My House

My House
Author	Steve Nelson
Port	GZDoom
IWAD	Doom II
Year	2023
Link	Doomworld forums thread
	This mod received one of the 2023 Cacowards on Doomworld!

My House (a.k.a. MyHouse.WAD) is a single-level PK3 for Doom II using the GZDoom source port that was released on March 3, 2023. It was designed by Steve Nelson (Veddge) and uses the music tracks "Running from Evil", "Entryway at the End of Time", and "memory=entryrrrr/////", the second of which was composed by James Paddock (Jimmy) and the third by Sarah Mancuso (esselfortium).

Veddge emerged on September 2, 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 purported 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 map requires the GZDoom hardware renderer to run properly. Jumping and crouching are disabled, but freelook is permitted.

My House was named one of the winners at the 2023 Cacowards.

Hints

Many players find it difficult to get the "good" ending on their own. The journal found in the Google Drive with the map download provides context to the game content and also hints in both content and formatting. It is recommended to attempt the map on your own and reach an ending first, then read the journal before reading these hints. This section contains small hints that are meant to contain minimal spoilers and have been observed to regularly help players get to the "good" ending without them needing to read the full walkthrough.

Hint 1 For the best ending, you must avoid the house fire.

Hint 2 Pay attention to the usable object in the attic.

Hint 3 Check the sinks.

Hint 4 Follow the right wall upon entering the locker rooms.

Walkthrough

Map of My House

Letters in italics refer to marked spots on the map. Sector, thing, and linedef numbers in boldface are secrets which count toward the end-of-level tally.

Essentials

The House

You start the map on the driveway, facing the House's front door.

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 all 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 both doors leading to the garage will disappear and you will be unable to leave the inside of the House as a result. 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 Daycare, now accessible in the normal reality.

The Daycare

Leave the mirror reality and follow the trail of colored balls to a office closet. Fall down the yellow tube.

In the Daycare, 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 Shrek 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 the middle of 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 from the correct side 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.

When entering the Airport for the second time in a playthrough, the plane will not spawn and you will instead be dropped back to the house directly from the boarding ramp.

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 road sign 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 by infighting. Use the inside of the station as a safe zone, but beware of monsters crowding round the back entrance, which together with the secondary front entrance door 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 eight required artifacts to reveal the hidden fence passage in the normal reality (pop, milkshake, ring, tuna can, Frisbee, ornament, bottle, and baseball), you will be teleported to an empty version of the House that will disappear behind you as you step outside, being replaced by a sign saying "SOLD" surrounded by an empty lot. 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.

Other points of interest

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 house fire. 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. By going this route the player locks themselves out from achieving Endings 2 or 3. This version of the House also doesn't allow the player to exit to the garden since both the front door and the two doors leading to the garage cannot be opened. However, by collecting the three corrupted artifacts scattered throughout the upper floor, the basement area will be changed to a Brutalist rendition of itself where all walls are made out of concrete. Inside the boiler room, the door leading to the garage is now lowering into the ground, leading to the equivalent of the garage area of the normal-sized Brutalist House instead. If the player continues from here to the airport and walks to the end of the boarding bridge, they will be returned to a different version of the burned House where more time has passed since the fire, with grass now growing between the floorboards and weeds hanging from the ceiling and windows; the sky outside has also returned to normal from the hellish clouds seen before. This version of the House allows the player to exit to the garden, at which point the House disappears and the player is in the same empty plot of land with the "SOLD" sign as described in Ending 1.
• 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.
• Once the player has picked up the blue skull key from the attic, the closet in the smaller of the two upstairs bedrooms of the House will have a continuous 9.09% chance to open 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, 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 "great hall". There are, however, no artifacts to be found here, and the labyrinth appears to only serve to disorient and unnerve players.
• In the Brutalist House, right before the hole that leads to the room with the bathtub, there is a window that allows the player to jump into one of the lit windows of the surrounding apartment complex. This window leads to a room with a TV that displays a recording (or a live feed) of that very same room. The TV can be unplugged from behind by pressing use, which will cause the player's entire screen to go black. Pressing use again will return the player's screen to normal, except the TV will now display static with "CH03" written on the top-right corner of the screen. This same message will be displayed in every available TV screen in both the second House and the mirror House. It is unknown what purpose this serves.
• As a way to discourage cheating, noclipping in certain areas will transport you to the Backrooms. 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 automated external defibrillator (AED) on the wall will spawn you in the location you died in, triggering a berserk pack pickup. The Hospital can only be accessed once per playthrough; afterwards the player stays dead when killed.
• If you achieve Ending 1 but possess the eight artifacts shown in the living room of the normal House (pop, milkshake, ring, tuna can, frisbee, ornament, milk bottle and baseball), you can access the hidden passage in the outdoors fencing in the empty lot. To do this you first have to get the two artifacts from the sitting room that appears in the House after the blue skull key is picked up, then visit the mirror reality, Daycare, Bathhouse and Brutalist House to retrieve the other six. After returning to the House via the airport, open the bookcase in the basement and access the burned House, collect the three corrupted artifacts and revisit the Brutalist House through the boiler room, then reach the airport again and go through the boarding gate to return to the overgrown burned House. Once you enter the garden, the House disappears, and you will find yourself in the empty lot area, where the hidden passage in the fencing can now be opened. On the other side of the passage through the fence is a small area containing a gravestone with a QR code on it. Scanning this code links to a picture of the same newspaper article that contained Thomas Allord's obituary, which is among the documents that comes with the Google Drive download of the mod itself. However, this time the section of the article to the right of Tom's obituary is shown and revealed to be the obituary of Steven Nelson aka Veddge, the creator of the mod, who supposedly died on the same day and in the same town as his friend Thomas. The obituary also reveals that their funeral services were apparently celebrated jointly though this information is missing from Tom's obituary.

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 key 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. The player was originally forced to start sllahrednU from a pistol start but this was removed in a later update. 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.

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.

Useful items

• Upon map start, make sure to immediately open the brown UAC crate in the garage for a chainsaw. If you enter the House through any of the doors, the weapon will disappear and leave behind a chalk outline.
• 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 Daycare. 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%. In the normal Gas Station, these health boosts can be used a few times until the machine reads "out of order". The amount of times it can be used is based on the current skill level: five uses on "I'm too young to die", and decreasing by one until only two uses on "Ultra-Violence". "Nightmare!" puts it back up to five uses. In the mirror Gas Station, you are only given one use regardless of skill level.
• 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. These are necessary, however, to reach the hidden gravestone area (see optional areas).
• 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.

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. Killing one also kills the other. 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 Daycare park. A melee-only enemy resembling Shrek. 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: 5000000
• 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.

Areas / screenshots

• 

  The opening shot of the House's exterior.

• 

  The living room where you'll face the first few monsters.

• 

  The downstairs TV room.

• 

  The upstairs master bedroom, with the yellow keycard in shot.

Statistics

Map data

Things	3780
Vertices	133967
Linedefs	164452
Sidedefs	298798
Sectors	35566

Things

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

Single-player
Monsters	1	2	3	4	5
Zombieman	21	21	21	21	18
Shotgun guy	20	20	20	20	13
Heavy weapon dude	8	9	9	9	2
Imp	37	57	78	78	17
Demon	15	15	26	37	12
Revenant	11	11	11	10	1
Cacodemon	17	26	43	43	9
Pain elemental	0	0	1	2	1
Hell knight	14	15	13	12	1
Arachnotron	2	2	2	2	0
Mancubus	15	15	15	15	1
Arch-vile	1	2	2	3	0
Baron of Hell	23	23	26	27	5
Spiderdemon	1	1	1	1	0
Wight	3	3	1	0	1
Striga	11	9	8	7	5
Hemodemon	2	3	5	5	0
Blot	5	5	5	5	0
Shadow	8	8	8	9	4
Nightmare	2	2	2	2	0
Vampyr	8	8	10	10	1
Blood fiend	0	2	3	4	0
Childhood nightmare	1
Hellfish	1
Cerberus	1
Mirror zombieman	9
Mirror shotgun guy	6
Mirror heavy weapon dude	2
Mirror imp	5
Mirror demon	2
Mirror arch-vile	4	4	4	4	4
Skinstealer	1
Weapons	1	2	3	4	5
Shotgun	1
Chainsaw	1
Rocket launcher	1
Plasma gun	1
BFG9000	1
Ammunition	1	2	3	4	5
Clip	11	11	13	13	9
Box of bullets	16	16	15	15	15
4 shotgun shells	14	14	16	16	11
Box of shotgun shells	13	13	13	12	12
Rocket	2
Box of rockets	48	48	48	48	39
Energy cell pack	20	20	20	16	0
Health & Armor	1	2	3	4	5
Stimpack	7	8	8	8	8
Medikit	31	27	23	22	28
Megaarmor	1
Items	1	2	3	4	5
Health bonus	1
Supercharge	2
Megasphere	1
Backpack	1
Berserk	1
Keys	1	2	3	4	5
Blue keycard	1	1	1	1	1
Blue skull key	1
Red keycard	1	1	1	1	1
Red skull key	1
Yellow keycard	1	1	1	1	1
Yellow skull key	1
Pop	1
Milkshake	1
Ring	1
Tuna can	1
Frisbee	1
Ornament	1
Bottle	1
Baseball	1
Crayons	1
Rubber duck	1
Medication	1
Controller	1
Teddy bear	1
Pumpkin	1
Wine	1
20-sided dice	1
Empty medication	2
Puppy	1
Photograph	1
Book	1
Room 1 key	1
Miscellaneous	1	2	3	4	5
Teleport landing	24	24	24	24	24
Voodoo doll	1

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 exploring impossible space. 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.

If the uppercase letters are taken from the CREDITS file, the string SELESTNSOAJYIKHYMMU is obtained. This is an anagram that when unscrambled yields THANK YOUS ESSEL JIMMY, crediting the composers which are otherwise left out of the plain text credits.

Inspiration and development

According to information posted on Doomworld and later on the mod's website, the author Veddge experienced the loss of a childhood friend in August 2022, named Tom (Thomas Allord). The emotional state that Tom's death provoked in Veddge appears to have had a strong influence on the content that was added to 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, screenshots and a personal journal related to the map, some of which appear to provide more context for the surreal and cryptic nature of the map. Much of the information, particularly the content of the journal entries, strays into the territory of supernatural phenomena, ultimately giving the impression that it is part of a greater work of immersive fiction similar to an alternate reality game.

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 creepypastas and the concept of liminal spaces to provoke unsettling feelings in the player.

The distorted MP3 version of "Running From Evil" that plays during the majority of this level, "memory=entryrrrr/////" by esselfortium, is inspired by the album series Everywhere at the End of Time by The Caretaker, which focuses heavily on dementia in old age, musically representing 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 map's giant concrete labyrinth appears to be directly inspired by House of Leaves, a documentary novel by Mark Z. Danielewski 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 PlayStation console can be seen in the first version of the House. This changes into an Xbox Series console in the second version of the House.
• Entering the second House changes the player's weapon animations to those of the Smooth Weapon Animations 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 corrupted version of "Running From Evil" called "Entryway at the End of Time", composed by James Paddock (Jimmy). 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. At nine minutes and fourteen seconds 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 "The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet", 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 Discord message notification sound is scripted to play at exactly ten minutes into the map.
• Once the player returns to the normal reality after having triggered the mirror vile, looking through the mirror found in the attic, the mirror vile can be observed standing transfixed in the same spot where the Christmas ornament was seen earlier. In connection with the Christmas ornament and its pickup message "Christmas makes me happy", the mirror vile in this scene could be interpreted to suggest the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come from A Christmas Carol, and by extension, the Grim Reaper.
• When looking out of a window from inside the living room area of the normal-sized Brutalist house, the player can glimpse an apparition looking back at them from behind the doorway of the brightly lit room across the gap. The apparition vanishes behind the door when the player moves closer to the window and does not reappear. The figure is gaunt and entirely black except for its eyes, and though vaguely female in shape, is seemingly demonic in nature as evidenced by its claws.
• The infinite staircase that leads back to the house from various areas might be a reference to SCP-087.
• The chalk outline shortcut in the boiler room appears to be a reference to The Twilight Zone episode 91 "Little Girl Lost", in which the portal to the fourth dimension has a very similar design.
• The painting of Shrek in the Daycare is from a real abandoned daycare in Turkey.
• The chalkboard drawing in the Daycare is from a renovated school in Oklahoma.
• The Hellfish and big Best Buddy enemies use the Bone Eel and Cerberus sprites from the game Blood.
• In the mod files, there exists a sprite for an unused seventeenth artifact, named the Quarter. No instances exist in the map, but its pickup text would be "I'd like to make a collect call..." In early versions of the PK3, using a payphone at the gas station would make a sound but didn't trigger anything beyond that.
• The Bathhouse, Brutalist House, Airport, and Gas Station all use a similar layout to the House's upper floor, while the Daycare layout mirrors that of the lower floor.
• The House itself is based on a real-world house, which has the same layout as the initial House at the start of the WAD.

External links

• Doomworld forums thread
• memory=entryrrrr///// on SoundCloud