My House

My House (a.k.a. MyHouse.pk3) is a single-level PK3 for Doom II using the GZDoom source port that was released in 2023. It was designed by Steve Nelson (Veddge) and uses the music track "Running From Evil".

Veddge emerged in 2022 with early screenshots of the map before its release the following year on March 3, having not logged into the Doomworld forums in "over a decade". The map is reported to have been unearthed from an old floppy disk belonging to Veddge's deceased long-time friend Tom who started work on it in 1999. It was then improved with UDMF features "for convenience's sake".

The map is advertised as "not much of a challenge and roughly 10 minutes of play time", but it has a significant amount of content that can potentially require hours of additional play time to experience in full.

The House
You start facing the House. Make sure to immediately open the brown crate in the garage for a chainsaw. If you enter the House through any of the doors, this weapon will disappear and leave behind a chalk outline.

Retrieve all three colored keycards in the House. These are all easy to find.
 * The yellow keycard is in the upstairs bathroom connected to the master bedroom.
 * The red keycard is in the downstairs bathroom behind the yellow door.
 * The blue keycard is immediately behind the red door in the laundry room.

At this point you can immediately leave the map through the exit teleporter behind the garden gate, which requires the blue key.

The second House
While inside the House, you may notice a soulsphere standing outside. Leave the House and approach the soulsphere pedestal, which you will notice is now empty. At this point, more monsters can be seen to have populated the interior of the House. You are now in an "upgraded" version of the House complete with additional decorations and the more obvious use of UDMF features including polyobject doors. Crucially, more areas are now available to you inside.

The colored keys found inside the House have been replaced with skull key variants. Re-enter it and retrieve all three colored skull keys.
 * The yellow and red skull keys are in the same rooms in the second House that their keycard counterparts were in the first House.
 * The blue skull key is again behind the red door, but you'll find it up a flight of stairs in an attic space that was not present before.

In the attic where you find the blue skull, make sure to press use on the mirror to remove the sheet covering it. This allows passage into the mirror world later on.

After getting all the skull keys, you will rearrange the House layout again - the front door and the boiler room door will disappear and you will be unable to leave the inside of the House. Approaching the front door causes a new door to suddenly appear on the top floor, next to the door to the master bedroom. This door leads into a sitting room containing a can of Pop you can pick up. This is the first of sixteen "artifacts" you will find. Icons denoting eight of these artifacts will appear on hanging pictures in the House's living room as the artifacts are found. Upon picking up the Pop, another door to a new room in a black-and-white Bauhaus architecture style will suddenly appear just opposite. The Bauhaus room contains the Milkshake, the second artifact.

Before moving on, be sure to press use on all the sinks in the House. This will raise the water level of the bathtub, allowing you to obtain the Rubber Duck, the third artifact, and unlock the way to the Bathhouse later. There are six sinks in total - one in all three bathrooms, one in the kitchen, one in the laundry room, and one in the Bauhaus room.

The mirror reality
In the bathroom adjacent to the small bedroom on the top floor, pass through the mirror to enter a mirror universe. In this area you can retrieve the Wine Bottle from the kitchen, and the Christmas Ornament and Milk Bottle from the attic - you are now up to six artifacts. Eight additional artifact icons can be found on hanging pictures in the mirror reality's living room, allowing you to keep track of the status of all sixteen artifacts.

Retrieving the Milk Bottle unlocks the Play Area, now accessible in the normal reality.

The play area
Leave the mirror reality and follow the trail of colored balls to a bedroom closet. Fall down the yellow tube.

In the Play Area, retrieve the easily-found Baseball and Crayons - eight artifacts are now accounted for. Picking up the Crayons will open up the way to the park, but the doorway to it will not reveal itself until you step back into the main room. Notice that a drawing of on a wall in this room will have mysteriously disappeared.

Retrieve the cuddly toy Snugs, your ninth artifact, from the swings in the abandoned park. Defeat the childhood nightmare and pick up the Gate Key it drops. You can use this key on the gates to leave the park.

Upon return to the House, head upstairs and jump into the filled bathtub. Swim to the bottom, then resurface in a flooded version of the House. Head downstairs and into the corridor on the right. You'll find a looping passage that will eventually take you to the Bathhouse.

The bathhouse
In the Bathhouse, kill the Nightmares, then stand on the gray platform to the left of the sky hole, go under the archway and turn left. Once in the locker room, immediately turn right and follow the path to the left until you find a square room with colored bottles. Turn left past this room, and you'll find the pool with the Hellfish. In the pool is the D20, your tenth artifact.

The center dark square at the bottom of the pool is actually a disguised tunnel leading to a cloud-filled area. Swim through this tunnel quickly before you start to drown. In the cloud area, step on the black floating tile to trigger an ambush of Hemodemons. Continue walking to the right from the black tile to reach the platform with the Wedding Ring, artifact number eleven.

Now proceed to the opening at the far end to access the Brutalist House.

The Brutalist house
This largely featureless gray house is suspended in what appears to be a dark liminal apartment complex, and going through certain doorways will change the size of the areas between regular-sized, and large. Most doorways simply look like solid walls, but pressing use on them will lower them permanently, allowing for easier navigation through this space.

Three more artifacts can be found here: Pumpkin Rick, a Frisbee, and a Tuna Can, bringing you up to fourteen artifacts. Beware of dogs. If it can be done, avoid killing either of them.


 * Pumpkin Rick is in the big Brutalist House, sitting on the front porch section - the easiest artifact to find.
 * The Frisbee is in a small compartment in the regular-sized Brutalist House. Step off the front porch onto a small staircase, follow it down, then fall down the hole inside the wall. Turn to the left, then left again, and use the wall to reveal the doghouse.
 * The Tuna Can is in a "vent" that can be accessed in the big Brutalist House. At the top of the stairs in the main room, enter the small opening and turn right down the long corridor, use the wall at the end, then turn right immediately again and fall down the hole. Go round the corner and use the wall on your left to enter a small tunnel. Take a leap across to the bridge, then enter the vent and follow it to the end.

Now find the tunnel to the Airport in the Brutalist House. You'll need to jump into the bathtub in the regular-sized version of the House and open a wall panel to reveal a small tunnel leading to a metal electrical panel. Opening this reveals a looping underground parking lot which leads into the Airport lounge.

The airport
In the Airport, walk into the female bathroom. Loop around the mirror a few times until you see the bloodstains. Enough loops will trigger an ambush of bloodfiends. Kill them and leave the bathroom, picking up the Medication Bottle on the way out. Fifteen artifacts are now accounted for.

Board the plane, and press use in the cockpit to trigger an alarm and set an ambush of Blots on you. Get to the tail end of the plane and jump out of the hatch to transport yourself back to the House.

The gas station
The flowery painting on the wall in the House's living room will now show a location in the outdoors fencing, indicating a hidden passage. By now the doors to the outside world have finally returned to the House.

Find the exact section of the fencing outside that the painting describes - it's some distance to the right of the soulsphere pedestal - and press use. The passage that you reveal will take you to a long dark road - take note that you emerge next to a piece of wooden fence. You'll need to follow the road down towards a crashed car. Follow the path down to the Gas Station indicated by the car's headlights. Retrieve the Game Controller inside the station's storage room for the final artifact. Return to the House through the station restroom.

In the House, cross back into the mirror reality. The flowery painting in this reality has changed to show a dark version of the Gas Station, and an area in the trees beside the road which you'll need to find.

The mirror gas station
Find the same part of the outside fence (it's to the left of the soulsphere pedestal in this reality), and you'll be taken to a mirrored dark road, again leading to a Gas Station. There is no car, only a torch on the ground lighting the way to the station.

Inside the mirrored Gas Station, enter the crate room for a rocket launcher. Notice that the restroom is out of order. Turn left down the road across from the station and notice the pillar of smoke coming from the trees. Approach it and head into the foliage to the right of the roadsign to find a bonfire. Press use on the tree with the love heart on it, but do not go through the opening.

Step into the bonfire smoke and immediately start running from the mirror vile. The vile will chase you down the road. You'll need to sprint past the station and down the road while avoiding the vile's attacks. Run back past the torch, and find the exit in the trees next to the piece of wooden fence. This leads back to the mirrored House.

Even after you've re-emerged, the vile will spawn again and begin resurrecting monsters previously killed in the House. It is largely fruitless to attempt to kill anything at this point as the vile is practically indestructible and will continue to harass you, so quickly cross back into the normal reality through the bathroom mirror to leave the vile behind, but be prepared to fight large groups of monsters, including two regular arch-viles as soon as you appear back in the living room.

The final fight
Re-enter the opening in the fence and return to the Gas Station. There is a huge party of monsters waiting for you, complete with a spider mastermind on the roof of the station, so be ready. Many of the monsters will kill each other to infighting. Use the inside of the station as a safe zone, but beware of monsters crowding round the back entrance, which is your only means to leave the inside of the station.

Head to the right down the far road, and find the bonfire. Pressing use on the tree with the love heart and going through the opening will take you to a beach scene. This can be considered the "good" ending.

Endings

 * Ending 0: Access the exit teleport behind the garden gate with the blue keycard or skull key.
 * Ending 1: If you jump out of the plane before collecting the fifteen required artifacts to reveal the hidden fence passage, you will be teleported to an empty House and it will disappear behind you as you leave, replaced by a sign saying "For Sale". At this point you may leave through the garden gate as with Ending 0.
 * Ending 2: The fake beach area. This is reached by passing through the tree next to the bonfire in the mirror reality. Go around to the back of the wooden scenery and use the clapperboard. The screen turns black and the map effectively ends with no intermission screen.
 * Ending 3: The beach area. Considered the "good" ending, as it is the only "secret" in the map. A sleeping dog can be found here if neither of the dogs are killed in the Brutalist House. Again there is no intermission screen, but the map effectively ends here.

Optional areas

 * Behind the bookcase next to the pool table in the House, there is a room with a sparking breaker switch which unlocks after finding the Milkshake artifact. Pressing use on this will transport you to a monster-infested version of the House which has clearly been completely destroyed by a housefire. Doing this will also remove the artifact pictures and the flower painting from the walls in the living room, and lock you out from making any further progress with the artifact puzzle. It is not advised to go this route if you plan on getting one of the good endings.
 * The boiler room can be used as a shortcut to the Brutalist House. Pressing use on a piece of equipment in this room (as long as you have the blue skull) will reveal a chalk outline on the wall which can be passed through and lead the player to the Brutalist House. This appears to be a safety net of sorts for progression's sake, so if you do everything in the right order, this route should not be needed.
 * A closet in an upstairs bedroom of the House will, on occasion, lead to a dark hallway into an enormous and convoluted concrete labyrinth. There are no monsters or items and no features of interest aside from a huge pool of water and a "great hall" containing a spiral staircase leading endlessly into the ground and a few doors that take the player to different parts of the map. There are, however, no artifacts to be found here, and the labyrinth appears to only serve to disorient players.
 * As a way to discourage cheating, noclipping in certain areas will transport you to . There is a way out, but you will be pursued all the way by the Skinstealer.
 * Die at any point in the map and wait. After about a minute, you'll respawn in the Hospital. Find the Room Key here, then access the room with the flatlined patient. An emergency switch on the wall will spawn you in the location you died in, with refilled health.

Exits to Underhalls

 * You can leave the map at any time, as long as you have access to the garden gate and the appropriate blue key. Stepping on the exit teleporter behind the blue-locked gate will take you to Underhalls. Exiting Underhalls will then take you back to My House. Take note that if you approach the soulsphere pedestal and pass into the second version of the House, you will change the garden gate's key lock to require a blue skull instead of a blue keycard.
 * The game implies with a cheat message that the super shotgun is intended to be found in Underhalls and then brought back. Since you can access the House's exit teleporter as soon as you have found the blue keycard in the first version of the House, it's a good idea to access this as soon as you have the blue card. (You can also carry Underhalls' secret megaarmor back to My House.)
 * Re-entering My House from Underhalls will not carry over any artifacts found in My House.
 * If the exit teleporter behind the garden gate is ever taken while in the mirror reality, you will end up in sllahrednU, a mirrored version of Underhalls, which you'll be forced to pistol-start. Exiting sllahrednU will take you back to My House, but start you in a mirrored version of the House, complete with a backwards version of "Running From Evil" playing. When you arrive here, the Wine Bottle artifact and the mirror gateway between both realities can be accessed immediately from map start. Crossing over to the normal reality will start you in the second version of the house, preventing you from getting any keycards back and locking you out from the plasma rifle found in the big Brutalist House.
 * sllahrednU has its own Backrooms.

Useful items

 * There is a green shirt in the closet by the front door in the second version of the House. Press use on it to get armor.
 * There is a berserk in a closet in the Play Area. It is unreachable at first, but if you press use on the cracked wall in the restroom behind this closet, you can "punch" the wall with your fist and knock the berserk onto the floor, granting access to the item.
 * A backpack can be found in the Bathhouse. Immediately to the right of the entrance to the Hellfish pool is a set of locker doors you can open to reach it - look for the locker handle facing the other way.
 * A plasma rifle is behind a large panel with a vent on it in the big Brutalist House. You can only unlock this panel if you found the blue keycard in the first version of the House.
 * A megasphere can be found in the big Brutalist House. It can be reached by jumping through the curtains of a yellow window outside the House's bounds, but once you reach it, you can only exit this area by jumping into the black void and returning to the endless staircase. For this reason it's best to save it until you have found the three artifacts in the Brutalist House.
 * The "Sludgie" machine inside the Gas Station, in both realities, can be used for a boost of health to 200%. These health boosts can be used a few times until the machine reads "out of order".
 * During the big Gas Station fight in the normal reality, the crate room will provide a megaarmor.
 * Pressing use on the bloodstained heart shirt in the Airport's shop will give you megaarmor.
 * There is a BFG9000 in the female restrooms in the Airport. As you enter, face right, head past the mirror, then turn left at the corner of the room. Approach the toilet stall directly in front of you but do not go round the corner - you should see blood start to appear in the mirror. Head back the way you came to notice the restroom entrance is gone. Go round the corner into the bloody area. Step forward just enough so you can face the mirror, then walk back towards the entrance - the BFG9000 will be available here.

Red herrings
Four items that appear to be "artifacts" are in fact red herrings and will not help with progress on the artifact puzzle.
 * The Tarnished History (a burnt diary), Ruined Memories (a smashed picture frame), and Innocence Lost (a charred teddy bear) can be found in the burnt-down version of the House.
 * An empty Medication Bottle can be picked up on your way into the female restrooms in the Airport. One can also be found in the Hospital. These do not count towards the artifact puzzle.

The endless staircase
This staircase can be accessed in a few different ways throughout the map, including falling into the black void around the Brutalist House, falling into the cloud sky in the Bathhouse, or escaping the Backrooms.

There appear to be six levels to the staircase that endlessly loop on themselves. Traveling up the stairs takes you to various exit doors which all have different behaviors.


 * Level 1 (bottom floor): Enter onto this floor of the staircase via the Brutalist House. The door can't be opened from the staircase side.
 * Level 2: Enter onto this floor of the staircase via the Backrooms. The door can't be opened from the staircase side.
 * Level 3: Opens to the exit door on level 5.
 * Level 4: A FIREBLU passage leading back to last House section visited. Once closed, the door can't be opened from the other side.
 * Level 5: Opens to the exit door on level 3.
 * Level 6 (top floor): Enter onto this floor of the staircase via the Bathhouse. An empty sky void. This door can be opened from the staircase side.

New monsters

 * Shadow: Dark and fast imp-like creature with a constant ranged attack. HP: 80.
 * Nightmare: Ghostly imp variant that is invisible until it attacks up close. HP: 100.
 * Bloodfiend: Red demon that spits blood at a distance in addition to the standard demon melee. HP: 150.
 * Wight: Very slow corpse-like monster with only a melee attack. Only appears on the easier skills. HP: 30.
 * Vampyr: Pale imp-like monster that throws weak homing projectiles. HP: 120.
 * Striga: Blood-based melee-only creature that drags itself across the ground, leaving behind a trail of viscera. HP: 50.
 * Hemodemon: Pale cacodemon variant. Getting hit by one of their projectiles instils them with "bloodlust", causing them to hurl more powerful projectiles until they run out of bloodlust. HP: 200.
 * Best Buddy: Found in the Brutalist House. Exists in two forms. One is a small friendly dog who loyally follows the player around the regular-sized Brutalist House. The other is a giant grisly Cerberus that charges and bites the player while in the larger Brutalist House. HP: 25 (small), 3000 (large).
 * Blot: Found in the Airplane. Black spectral enemies that bounce around and do light melee damage. Very easily killed. Health: 20.
 * Childhood Nightmare: Found in the Play Area. A melee-only enemy. Easily dealt with if you keep your distance. Drops the Gate Key to leave the park. Health: 1000.
 * Hellfish: Found in the Bathhouse. Electric eel-like enemy that throws lightning at any player in its body of water. When killed, it spawns twelve baby variants of itself. Health: 1000.
 * Mirror Vile: Found in the Mirror Gas Station. Practically unkillable darker arch-vile variant. Has the ability to walk through solid objects. While very threatening, its higher pain chance means it can be stunned more easily than a regular vile, and you can easily outrun it as it can only target players within a 512 mapunit range. Health: 50000.
 * Skinstealer: Found in the Backrooms. Tall dark figure who is easily outrun but will do severe damage if it catches up to you. Health: 9999999999.

Secrets

 * 1) The beach area. If you reach the "good" ending, finding this secret is unavoidable. (sector 17613)

Player spawns
This level contains two spawn points:
 * The main one facing north-west. (thing 3223)
 * The alternate one facing north-east. (thing 343) This player start is used if returning to this map from sllahrednU.

Things
This level contains the following numbers of things per skill level:

Technical information
This map makes extensive use of silent teleports and GZDoom lineportals, allowing for seamless transitions between different areas and giving the illusion of non-. There are multiple permutations of essentially every area in the map to allow for subtle changes in layout and enemy placement, all of these designed to disorient and unnerve the player.

A ZDoom MAPINFO lump alters the colors on the automap, changing everything to full black to force the player to navigate without much help from the automap. The overlay automap and textured automap can still assist with navigation, however.

The player's view height has been changed from 41 to 54, presumably to more closely approximate the real-world scale of the House, and its various alternative areas.

When playing this map, all cheats are effectively disabled on all difficulties, with the exception of god mode and noclip.

Certain cheats have had their onscreen messages changed:

IDCLIP (on): "Be careful not to clip out of reality in the wrong areas..." IDCLIP (off): "Better safe than sorry..." IDKFA: "It's about the journey, not the destination." IDFA: "If you find yourself exploring another map, bring a Super Shotgun back with you." IDCHOPPERS: "Leave the entrance to the bathroom unsullied for a big fucking reward." IDDQD (on): "My reflection winked at me. I covered the mirror in the attic just to be safe." IDDQD (off): "There's no good outcome from a house fire." IDBEHOLD: "The living room painting hides a clue... if you find all the artifacts." IDMUS: "This isn't the d_runnin you know... let it play out."

The Nightmare! skill confirmation text has also changed:

Are you sure? This skill level isn't even remotely difficult.

Nightmare! skill appears to be largely the same as Ultra-Violence, although you still get double ammo from weapon and ammo pickups, and some monster encounters appear to have in fact been made easier.

Inspiration and development
Veddge cites the loss of a childhood friend, named Tom (Thomas Allord), as being their inspiration for the map.

When the map's release thread by Veddge was first made on March 3, 2023, the download link provided was a simple file link. About a week later - around March 10, 2023 - this link was changed to a full Google Drive folder containing not just the file, but photos, journals and screenshots related to the map - some of which appear to provide more context for the surreal nature of the map. The Google Drive link also contains a zip file with a greatly simplified variant of this map in "myhouse.wad", which features no content beyond the first version of the House and the first three keycards.

The map explores themes of isolation, nostalgia, grief, mental unrest, childhood trauma and existential horror. In terms of its various approaches to architecture, it seems to take direct inspiration from Internet s and the concept of to provoke unsettling feelings in the player.

The distorted MP3 version of "Running From Evil" that plays during the majority of this level seems to be at least loosely inspired by the album series by, which focuses heavily on the effects of dementia in old age. The album musically represents the effects of memory loss and mental deterioration through the use of white noise and repeating earlier musical material with greater and greater levels of distortion as it progresses.

The giant concrete labyrinth appears to be directly inspired by, a documentary novel by about an endless, constantly-changing labyrinth inside a family's home. The sign that appears in the empty lot after the House disappears says "Navidson Realty - For Sale". In the novel, Navidson is the name given to the family who own the house.

Trivia

 * A console can be seen in the first version of the House. This changes into an  console in the second version of the House.
 * Entering the second House changes the player's weapon animations to those of the by Per Kristian Risvik.
 * Upon entering the second version of the House, the music will appear to reset, but in fact it changes to a butchered version of "Running From Evil". This version of the track is 11:41 in length and features three "cycles" of the original, each one progressively getting more uncanny and discordant through the use of incorrect notes, skips in the rhythm, and out-of-tune instruments. 9:14 into the track, the guitar line from "Sign of Evil" can briefly be heard in the background.
 * The song playing from the radio of the crashed car beside the Gas Station is "", a viral song recording, likely originating from the 1980s. Very little is known about the song's origins, down to its original name or original composer, and even its lyrics have multiple interpretations.
 * The message notification sound is scripted to play 10:00 into the map.