MyHouse.WAD – Inside Doom’s Most Terrifying Mod

Foreign on March 3rd Doom World user veg posted on the forums he had finished a tribute map that he’d made for Doom 2 called my house dot wad last August I lost a thing my home home parents who shared with me some of his old belongings among them was a copy

Of an old map of his picked up on a 3.5 inch floppy from high school Thomas and I were into amateur Emma 2000s but I had never seen this map appears prior to uncovering it on one of the floppy disks the way of paying tribute to him and all the great memories we have together I took the plunge and installed Doom builder in order to polish up his map

And add a few modern amenities just for convenience sake described with a 10 minute run time my house start wad wad being the file format for Doom maps and mods was ready to download for anyone to play for themselves making maps of your house was all the

Rage back in the day but I feel like this is a pretty adorable and detailed tribute to my friend something of him with the community we loved if you’re at all into doom and it’s extensive modding scene then I highly recommend playing this map for yourself

Completely blind I’ll put a link to the Doom World Post in the description it requires gz Doom an enhanced open source Port of Doom to run simply click on the link ignore everything else in the Google drive but the files folder and download myhouse.pk3 Dot

Pk3 not DOT wad see if you hit that download link in the first week of this post appearing you would immediately get the pk3 file instead of the wad that was stated in the title of the post this whole Drive of files also appeared later pk3 is another format used by Doom

Modders that functions like a wad but it’s essentially a zip folder offering the benefits of a more organized file structure and also better compression curious then that this pk35 file is 66 megabytes for reference this is larger than Doom 1 and 2’s original file size combined four times over this was all

The knowledge I had as I downloaded the file and fired it up for myself I’ll be taking you through this map through several numbered Expeditions each one chronicling what I saw as I attempted to journey through this innocent map Thank you that’s cute so I started this journey picking Ultra violence difficulty because frankly I have an ego the first thing I notice is a discomfortingly long load time that’s not normal but we’re here classic Doom 2 opening song Running From Evil playing in the background national

Anthem of Doom wads everywhere the house is rendered adorably big wooden walls and windows dotted around featuring a spacious yard a front porch area and a large garage which leads into the house itself the house is populated by demons but this is Doom we can handle that the main

Hallway leads to a living room with a TV and a tiny PlayStation one bringing the Doom cute Doom Q to being a community term for real-life objects and spaces recreated in the Doom engine you’ll see more in the attached kitchen with all its amenities and to the side of various

Rooms two bedrooms one containing an extra storage closet and another with an ensuite bathroom where you’ll find the yellow key card Talk about a monster closet also upstairs is a regular bathroom and a washing or utility room complete with a red key door better find the key then moving downstairs takes us to more Demons Inside A Game’s room but to interrupt this tour for a second you may have

Noticed we did something here this room is underneath the room upstairs if you don’t know what I mean that might sound like nothing but that’s an impossible thing in Doom Doom’s engine takes two-dimensional map data and makes a 3D space around it I’m more or less simplifying here but that means you

Can’t have a room on top of another room in the engine a separate story whether upstairs or downstairs is always in a separate space to the original floor splintering off to another part of the building now I did say this was gz Doom but gz Doom alone does not remove this

Limitation it updates the technology to benefit from newer hardware and provides enhancements suited for more modern gaming sensibilities but it more or less still has to obey the laws of Doom’s reality gz Doom does open the possibility to some tricks to make this feat appear possible one’s not uncommon

In Doom modding and games similar to Doom but we should probably move on already it seems strange to talk about such a detail at such length but if you’re familiar with doom it’s just something you might notice that’ll make you pause for a moment the innocuous map recreating a House suddenly shows

Serious skill with its tools yet it does it so casually as you may not even notice carrying on downstairs we have more demons holding the fort in a closet a boiler room which leads to the garage an office with some attached storage another bedroom complete with another closet and lastly another bathroom

Locked with a yellow door for which we already have the key I like the detail of putting the guy inside the shower you get the red key card here and even some health in the cupboard if you need it equipment is actually pretty scarce on this map and playing on Ultra violence

Offers some challenge hence where you can see me saving ammo by punching pinkies you might rush upstairs to the red door now or you might look outside and notice something there’s a soul spear instant 100 Health boost just sitting on that thing out there I didn’t

See that earlier did it spawn in while I was in here you go back upstairs grab the blue key card from the utility room door which seemingly should be for the front gate which leads to the level exit but while I could leave I should probably grab that Soul sphere first it

Should be right over here it was definitely on top of this bin or vent thing here when I looked from that window over there wait why can I see monsters inside all around inside what’s going on wait that’s not right The music just reset that wasn’t me that was the game the level seems the same now repopulated but is it really I don’t think that it is the key is I’m picking up are now skull keys and now there are chain Gunners in the level there weren’t any here before

Does Net me their gun though so that’s nice I progressed through the level noticing differences such as seemingly functional mirrors and different item placements you might think to just leave already finish the level but no you now need the blue skull key to exit but then the cupboard to get the blue

Key is now a Stairway to an attic I didn’t even know there was an attic to this house but that’s fine with the blue key acquired there’s nothing else to stop me from exiting the doors are gone I’m not locked inside I am trapped inside this closet too has appeared I

Think it seemingly goes nowhere I can’t help but notice also the classic Doom 2 running from evil song does it sound wrong somehow okay maybe if I look around there’s some other way outside what what this can’t exist not just in Doom’s reality but reality is reality the

Corridor takes me to some new room never seen before featuring a fireplace and strange different decor and a can of Pepsi that I pick up I want pop but no way out so I leave the doors still aren’t there I turn back and this space like some negative version of

The house the only object of note is a milkshake yeah still nothing to help me though I come back to the house and the first door is now gone but also when I go to the front door or where it used to be I hear a noise now Was this always behind here I pushed the bookcase aside and find an odd room hidden away back here are those cat litter trays anyway I guess I’ll press the breaker foreign Monsters but not the monsters that we know flood the dark Smoky house all Corners all transformed and looking like nothing that what you’ve seen clearing downstairs of all Terrors you might try to go upstairs where all the people people are screaming the house is a wreck more creatures

Haunt the upstairs but it’s clear that this fire has been and gone amidst fighting underneath an angry Sky small objects litter the upstairs that you collect a diary of some kind a burned out picture frame an old teddy bear we’re still not free though we can’t even go back to the Attic

But how was there an attic anyway how can we escape there are no doors I try every wall hoping that they give way and fall down to let you out press the map button and realize there is no map we are nowhere we can also spy the map details

In the corner that’s a lot of monsters and just one secret none of this counts as a secret then you might venture back downstairs things look different everything is concrete now in fact outside looks gray monochrome for some reason you go into the Boiler Room perhaps wasn’t there a

Door here that led to the garage Foreign it’s at this point in my journey I begin to feel somewhat weak it’s not just the layers and layers of concrete the rooms on rooms that surround all sides but as I explore around I can’t help but notice that the layout of these Stone Halls resemble the layout of the house

Sometimes bigger sometimes smaller except in here there’s at least no There’s a good dog in here too who doesn’t attack you he does bark excitedly when he comes up to you but he just sits down beside you because he’s a good dog he didn’t start on me the first time he did this he didn’t he’s a good

Dog this isn’t how I found out that the bad dog dies if the good dog dies I didn’t find out at all that struggling through him killing the bad dog will kill the good dog as well either none of these things happened none of these

Things had to happen the area is a maze of one-way doors and illogical geometry I find a plasma gun at one point which is appreciated though I’m still almost at a loss navigating this place I feel curiosity overtake me and I throw myself into the abyss between buildings and hit the bottom

Dead silence passes as I explore the staircase a locked door in a recessed passageway a mirror to the same staircase and then Skye I can even walk on it there are walls here but I can walk on it nowhere to go though so I try another door thank you we return

But there’s still nowhere to go here the only thing we can do is go back downstairs and enter the concrete jungle again I spend a long time here working out precarious Ledges and head hurting concepts of physical space eventually after passing through hallways that don’t make sense and

Falling so many times down into holes I find something new I guess there’s nowhere to go but up I don’t even know what I can say anymore I check the gate information and I would like to go home yes it says canceled sorta but the gate’s right here so let’s just get on board so what do I eat oh no oh no I fight through the plane reaching the end and

Okay I guess this isn’t the same as before the house is now seemingly abandoned and plants have started to take over the structure the whole place is empty wherever you look it’s sad after all this I feel this strange hollowness underneath me even amidst all that’s happened here

The doors are back and I’m almost hesitant to step through but I guess we’ve earned this I finally exit the level don’t worry about that low kill percentage if we move on we come into underhalls Doom 2’s second mission this isn’t part of the mod it’s just level two same as it ever was it did say it was just the one map

What a fun little come down it is to play this after all that and you should play it you should play through all of underhauls get that super shotgun and have yourself a Time play it through to the end because when you’re done with that level expecting to go through to

Map 3 The Gauntlet or gantlet Thank you congratulations on beating ending one you haven’t even seen half of what’s here foreign we need some preparation before going forward into the next section and it’s probably best we start with looking at that Google Drive all the files are credited to one Steve Nelson there are a

Lot of extra things inside here for you to look at including a journal text document prominently displayed for anyone to read this document expands the thoughts of the author from that initial Doom World post talking about how sad they were that their friend passed away and talks about him inheriting his

Friend’s map after the funeral from his parents but glaringly on this page is something else a single word highlighted in blue house I’ve seen this before House of leaves is a book by Mark Z danielowski released in the year 2000 the book has no small amount of reputation for its winding Rabbit Hole

Narrative and bizarre involved structure in this map this Doom mod takes clear inspiration from House of leaves you never thought I’d ever say a sentence like that I should point out I am not an expert with this book it’s been deconstructed analyzed and Theory crafted about for decades and I only

Finished reading it this year in fact two days before this map was posted is this coincidence or Providence some of you familiar with the book may have no disconnections already most prominently with the sign at the end being a very cheeky and overt nod to the story novidson Realty navidson is the

Name of the family in the book’s main story the navidson record which Chronicles the journey photojournalist Wilma vidson and his family takes when they begin to notice the space inside their house is Shifting first by being a quarter of an inch bigger on the inside

Than it is the out but then forming new Doors and Rooms inside the structure including a jet black Corridor that impossibly stretches forth for miles into space that doesn’t exist I hope those not familiar can see the connection here if you’re thinking about liminal spaces being an inspiration too

Yeah keep that in mind we’ll talk about that later it’s worth noting too that the navidson record is actually a story within the story of House of leaves the navidson record is originally written by an eccentric old recluse named zampano who passes away and the story is

Discovered by a man named Johnny truant Johnny reconstructs the writing but slowly bit by bit he begins to become undone feeling his grip on reality slip this journal takes most inspiration from those sections of the book though with thankfully less hallucinatory sexual experiences don’t ask but there’s one

Other Quirk of the book’s formatting each utterance of the word house is highlighted in blue it isn’t really talked about in the book or really ever explained but it creates an uncanny emphasis on even the most innocuous of sentences something that is emulated here in the Google Drive document which

We should probably return to this is a video about a doom mod after all not a book review the book will return I hope you’re ready for that the journal doesn’t get as crazy as House of leaves in content or structure but what’s written here does tie into my house to

Briefly summarize Steve works for months on this map from August 2022 until March 2023 when it’s launched there’s even a note about the wrong file being uploaded seemingly against his will he begins an obsession with making this map that begins to sap at his energy and his sanity he forgets making sections loses

Sleep spends more and more time in his days and nights map building he also describes in detail some vivid dreams that he has and the first in this struck through paragraph might seem familiar to do as kids and when I turned around he was gone the house was empty and silent

Everything was so quiet and still I started to smell smoke and hear screams from upstairs I ran upstairs and when I got there the house was just a burned frame smoke was getting thicker and thicker and I could barely see or breathe I searched for my friend but I

Couldn’t find him anywhere I couldn’t see anything I started to panic and then found myself outside in the fog I was alone but I could hear low growls in the distance we could spend ages analyzing the words in here but there’s much more to be done so I’ll be referring to elements from

The journal and other features from the Google drive as and when they are relevant there is one last thing to look at here though a newspaper clipping from the photos folder of an obituary for Tom it gives us a small look into his life and who he was before he died in his

Home at age 35 he seemingly lived well reconnected with his high school crush and spoiled his pet cat I don’t know I just thought this should be mentioned before we enter Expedition 2 actually consists of an amalgamation of multiple trips jumping back and forth through many save files

With one major aim connecting all of them explore and experiment as much as I can without looking anything up whatsoever everything we find we work out for ourselves including this first of all didn’t realize that was there the first time if you tried to get it after the

First house there’s only a strange silhouette of where it should be which is how I became aware of it this would have helped slightly in the earlier areas where ammo is scarce though now it’s perhaps less necessary because of the run through underhalls yes this is

Still the start of my house even after running through underhalls getting all their health armor and ammunition that you can bring back but most important is the super shotgun this feels like intended progression like you’re meant to do at least one Loop of underhalls and back to here before finding all the

Game’s tricks the extra Firepower is needed you can actually go to underhaul straight away skipping the second house entirely by just leaving with the blue key card certainly an efficient way forward there isn’t anything new about the first trip around the house though I will ask how many of you noticed that

There weren’t any windows for the downstairs area when looking on the outside of the house but then they appear when you’re on the inside here and ready to taunt you with that Soul sphere you can’t get then of course they’re back to mess with you some more

When you try to go get it and walk all the way around to enter the second house where the business all begins let me ask you something else did you notice anything change with you the first time around not the house with you let me replay you the second house in Expedition one

Would it help if I give you a comparison between the first house oh the weapons have changed they’re still the same but they’ve changed from original Doom’s weapons to higher Fidelity versions from smooth Doom adding more animation frames than one originally had in 1994. this happens

Once you enter the second house and once the change happens it sticks forever hence why it was still smooth on this run after underhalls it’s a little thing that you might not have noticed your first time around but it adds to the uncanniness it’s wrong you feel it but

Maybe you don’t quite realize it a recurring pattern in this mod anyway clear the new house the same as normal grab the blue key and now the doors are gone enter The Impossible hallway grab the Pepsi and then enter the other room to get the milkshake return to the house

This is now the central Anchor Point everything in this game will come up from here we won’t be triggering the house fire anytime soon after all the game tells you not to I think this is hinted at by the a house fire dream in the journal being crossed out but there

Are more blatant suggestions using God mode or iddqd you’ll trigger a message from the game ignore that first message for now turning it off specifically tells you there is no good outcome from a house fire going through that burned out house will lock you onto the ending that we received however enabling god

Mode gives a different message my reflection winked at me I covered the mirror in the Attic just to be safe interesting sure enough in the Attic that may or may not exist is a covered mirror we can’t see ourselves but we can see something else a blue bauble of some

Kind it’s not here next to me and I can’t seem to get to it I wonder what I meant to do I was in the bathroom standing in front of the mirror shaving as I looked at my reflection I noticed it winked at me it was so strange and unexpected that I

Threw my Razor at the mirror I was so scared that I expected the mirror to shatter but instead it stayed intact I was even more surprised when I put my hand through the mirror and I could feel the glass I kept going and I was able to climb all the way into

It was like a tunnel when I looked back I saw myself in the mirror and this time I winked back I still can’t believe it was just a dream there’s many mirrors in this house to check oh sorry the game plays a Discord notification sound about 10 minutes into

The map I didn’t want to call attention to it before but yeah just another way the map kinda messes with you I don’t have notification sounds turned on so can’t get me after checking all the other mirrors in this one bathroom I can climb up on the sink and then foreign Welcome to the new house or maybe the sweat this whole place is mirrored and it’s populated by demons again whose sounds are all reversed a change so disconcerting that you might fail to notice that while everything is ostensibly the same as the uh regular World in this reality the front

Doors have returned you can just leave right now however doing so will take you to underhalls that late no that’s not Even here the whole level completely flipped and populated by mirrored monsters beating the mirrored underhalls takes you back to the house and the mirrored world complete with a new song rendition too but I’d say it’s wise not to do this at all as you lose all your weapons going

Into the mirrored underhalls there’s a few other reasons for progression’s sake we should do what we came here for though head up to the attic where we saw that bauble ah Christmas makes me happy too it’s weird seeing through the Looking Glass and into the normal World more normal

Anyway hey is that a baby’s crib over there I don’t recall there being one in the real world I’m gonna take that bottle oh that’s dark well don’t really know what else I’m doing so can I go back yes I can huh This children’s daycare is uncomfortable to be around the fact the happy cheery place is a little run down and outside is dark and foggy there’s a car parked here too is there someone else here I thought I saw someone in the fog at one point but

I look at my footage now and there’s no one here this is all starting to get to me I think maybe most of all because I recognize the layout of this place as being the same as the house the downstairs area to be precise there’s a berserk pack on the

Shelf above me which I can’t reach but if you go into one of the closets and punch the cracked wall hidden behind the door you can get it this might seem like a fun puzzle but I don’t know something about how you do all this happening here

In a children’s daycare just plays on my nerves you can find a baseball and a box of crayons but that seems to be everything there’s no way to pick up this clown costume in the cupboard anyway I walk back but there doesn’t appear to be a way out from where I came

There’s nothing here okay so I guess I’ll turn around and go back Oh you’ve got to be kidding me he has so much health oh my God he’ll take a swing at you if he gets too close so yeah he deserves The Buckshot he drops the key to the gate and there doesn’t appear to be anything else here so we’ll leave Okay You know it’s interesting in the photos folder of the Google Drive you can see pictures of what the real house looked like yeah remember this was based off the friend’s house in this particular photo you can see the kitchen in the living room this one shows the games

Room and the secret doorway that was hidden behind the bookcase we won’t be going there again there’s also one that seemingly shows off the impossible hallway which it makes me feel uneasy I moved through the house experimenting by which I mean hitting use on anything that I think

Looks funny and end up accidentally turning on the kitchen sink so I begin filling up all the other sinks in the house without any clear idea why I’m doing this until I come to the ensuite bathroom where I realize I’ve been filling up this bathtub with every sink filled

Somehow I guess I want the duck after hunting all sinks down including one inside the negative house I fill the bathtub up enough to get the duck that’s all I got the duck except when I was showing my friends this map on a Discord stream this

Happened when I went to get the duck I’m feeling unwell again it’s actually difficult to move around the flooded house your movement usually so Snappy and responsive in Doom has turned difficult and sluggish as you fight against the water everywhere is flooded Upstairs Downstairs all rooms but it doesn’t look like there’s anything in here foreign [Applause] foreign You might be familiar with the kind of liminal spaces this game has been drawing from this place in particular being reminiscent of Jared Pike’s swimming pool pieces there have been others around too I don’t want to point out all Inspirations as not to bog down these Explorations in extraneous

Information if you’re not familiar super eyepatch wolf did a great video on liminal spaces which is a great place to learn more he talks about House of leaves in it too check it out back inside the bath house you might be forgiven for thinking you’re meant to

Jump off the side or down this hole doing so has us fall into the sky room of the end of the staircase we saw earlier but this isn’t where we want to be what we want is inside the bath house which by the way resembles the house in its layout once again

Off to the side is a locker room that has a corridor that will take you to an impossible Maze of endless showers bathrooms stalls rooms upon rooms forever in nonsensical Notions of 3D space but there is a way forward to what we need it actually involves double

Backing on yourself at one point in the Maze to reach somewhere new there is another way if you approach the starting locker room from a certain angle and Direction but I only found that out later we come out to a great swimming pool I don’t think I want to go in there yet

Obviously the fish attacks you if you go in and we want to go in because there’s another item there so you might think to be clever and just shoot the fish bloody from the surface not a bad plan but you might want to be quick when grabbing

That item which is a D20 by the way You can kill these but it will take a lot of ammo to do so and I recommend saving it so take the dice but don’t leave the pool because one of the tiles is actually a passage down into another maze you have to be quick to solve this because you will eventually drown

There’s a great you can go up to for air but there’s also a second one which is a trick and meant to kill you and sorry can we take a step back and see that we have swimming and oxygen mechanics in Doom in Doom this is absolutely crazy

But only half as crazy as this I guess we found the garage these monsters are pinging you from across the map and the huge distance makes me now see that their projectiles have some annoying homing to them I want to cross this bridge but if you fall off you go back to the sky room and

We don’t want to go back to the sky room but once you’re halfway across you want to make it across though because once you manage to clear it Welcome back this is actually pretty important we managed to get to the maze again without starting the house fire that’s good that feels like progress there’s several items in here to collect as well as we try sneaking around the bad dog the first being a pumpkin pumpkin Rick I no

And after doing some interesting maneuvering we can drop down and uncover a new door to find a dog house and a frisbee there’s one last item in here to get which involves strafe running off the side to reach the top of this railing roof thing this unavoidably

Alerts the Cerberus but at least you can get this tuner kitties love tuna Tom always spoiled his kitten rotten you know there’s a Sketchbook amidst that Google Drive where you can see some sketches that the Journal called disturbing there’s only three of them in here one being the house which yes I do

Find disturbing now the other being of the bad dog do you have more heads than usual the final drawing though is just of a blue key which I don’t want to say is scary but I can’t help but keep staring at it longer and longer like I’m

Beginning to see some kind of hidden meaning behind the drawing that’s not the house is it anyway we move through this as normal and come out to the airport there’s not a whole lot to see here you can set off the metal detector and move through all of this to get a

Little Health bonus another car out the front as well there’s also a shop where using one of the t-shirts will give you 200 armor which is very nice nothing really in the upstairs or with this baggage conveyor I’m too big to fit inside two bathrooms and the men’s seems

Fine cleanest gents I’ve ever seen in my life frankly there’s a pill bottle outside the ladies room though refill needed okay well I guess that was one of the items we needed is there anything else here [Applause] I said we needed the Firepower now we get a full bottle of pills feeling fine and if we go back to the bathroom it’s feeling fine too oh by the way this airport it’s the house again of course it’s the house again ah my head hurts the airplane is the

Same though there’s nothing else on here not even in its bathrooms so we’re jumping off the house is different again rather than burned out and abandoned it now seems like whoever lived here has moved out it’s empty still a little sad but it’s not dilapidated anymore which again feels like progress however

Once we step out the end plays out the same as before novidson Realty and straight onto underhauls asking us to go around and try again this is a compilation of everything I was able to discover on my own but we’re going back in and this time we’re taking some help

There’s only so much I feel I can do by just wandering around by myself so for the next Expedition I went and got some online help I didn’t want to just follow a walk through on what to do here as it felt against the spirit of

Exploring this map so I avoided the Doom Wiki page for my house which has just that and instead I went back to that original post on Doom world I followed the whole thread of discovery that all the users on doomworld undertook together when they were finding out

About this map for themselves when the reality of this innocent sounding level finally hit I chronologically followed tips they left to one another as well as just direct guidance on what to do with the games more esoteric sequences really I just want to spend a moment thanking the original Pioneers inside that thread

Who went in and spent hours exploring all facets inside this map testing experimenting and finding all kinds of secrets and sharing them with everyone also the map was released on March 3rd but it wasn’t until March 7th on the forums that people really started exploring this map like you could maybe

Forgive someone for thinking that expedition 1 was the whole level thank you to those users who kept the fire burning and didn’t let this get buried and forgotten and a special thank you to the one person who helped me find out I had my tone map settings wrong in gz

Doom they really helped out if not for them we wouldn’t get to see the best thing in this section this Expedition is not the last but it is where we learn our purpose our objective in this map is indeed to be collecting these items but not the items in the burned out house

They don’t count they don’t get added to the picture this picture tracks what items we have gotten for a total of eight in all you can see it at the end of the last Expedition and how close I was but how close was I really because in the mirror world is a separate

Picture with a different set of items for a grand total of 16 items to collect across the entire map annoyingly I was only missing two that prevented me from progressing in all my attempts one being a wedding ring that you can find in the floating garage section where you step

Onto the one black tile that spawns those weird caco demon things and then make a run of Faith over to this floating platform to get a wedding ring then you have to run back and into the maze without falling off and it’s probably where I ended up reloading the

Most out of anywhere in this level the other item I missed was a wine bottle in the mirror World kitchen that’s it I just never saw it there okay then with all the items and a clear path to progress through we have everything we need to finish this map

But we’re not going to do that until the final Expedition because there’s still quite a few hidden places left to see for one I can’t believe I never thought to use no clip until I saw that doomworld thread that’s an ominous and yet familiar message still who cares

Look I escaped the house I did it early I can go anywhere I can even go straight to the exit [ __ ] yeah if you try to go out of bounds anywhere on this map you end up in the back rooms literally and it is the most head

Hurting maze in the whole game which I guess you might expect worst is that while you’re trying to work out how to orient yourself you’ll discover you’re not alone there is a few other things here amidst the beige walls you might find a computer or a poster hanging on a wall

But really you want the exit an exit I could only find with specific instructions from the Doom World thread because good God navigating this place is a nightmare endless corridors that repeat on themselves forever especially disheartening when you’re being followed by an indestructible monster through the exit you get taken back to

The end of the stairway from the recessed locked door and it’s back to the house for you bizarrely there is also a back rooms to the mirrored underhalls not to the regular one just the mirrored one it might be the same but it might be different I couldn’t seem to find the

Exit to this one regardless the back rooms is meant to be a diversion anyway there’s nothing here for you it’s just a means to punish those looking to break the game but it does give me the opportunity to show you something else what if we were to die and what if for

Some reason I did not hit reload immediately what would happen then this is the house again foreign this isn’t it You can do this a single time to revive where you stand I don’t know if this serves some kind of purpose the pill bottle being there makes me wonder but I have no clue myself there are some smaller secrets too but to see them we’re going to have

To go back to the brutalist maze fortunately there is this You can only take this once it won’t open a second time but it’s very useful for our run speaking of running the outside walls are closer on some sides of the maze compared to others so what would happen if I were to run off here interesting but there’s another room in

The bigger version of the house we can run to as well hmm a megasphere for Max health and armor that’s cool right Nifty little secret you have to fall down the endless staircase from here though which is where the tricky business of using entrances to this maze needs to be

Considered remember you can only use the secret entrance and the floating garage entrance once each think carefully about what you’re doing now nothing good can come from a house fire but these aren’t the only rooms you can go into here there’s this much much more difficult

Jump you can take it’ll take you a few tries but Thank you This by itself is weird what’s weirder is going back around to the house and finding all the TVs are now switched on even in the mirror world even in the hospital I have no idea if this means or does something but it makes me feel very small for some reason

Okay I’ve saved the best thing till last I hope you’re ready The book is returned silence overwhelms you as you step into the impossible space of concrete and darkness after the near constant noise and drones of exploring this house this utter vacuum fills my stomach with Dread it’s time for one last maze a very dark

Maze I’ve done what I can for it in post to make sure it’s visible on the screens I’ve tested but if you still can’t see because you’re watching on your phone in bed with auto brightness or if there’s sunlight shining on your display I’m sorry maybe just skip to the next

Chapter I now present to you with no commentary and only occasional editing for time the navidson hallway hmm foreign foreign Thank you Foreign foreign Did it to my knowledge there’s nothing to find in there it’s just a horribly tense diversion to take here in this house this part of the game drives my nerves on end even though you could argue nothing happened to me it manages to inspire anxiety using only its strange architecture and occasional

Little prodding insinuations that I’m not alone in this house I can only hope that I was able to convey that through this chapter it borrows liberally from House of leaves most of the time but to do this to execute this Labyrinth here in Doom is nothing short of Genius I

Think now I wish to point out that even after all we’ve done all we’ve seen here we still haven’t managed to discover that final secret on the map screen so then without any further delay it’s time to finish my house we’re going to go through everything in

Order one at a time with a few extra hidden tricks that’ll help me get through this nightmare I’m also going to be slowing down a bit referring to the journal as we go as I think there is something of a narrative that can be constructed from this mod that we’ve

Only been brushing past so far as vague and fragmentary as it may be this house may be bigger on the inside but it feels far from empty so starting from when the doors disappear we get the Pepsi and then the milkshake there’s nothing relevant about them in any of the

Materials not even a Pepsi and shot of these pictures but I noticed The Deco in the Pepsi room is older like 80s or 70s the Pepsi can itself is an older version too so I wonder if this is a recreation of a childhood memory I want pop like

What you’d maybe say if your mother asked you what you wanted to drink the milkshake room might also be a memory rather than a horrible negative dimension we can see in the pictures folder that the room did appear to get some Renovations so maybe an intense color palette is simply what it had

Before or maybe it’s depicted in monochrome because something happened that necessitated the renovations that make this an unpleasant memory the kid needs a milkshake it’s probably not said by a child and it reads as a cold way that two parents might talk about their kid the context for all of

This is just my own speculation but let’s keep going and see where things end up uncover the mirror in the attic to be able to access the mirror World from the bathroom whose dream we’ve already covered I kill everything in the mirror world I don’t think I have to but

I decide to just in case in the mirror World grab the wine bottle drunk buddy yeah Tom and Steve did appear to be in that photo also grab the bauble which is referenced in this half asleep babbling entry of the journal but I’d say more important is the baby bottle from the

Crib I lay in bed too afraid to move when I heard a faint ghostly cry coming from the attic heard this sound before but this time it was louder and more insistent I got out of bed and slowly crept up the stairs to the my heart pounding so hard I thought it

Would burst as I entered the attic I noticed a trail children’s toys leading out the window I followed the trail feeling a strange compulsion to do so the trail led me to an abandoned daycare center near the edge of town I stayed back afraid to enter but I couldn’t help

But feel drawn to the place I knew something was waiting for me inside something dark and dangerous deep breath and stepped inside the place was dark and silent but as I walked around I noticed the walls were covered in Eerie drawings of children and babies

Then I heard the sound of a baby crying again coming from the back of the room I followed the sound and when I reached the back of the room I saw a crib with a stillborn baby inside I felt a chill run down my spine as I realized what was

Haunting me the stillborn baby was the one in the attic and slowly in my ears I knew I had to leave this place and I quickly get the baseball and the Crayons I don’t know if there’s any deeper mystery to them and their Associated text feels like nonsense adult coloring books and

Autographed by JJ Hardy JJ Hardy is a real player but it doesn’t help us date or place this daycare as he’s been playing for about 20 years and has been part of three different teams across the USA I mean he was drafted in 2001 and that’s also the year Shrek came out but

That’s two YouTube Theory channel for me you might also have to deal with the Blackboard that says 1984 on it either someone has their dates wrong or this daycare has high expectations for these kids reading ability pick up snugs and Blast Away Shrek no I don’t have any

Plot reason for why Shrek is here go back to the house and it’s time to turn on the sinks for the Waterhouse I was dreaming about taking a nice hot bath I felt myself sinking deeper and deeper into the warm water until I can breathe I tried to scream but no sound

Escaped my lips I was drowning in my own bathtub suddenly I felt a jolt as if I’d been pulled out of the water when I opened my eyes I found myself in a Subterranean cave illuminated by a faint Eerie blue light I could feel a chill in

The air and I could hear the echoing of demons in the distance I tried to scream but my voice was muffled by the darkness of the cave I felt a chill run down my spine as I realized I was being hunted by something unseen claws on the rocks and felt the ground

Shaking beneath me I guess the bath house is meant to be the cave I don’t know solve the maze to come to the swimming pool with the blood fish but not before taking this hidden backpack from this one specific Locker in the hallway before we will need the

Extra ammo capacity go boom fishing and get the D20 I don’t know what significance this has Beyond Tom Steve or maybe both maybe once played D judging by the text it got pretty Juvenile and we make our way through to the floating garage making numerous attempts to get the ring and leave

Through the exit I could just take the secret entrance back to the maze but I don’t want to on my winning attempt I actually skipped over the line that spawns the enemies somehow I reactivated it before leaving out of pity the wedding ring though there’s no dream

About a floating garage nor about a specific wedding but there is this Valentine’s Day entry Happy Valentine’s 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 in the meantime I’ll keep

Looking for that other someone who can be the ray of light in my life that you turned out to be boy Steve’s had it rough through the years into the broodless maze now where I have very little to add honestly I wonder if the bad dog appearing in the

Bigger version of the maze maybe represents a fear of dogs when Tom was a small child is that why he went to having a cat instead hard to say but that’s the best I’ve got for you I have nothing more to add to the Frisbee the

Cat food and that stupid pumpkin by the way the room where you get the plasma rifle only opens if you picked up the blue key in the first house something someone may have missed if they wanted that Soul sphere I also included this earlier but if you look around you might

Find this guy you can’t attack him I don’t know what his deal is but the roomies around sort of reminds me of the back rooms right is that the Skin Stealer I unplugged the TV room again hoping this would trigger something new when not seen before but alas it did not

Dropping down into the abyss and through the staircase into the house again we can actually see we have all the items in the normal world now which does unlock West to go next but we’re still missing two from the mirror World paintings so let’s Square those away

First go through the secret tunnel and into the airport I also have little to add here besides the undercurrent of psychosis that someone may be suffering from fun fact the empty pill bottle is not an item you need to progress not from here or the hospital it doesn’t get

Added to the picture frame red herring then or a narrative device to connect these two locations once again I don’t know actually one thing you can do here if you position yourself just right in the bathroom so that the blood covers everywhere except the entrance [Applause]

Amen to that okay let’s just clear up and board our plane already I was on an airplane and I was the only passenger I looked out the window to see the ground below and noticed that the terrain was unfamiliar I had no idea where I was or where I was going

Suddenly the plane started to shake violently and I heard a loud noise coming from the engine in the distance I could see a huge storm cloud coming towards me I tried to communicate with the pirate but I couldn’t hear him over the sound of the engine the plane began

To dive and suddenly I felt a huge jolt I looked out the window again and saw that the plane was heading for some kind of structure I closed my eyes and felt the plane crash I felt the impact and heard the screams and cries from the people around me

I then broke up my heart pounding and my body drenched and spread congratulations we finally caught up the house is now just the same as it ever was showing we finally did it except that flower painting Now isn’t what an interesting picture and the doors are back so you could leave which

At this point would be silly why would we do that when we can take this Rabbit Hole as far as we can go Before you ask no this doesn’t open until you get all the items somewhere new at long last nowhere to go but the road I suppose the long winding Road what’s that over there This song of course and this crashed car seems to lead to an American Gas Station got a good feeling about this this music too reminds me of a brawl I had once inside the store you can find the final item an Atari 2600 control there there’s not much else here to see

A bus stop and a lit up sign so the only thing we can do now is follow this trail of blood to this last room oh thank you Oh God please don’t tell me that store was the house again you know what it’s fine because now we have all the items and now the mirror World painting has something to show us as well very interesting so we leave and sure enough the fence opens and the same if mirrored place and

In we go it’s a long road back to the station and you could miss it being the map is flipped around and because the car isn’t here anymore there’s a tiny torch instead but it leads to the gas station all the same Maybe not all the same I try and poke around a bit and there is a rocket launcher in the storeroom oh very nice why am I being given a rocket launcher there’s no way past the tape into the rest of the store or into the house

Bathroom so we’ll go where we need to sure enough standing out by the sign we can see the smoke above the trees and hidden between all of them is a little camp area you can actually go here in the regular world but there’s nothing here meanwhile

We have some carving on the tree S Plus a what the get out of here no no what the hell I can’t go back huh wait what is that congratulations on achieving ending two no really this is an ending you might have some questions but fortunately there’s another dream to tell you about

February 26 2023 I can no longer tell what elements of this map are my friends which are mine and what the map has created I am no longer afraid that the map is creating itself it needs me as much as I need it which reminds me of a

Dream I have the other night I’m not sleeping much but I recall this one with surprising Clarity I was standing on a beach staring out at the price of water the ocean stretching out as far as the eye can see seagulls crawled overhead in the gentle caress of water perhaps the

Sand in front of me I dip my toes into the water at least I tried that there was no water no ocean it was an illusion I realized everything around me was fake the trees the birds the sand it was all a one-act prey and I was really Lowman a

Damned fool who believed in something greater but was no happiness to be found I wanted the set only to find myself staring into Oblivion it was the end of time itself no joy no misery no sadness only emptiness men of Faith tell us the afterlife is for eternity but is it

Possible to keep your sanity for eternity a day he passes on the void a month a year two five ten is this an eternity 20 years 100 years a thousand years I’ve sat in this room for a million years now entertaining the same thoughts pondering the same questions

And ruminated on every mistake in my life anguishing over them for centuries a billion years now double that now double it again and still nowhere close to the end of Eternity I pray for death but it never comes just me and my thoughts and my mistakes and my

Insecurities and my regrets and my loneliness somewhere in another dream the version of myself the winch back is sitting on the real Beach happy and content knowing that life is finite there is no afterlife and happiness is found in the small things around us that we can control happiness has to be

Fought for time to fight for your happy ending once you lower the entrance to the fake Beach it’s time to get running escape from the shadowy art trial who is basically unkillable you can stun them pretty easily but it’s easier to just run and never stop they will teleport and chase

You even into the mirror house where they’ll start resurrecting the dead monsters so we’re going to have to flee to the regular World Bronto which is now repopulated too and has Arch files as well but fortunately normal ones that we can kill by carefully peeking in and out

Of sight of their attacks I probably should have just bfg’d them but I felt proud when I did it until I saw outside it’s worse when you open the door Before we leave go back up to the attic and look into the mirror the shadowy arch file has taken the spot where the Christmas bauble used to be how ominous getting out of the house is tricky I like to do a lap around the house to get

Them in fighting and thin their number a little I also want to stock up slightly with these items but not really fight them our battle isn’t here we need to hit the road again which by the way has one last dream to mention I was driving along

When all of a sudden my car veered off the road and crashed into a tree I woke up to find myself in the driver’s seat with an injured and bleeding rag my head was spinning and I felt disoriented I dragged myself out of the car and hauled

My way through the woods in hopes of finding help my leg was in agony and I felt like I was going to faint through the trees I saw the lights from a lonely gas station I was relieved to find it open but then I realized there was

Nobody there I had no idea where everybody had gone as I was standing there I heard some strange noises coming from the woods around me I was too scared to investigate so I just stood there feeling scared and alone suddenly I heard a car in the distance and I

Limped towards it thank goodness it was a taxi driver who was able to take me to the hospital I eventually woke up in a cold sweat not sure if I was relieved or disappointed that it was just a dream and with that there’s only one last

Fight left for us the gas station is surrounded by monsters from all sides and a spider Mastermind sitting atop the courtyard roof it’s a tough fight but happiness has to be fought for [Applause] Hold on a second guys I just I just need a quick break Oh very nice Foreign The one secret finally discovered to tell you that this is the end this speech is real actual peace is here for you and if the dog in the Maze survives then they join you on this beach as well to cap everything off the nightmare is finally over you’ve completed my house

And can relax knowing there’s nothing else left to see well actually what if you collected all the items unlocking the secret passage in the yard but then burn the house down anyway through the burned out house again the brutalist maze went through the airport that has no playing but you still fall

Back down into the nail destroyed house what if you did all of that left the house and then opened the fence Passage this isn’t an ending but it is a little secret for you my phone couldn’t read this QR code but fortunately someone very kind and clever in the doomworld

Forums transcribed the code into something readable which takes you to a new hidden photo in that Google Drive an obituary for Steve Nelson Steve died on the exact same day that Tom died August 3rd 2022 what does this mean does it mean that Stephen’s Spirit made this Doom map as

His last connection to the outside world is this meant to be some meta textual statement on the death of the author I don’t have a soul definitive answer and I’m not sure one really exists for me but this does open up some interesting rabbit holes was it actually Steve who

Wrote the journal rereading the journal after discovering this it suddenly struck me how rarely names are used instead using my childhood friend or just my friend when referring to who I presumed to be Tom it’s only in February 2023 where Thomas is finally named and positively identified as the person who

Started the map on the floppy disk which I guess the Forum post also confirmed Steve isn’t named anywhere in here which might support the idea that he’s the one writing it at first though I wondered if the vagueness of the journal meant there was a third person who wrote it who

Would that be a of course the journal mentions the love of their life and the obituary confirms Steve did indeed tie the knot at some point the journal implies that their love is no longer with them too could the journal be by a talking about Steve this might be an answer for those

Wanting to reject an ethereal origin for this mod however this is leaving out an important detail from the obituary Steve is survived only by his closest relatives and not by any spouse so either they had separated or their partner had already passed away you might be able to see where I’m going

Here I think a might be Tom his last name is Allard a for Allard perhaps if they were close even as friends it wouldn’t be hard to see them having nicknames for one another the obituaries further support this too the fact that both of them married their old school

Crushers and that they went to the same High School the fact Thomas moved back to the same town to be with the person they they married Tom too is also not survived by a spouse despite being married and the fact they’re both sharing a celebration of life and

Funeral service at the same place date and time so yeah I think they’re together the obituaries don’t mention how either died merely that Stephen passed away and that Thomas died in his home I’ve heard there’s an entire lexicon of euphemisms that obituaries use to talk about the recently deceased

But I don’t know if I’m privy to such things anything I could derive further than I already have would merely be a baseless assumption from here or in the map but you might wonder then what this whole mod was about if at the end our big twist was our author too was dead

And this was a tribute made for romantic love rather than just friendship well I’m sure I don’t need to point out the signs of a potentially difficult childhood that appear throughout this map and its supplemental material it’s hard to know exactly who owns what he yeah however I’d say some things feel

Particular to Stephen for instance there’s the hospital Thomas still has all of his close relatives together but Steven apparently lost his father sometime before his death so are we reliving his father’s death here no idea why he died though I remember the pill bottle curious his mother also has three

Different last names mentioned within the obituary which might imply a difficult upbringing for the boy the level itself is full of moments that could represent other events or memories but I’d like to repeat one last bit from the journal instead for a short time you brought a little happiness to this painful existence

Called life that’s my read on things a tribute to a difficult life which love briefly illuminated made from Beyond the Grave by a grieving Partners cursed Soul you might disagree it’s intentionally vague and I think it’s opaque and confusing nature is part of the point to

Illustrate trauma so why not play it for yourself explore its many corners read these documents and see what conclusions you draw maybe the airport is Tom coming back home to Illinois maybe the frisbee is Steven’s love of frisbee golf for me though it’s interesting this all started

With sharing a house on a floppy disk when two people begin to share a house when one moves in with another what do each of them bring into it foreign if I had a dollar for every time a horror game revealed itself to be a gay

Love story at the end I’d have two dollars and my local bakery still wouldn’t accept them for a sausage roll some of you may be wondering about the account of their John Doom world and it may shock you to know that veg is a real user real in the sense that this account

Has been open since 2004 then seemingly left in 2006 before coming back in September of 2022 their posts and updates on doomworld mirror Watts said in the journal perfectly with dates lining up and everything veg never dropped their character even for a second I can say character now right we

All understand the healthy lines between fiction and reality correct there is actually a bit of to use a technical term hoo-ha in the forums about the identity of the author or authors where the clues have been left in places like anagrams or even in the thread itself

However to be totally blunt I don’t care to chase up on such things either the creators come forward or they don’t what matters to me is the time I had playing this I did not expect one of my favorite gaming experiences of 2023 to be a doom

Map playing through my house has been like I’ve had a spell cast on me utterly entrancing me and convincing me to keep playing keep digging into its Secrets I’ve spent hours in this little map of 10 minutes of play time and longer still just thinking about it not only the

Details of its narrative but how genius its design is a lot of this has already been discussed at length by people inside the Doom World thread which I highly recommend you read for yourself those people in there know do much better than I do but I want to bounce

Off the pages and pages of discussion that’s already there and say how incredible it is that this feels like a full Doom horror map rather than just a horror mod that happens to run in Doom all elements of its design are rooted in rules very familiar to fans of Doom 1

And 2. solving maze is running past lines which trigger new things in the map such as opening new passageways even the effect of running in circles around a map collecting keys to open doors or in this case making the door appear once again this is the language of Doom and

This mod takes it and twists the familiar words to be understandable but also terrifying it is that uncanniness that stems from that familiarity that makes it work so well with the presentation of the entire game one thing I haven’t mentioned that’s inside the Google Drive is the actual my house

Dot wad a much smaller math that if you play it’s just a basic Loop of the regular house although first house I suppose no weirdness and even beating underhalls takes you forward to the gambler’s although there is actually one key difference you’re a different height actually it’d be more accurate to say

That in the pk3 version of the game you’re taller the wad doesn’t change your height from the default you might not notice it in the context of the house you feel it’s a regular human height for these objects maybe the reason why this change was made but you don’t end at the house

Do you you’re still a different height when you go through underhalls given how many times a doom player may have gone through Wonder Halls over the years especially a community dedicated to Doom that’s uncomfortable feeling of something not being bright might be hard to shake and even harder to pin down I

Didn’t even know where else to mention this but is it any coincidence that the game takes you into underhalls an early Doom 2 level featuring a house there’s nothing goth about it but after going through all you saw in Expedition one can you really feel for sure that that

Is the case everything about this map Works to get itself under the skin by being just a little bit off that subtle change of the player height the weapons animation swapping out playing with the music that people expect to hear in these Maps even the doors how iconic is

The Doom door opening sound and this game even manages to flip that on its head it takes the ultimate familiar and reliable space that is doomed and creates points of alienation to remove feelings of security when playing it playing a simple mod based on a player’s house even if you’ve never played

Classic Doom before I think this can have an effect on you after all you do one Loop of the house before anything weird happens and then your Loops to grab Keys become wider and stretch into the impossible then there’s also the extraneous references in the game Shrek the back rooms and the many

Inspirations from the liminal space online movement some of you may have rolled your eyes when you saw them but what if I told you they were actually very smart see Dumas had maps and mods made for a very long time and in a manner not dissimilar to how online

Communities in these horror spaces continue to make their own spins on the core elements of their chosen movement multiple online versions of the back rooms and liminal spaces exist with all kinds of ways to experience them from art to video to game Shrek existing in here as crazy and pretentious as this

Will sound draws a connection between these movements and do modding he is a meme he’s everywhere has been for an ungodly amount of time and chances are if a new meme or online movement comes along Shrek will be put inside it at some point but Doom modders have been

Putting personal Easter eggs inside their Maps for years it’s never been uncommon to see something out of place in someone’s map something that probably meant something to the map author it’s a small piece of personal expression not unlike Someone putting Shrek inside their horror work it might sound like

I’m stretching but when you see Shrek you know it’s artificial your mind immediately knows that what you’re playing is constructed and you’ll think of the author something that this map is asking you to do constantly okay I might be focusing a bit too much on this but

Bear with me for this last Point what I like most about this connection is that it feels like a celebration of Doom modding this year Doom turns 30 years old and 30 years on this game is still getting community support and the set rules of this game are still changing in

Radical ways people never thought of but it’s also adapting changing with the times even amidst all the changes and gaming technology and even The Wider cultural and political landscape there has always been do modding happening alongside it and while being influenced by what’s happening around it it’s never

Been slowed or discarded or abandoned Doom can adapt itself to these modern internet trends like putting on a new glove and still make an impact when it does so Doom can be anything from the simplest shooter maps to strange new experiences that people haven’t seen before in the truest sense of the word

This map shows that Doom really is eternal there’s one more detail from the journal I’d like to close on it’s a flimsy observation but bear with me anyway in the text are three numbers highlighted in red in order they are two three one I don’t see any connections between the

Journal entries they are attached to and the number means nothing in the context of the map so I Googled Doom 231 and found a music track from OC remix OC remix numbers its tracks sequentially so the fact it’s a doom song specifically at number 231 feels like a pretty extraordinary coincidence the song

Itself is a remix of sign of evil from Doom 1 and I can’t help but think when listening to it that it may have been an inspiration for the creation of the whole map even if I’m wrong and it wasn’t that big an inspiration it’s a nice song anyway really makes me feel

Happy Thank you for watching this long delayed video I’ve been in not the best shape while working on this and to be honest playing through this map over and over again wasn’t helping matters then I got sick on top of that again I know which delayed things further production was

Pretty difficult anyway I made some of the ambience for sections of this video by stretching some of Doom’s songs and layering different versions together it was a lot but I had fun and I’m glad it’s now here for everyone and an extra special thank you to all my patrons your

Support and your patience humbles me so now let’s get into questions what were your thoughts on House of leaves in particular did you read it in any specific manner I adore House of leaves it’s not often I think about rereading a book that I’ve just finished finished reading I personally read the entire

Main story first and only read the appendices once I finished the novidson record with the exception of the Pelican poems for some reason I couldn’t even tell you I think this is why I’m curious to go back as I took the words written at their face value without any other

Context but now I have read the appendices I want to see how I now view the narrative as presented let me take this moment to give a heartfelt recommendation to read House of leaves for anyone who’s still watching despite its reputation it’s quite an approachable book and you can get in the

Swing of its layout and style very naturally don’t be put off by the look of it or me talking about appendixes it may have taken me two attempts to read through it but that’s only because I first Tried reading it while traveling and that’s a bad idea for a book you

Need to flip and turn and read back and forth reading in the comfort of your own home room is best if my honeyed words aren’t enough for you there is an excellent video by Cloud Cuckoo country on House of leaves and ergodic literature as a whole and he can give

You a basically spoiler-free review and primer to read this book yourself he also talks about other books like House of leaves which I actually have a couple of on order right now I’ll put a link to his video in the description below one last thank you to you all and I’ll see

You next time all right