebulous wording was intentional. If this is inspired somewhat by 'House of Leaves,' the love story aspect would make sense, only this time subverting your expectations.

...backrooms, the hospital, the so-called hallway maze, and I got the "real beach" ending. I am blown away by how much content there is in here. This shit's goddamn amazing!

When you finish the bloody bathroom segment and get the full pill bottle, I noticed the bathroom signs get swapped. The men's bathroom is now marked as the women's bathroom, and the women's is now marked as the men's bathroom.

What's the symbolism behind that?

Which is to say, I didn't notice that I had stopped fighting back tears during one particular segment. The build-up to that started normal, then got increasingly

unsettling, before throwing me straight into ruin, decay...."ruined memories". Fuck. That felt as metaphorical as it did literal and I was white-knuckled the entire time. My skin was crawling and I was firing the shotgun in true anger. The immersion factor was extreme here. 

(The wiki page tells me I went into an optional area, I feel like I wound up there by accident tbh)

I made it to a certain point before a certain large creature bit my head off, and I did feel a bit lost at a few moments.

Seems like I wasn't even close to seeing the full thing either. Just wasn't really feeling like pushing it further at that point. However the sudden ramp down from something very tragic and haunting to something calmer, but drenched in abstract surreal melancholy, was not only very well done, but has assured that I at least won't spend the rest of today feeling like an emotional mess, so thanks =p though I have to say it'll be a little while before I'm feeling entirely myself again. If that's the goal of this map, the hammer met the nail with the perfect balance of subtlety and blunt force. 

I really did not expect that you have to "game" the map (or in this case, the entire .pk3 actually) to make some headway in unraveling the whole thing. I was stuck thinking that it is self-contained. Really feels like that circulated story about how the mystique of the NES Zelda was supposed to be an invitation for players to work out that vast new world. I really wanna see how much I can unravel by myself now that I know this part.