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I am starting to see MyHouse.WAD fanart on tumblr and the main video on it is at 5.2 million views. This whole thing is still blowing up a bit and a streamer I like did a playthrough recently that was really interesting to see. He went in blind, but towards the end had someone guiding him just enough to not get fully stuck.
First, some of my favorite takes on the game:
* Guys will create an impossible art piece in a 30 year old video game and release it like it is nothing rather than go to therapy.
* Anything can run Doom, but can Doom run House of Leaves?
It's interesting how subtle the horror in the mod is. It's focused on a very specific community of players who would get freaked out by the map. This story could be coded into Unity or anything else much easier, but by seamlessly pulling off what people thought was impossible on a 30 year old platform the players are deeply, deeply familiar with it really creates something unique. Usually, if you switch maps or the map changes, there are those lost frames, loading times, computer working a touch harder... You can see/hear/feel that there is a change, but the thing is there is only one map in the game and it never changes. So, when the map seems to change it feels dreamlike, impossible, wrong.
Instead of having multiple maps or anything reasonable like that for the house changing, the game uses one giant, continuous map with a super complicated series of teleports. And the code is so optimized the teleports are seamless. I've seen people run back and forth over teleport points to manage complicated fights and they don't even realize they are teleporting every second. The mod seems clunky at first because it takes a while to load, like it was made by an amateur, but the real reason it takes a while to load is because the map is HUGE and when you play it the experience will be impossibly smooth. It's one of a number of super subtle fake outs.
Mutahar over at SomeOrdinaryGamers examined the code to show how it all works. He said that it looked like the project was about two years worth of work. Now, we don't know who made this and hopefully never will, so we'll never know how long it took them. I wouldn't take that 'two years' super seriously, more as ballparking the effort and skill involved.
We don't know who made the map because the forum user who posted this is a character in the story. He's dead. The account is part of the whole creepy-pasta horror story about reaching beyond the grave to post a tribute to a 'friend'.
I watched some experienced players go into this mod and not only be freaked out by how the map seems to evolve, but also by how balanced the map is and how the tension is built up. This map is not what it pretends to be, there is serious understanding of player behaviors and balance and game design.
From going way too hard on the map design, the frame rate changes, the multiple music remixes and such a deep and complicated understanding of the Doom player community, it's such a ridiculously subtle and nuanced piece of horror fiction about your queerness being hidden from the world and your obituary being straight-washed.
It's also funny to see people try to say that it isn't about a gay couple, the reasons for the similarities between the obituaries is because they are the same person. And it's like, okay but there are still 'joint' celebrations of life with the partner's name and pronouns left out and all the stuff with the wedding ring and the fake-out ending... even if Steve and Tom are one person despite looking different and being photographed together, they are still married to someone whose name and pronouns cannot be said. The no-homo explanation still wraps back around to yes-homo.
Some people think one of the guys is FTM because of the bathroom sign thing and I get why, but I feel like if that was a thing there would be at least one other reference to transness, even if it was subtle. Maybe a reference to a Poppy Z Brite book (the game likes it's literary refs) or even a calendar in the kitchen with Tuesdays circled and I'd be on board. I like that interpretation and I see why people have it, I just don't think that's what the creator/creators were going for. I think the simpler explanation is correct, they are two guys who finally connected after lonely, hidden lives and had a bit of happiness before the end and died on the same day. And, as the game says, Happiness must be fought for.
Anyway, in a year noted for AAA flops one of the most compelling gaming experiences is a free passion project likely years in the making about gay love piercing the veil of death so it's not erased and I think that's awesome.
First, some of my favorite takes on the game:
* Guys will create an impossible art piece in a 30 year old video game and release it like it is nothing rather than go to therapy.
* Anything can run Doom, but can Doom run House of Leaves?
It's interesting how subtle the horror in the mod is. It's focused on a very specific community of players who would get freaked out by the map. This story could be coded into Unity or anything else much easier, but by seamlessly pulling off what people thought was impossible on a 30 year old platform the players are deeply, deeply familiar with it really creates something unique. Usually, if you switch maps or the map changes, there are those lost frames, loading times, computer working a touch harder... You can see/hear/feel that there is a change, but the thing is there is only one map in the game and it never changes. So, when the map seems to change it feels dreamlike, impossible, wrong.
Instead of having multiple maps or anything reasonable like that for the house changing, the game uses one giant, continuous map with a super complicated series of teleports. And the code is so optimized the teleports are seamless. I've seen people run back and forth over teleport points to manage complicated fights and they don't even realize they are teleporting every second. The mod seems clunky at first because it takes a while to load, like it was made by an amateur, but the real reason it takes a while to load is because the map is HUGE and when you play it the experience will be impossibly smooth. It's one of a number of super subtle fake outs.
Mutahar over at SomeOrdinaryGamers examined the code to show how it all works. He said that it looked like the project was about two years worth of work. Now, we don't know who made this and hopefully never will, so we'll never know how long it took them. I wouldn't take that 'two years' super seriously, more as ballparking the effort and skill involved.
We don't know who made the map because the forum user who posted this is a character in the story. He's dead. The account is part of the whole creepy-pasta horror story about reaching beyond the grave to post a tribute to a 'friend'.
I watched some experienced players go into this mod and not only be freaked out by how the map seems to evolve, but also by how balanced the map is and how the tension is built up. This map is not what it pretends to be, there is serious understanding of player behaviors and balance and game design.
From going way too hard on the map design, the frame rate changes, the multiple music remixes and such a deep and complicated understanding of the Doom player community, it's such a ridiculously subtle and nuanced piece of horror fiction about your queerness being hidden from the world and your obituary being straight-washed.
It's also funny to see people try to say that it isn't about a gay couple, the reasons for the similarities between the obituaries is because they are the same person. And it's like, okay but there are still 'joint' celebrations of life with the partner's name and pronouns left out and all the stuff with the wedding ring and the fake-out ending... even if Steve and Tom are one person despite looking different and being photographed together, they are still married to someone whose name and pronouns cannot be said. The no-homo explanation still wraps back around to yes-homo.
Some people think one of the guys is FTM because of the bathroom sign thing and I get why, but I feel like if that was a thing there would be at least one other reference to transness, even if it was subtle. Maybe a reference to a Poppy Z Brite book (the game likes it's literary refs) or even a calendar in the kitchen with Tuesdays circled and I'd be on board. I like that interpretation and I see why people have it, I just don't think that's what the creator/creators were going for. I think the simpler explanation is correct, they are two guys who finally connected after lonely, hidden lives and had a bit of happiness before the end and died on the same day. And, as the game says, Happiness must be fought for.
Anyway, in a year noted for AAA flops one of the most compelling gaming experiences is a free passion project likely years in the making about gay love piercing the veil of death so it's not erased and I think that's awesome.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-01 12:40 am (UTC)From:-- Trans Rights Werewolf
Would it be okay if I linked to your post about this on my Dreamwidth? This is such a great description of it.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-01 01:10 am (UTC)From:That video is great. I've also watched a couple others on the mod as well, but that video is the one that really lays every thing out perfectly. It was also fun watching players like Detune get freaked out where the mod wanted them freaked out and get lead around by the same design design tricks.