The Machinations of myhouse.wad (How it works) - Part 1 

Somebody really read House of Leaves and asked "But can it run Doom?"

Looking at this map in SLADE was like reading a forbidden eldritch tome. What absolute inhuman madness. The work it took to make this thing boggles the mind.

theres something delightful about the fact that because of how doom works, most things cant appear/disappear at will, instead walls have to slide up or down to cover them. It feels so goofy, very scooby doo. I love it.

This three part 90 minute documentary about a doom wad has given my autistic brain more entertainment than the last million dollar’s worth of Hollywood tentpole event movies.

"The 1990s Playstation in the corner of the living room has been replaced with a modern Xbox, but the rest of the house has been upgraded." I like my shade like I like my coffee: subtle.

This wad is an amazing homage to House of Leaves, and I love how much it deals with the themes of grief and nostalgia

the burnt house legitimately horrified me on my first playthrough, i bumbled right into it thinking it was progress and i was so wrong

18:35 this discord notification sound made me scratch my head for a while. I watched many blind playthroughs and most players assumed it was added into the music. I couldn't figure out how it was switching positions in the songs though, as every playthrough I watched it happened at slightly different parts of the 2nd D_running song. On one of my playthroughs I was already deep into exploring the labyrinth before 10 minutes had passed. Hearing that notification while being immersed in that dark and silent maze gave me a start, and it got me too, because I went and checked discord. It never occurred to me that it was a timed sound from the beginning. Fantastic trickery.

There is actually ONE thing in the Labyrinth that you failed to mention/notice...! There is one single ambient noise in the center of the twisting corridors that plays a strange... growly noise? It's hard to describe, but very upsetting to hear all around you. It has a minimum fading distance of 1000, meaning you can hear it from essentially anywhere in the labyrinth. It sucks! I love it.

Fun Fact! A two-headed dog is Orthrus (or Orthus). Orthrus is the offspring of Echidna and Typhon, sibling of Cerberus, and guarded Geryon’s Castle and was killed by Heracles

The initial house is designed to fit the actual description, a house map made in the old days that he cleaned up to make it a little bit more modern. The second house is designed to use modern tools to make the house seem more real. Very good storytelling.

The portal for getting to the brutalist house in the basement is reminiscent of The Twilight Zone's Little Girl Lost. The dad draws a curved square around a portal behind her bed almost exactly like that

When talking about the brutalist house I misheard you say it's "...rendered in the mesmerizingly ugly brutalist architecture style of Engles & Bere Concrete™" which I initially assumed was a famous company known for such brutalist architecture. Here at Engles & Bere Concrete™ we specialize in horrifying brutalist architecture. Our company name is practically synonymous with such. We can garuntee any structure you want will be as unappealing as possible. So whether you're looking to build a prision, courthouse, primary school, wedding venue, hotel, park, or even a nursey. Know you can always count on Engles & Bere Concrete™ to deliver.

All of the silly little tricks & workarounds to do even basic things here is absolutely mental, I can almost believe the journal entries describing him going insane making the map. LOL.

This WAD unsettled me more than any other Doom I’ve played. The lack of IDDT or UDB help that I usually rely on to brute force apart a map’s secrets drove me insane.

I like how the spiritual successor to House of Leaves is a GZDoom wad.

This feels like a separate but similar version of lilith.pk3, where it's meant to showcase the various quirks of both doom as a whole and the sourceport it was made for. But where lilith was meant to be an absolute visual nightmare that gives the idea that the game is pleading for a mercy that will never come, myhouse is actively sinister but reserved in its tricks and trappings, reaching out to try and claim your attention as its and its alone.

This is what I imagine silent hills to be like if kojima actually ended up making it

There are at least 3 more "secrets" in the Brutalist House: - There are two windows that you can jump into. One of them apparently contains a Megasphere (I never found that one), the other one has a TV which is showing the same room. The TV has a cord in the back, which you can interact with. Using it once will make your screen go blank. Pressing use again returns the screen to normal, but the TV now shows static. This also makes all the other TVs back in the house to also show static. - One of the windows has a black figure looking at you that hides as soon as you notice it. Would be interesting to know how that script works! - If you drop into the void outside of the windows, you will be transported to the Infinite Staircase area. Not sure if you mentioned any of these in part 2, haven't watched it yet. :) I also noticed that the Brutalist House heavily resembles Level 188 in the Backrooms wiki: backrooms.fandom.com/wiki/Level_188 Not sure if this is a connection, or they both are just inspired by the same kind of architecture.

I'm unsure what is more impressive & unsettling; the map or how thorough this dissection of it is. Great video.

It's amazing how pretty much NOBODY noticed the blocked off upstairs area when descending down the stairs. The dev knows where the player will be looking, and used it to their fullest extent.

This reminds of a game called Antichamber which isn't too old (2013) Which was also made just by one guy, very little to none assets over a longer period of time in developement and a very mind blowing puzzle / exploration.

This is the best adaptation of House of Leaves.

tbh i'm very glad house of leaves was mentioned in the labyrinth - as soon as the house started developing impossible geometry/rooms, my first thought was "huh, reminds me of what i've heard of house of leaves" and it feels great to know i'm not the only one

I love how well myhouse uses teleports. while they're not perfect they're sneaky enough to not be noticed if you're not looking.

Finding out how he pulled off these tricks somehow reads as equally twisted as the mod itself. I was wondering for the longest time how he pulled off the trick for making the animations upgrade to smoother ones and somehow the actual explanation is trollier than anything I could have thought of.

Intro - 0:00 Backstory (spoilers) - 0:53 Mechanics Analysis - 4:00 First House - 6:59 Second Houses - 11:30 Closet Maze - 19:14 Burned House - 21:34 Brutalist Area - 24:14 End of Part 1 - 27:17

This is a excellent tutorial on how to make haunted house in GZDoom. Basically every trick you need to know in 30 tutorial. Too bad it's officially analysis of map and not haunted house making tutorial. I'd imagine many map makers who look into making a haunted house would be happy if this came up when they searched for tutorials. Not only does it explain technical things like silent teleport and portals but also non-technical stuff like lowering picture into picture frame to uncover puzzle.

The thing that frustates me the most about this thing is that it's very similar to the project on which I've been working on and off (admittedly more off than on) for the past two years... And it's better than what my project will be if it ever gets finished. The one thing that might set my project apart is that it is being made as a full standalone game rather than just a DOOM map, with all the assets including music being entirely made by me.

I found out about this through the powerpak video. It’s really interesting- it’s kinda doing to the medium of Doom maps what House of Leaves did to the medium of books

I think the giant room with a staircase is a reference to house of leaves! The entire labyrinth section is very reminiscent, but that particular room is of big significance to the plot of the book and matches the description in the novel perfectly, although in the book it's technically finite. EDIT: hahaha I posted this literally seconds before you bring it up in the video.

7:06 "this was a slight simplification, because there are in fact _21_ " Yeah, just a SLIGHT simplification

It's important to note that the player doesn't get any health before seeing the soul sphere, so they're likely pretty low from having to pistol enemies. In fact, there's only one medkit in the entire house. Entering house 3 litters the house with health, and it gives you a green shirt.

I like how this WAD has a bunch of references. 8:52 From the Chainsaw outline from Evil Dead 2. 23:29 That one Nickelback song (you know the one). That one Twilight Zone Episode about the drawn square portal that the Simpson's referenced. Also the House of Leaves Labyrinth

The most impressive small detail for me is that the default doom weapon sprites and animations update when it swaps from the first designed house

I absolutely LOVE myhouse, and seeing the guts like this is fascinating to say the least. It sounds like both the least complicated and most complicated solutions to the stuff the map does.

I actually had no idea that the Discord notification sound was in-game. As it happened I had a message from a friend when I went to check but I was still a little confused as I didn't have the program open which usually means I don't get notifs like that. Never even occurred to me that it could be from the game lol

13:54 “The PlayStation has been replaced with an Xbox, but the rest of the house has been upgraded” That was an amazing subtle burn lmao

I kinda want to make my own map as surreal as this one someday

You have such a talent for this style of breakdown and analysis. Reminds me of the one you did for Repition of Time for Prince of Persia. Am really looking forward to part 2 of this.

I can't wait to see the other parts of this analysis. This is one of those WADs that really deserves the attention it's getting.

I love how you don’t just explain the content of the wad, but also explain the tricks used with asset names and code references to explain how the tricks are done. Amazing video

Fantastic, thanks for making this! It definitely deserves this level of attention and recognition. What an effort!

Another person called “The Labyrinth” the “Navidson Hallway”, which would make more sense because this is based off of House of Leaves.

I am a bit familiar with programming but this still blows my mind, what an amazing use of resources to make something great

Between this and Power Pak's review of the game's story, this is the greatest gaming experience ive had this year and i'm not even a doom fan.

This series of videos accidentally taught me Doom scripting, and map making

I don't play Doom but I am a game modder who is always fascinated by seeing how other modders pull off mechanics or tricks. I watched a video on "My House" and was blown away at the attention to detail and seamlessness of the maps. This video was very fascinating and insightful - I like that you included the code overlayed too. Will def check out some of your other videos. :)

Just binged through all 3 parts and as incredibly complicated as this map is you made it very easy to understand. Big props for making this such a concise and enjoyable watch!

probably made before, if not in video but "the inner machinations of myhouse are an enigma"

Through everything that goes into this wad, all the effort and secrets that got put into it, i can't help but be entertained the *most* by the single discord notification noise that plays exactly 10 minutes into loading the map. pure fckin genius to have such a small way of messing with the player throughout all this.

Great analysis! Like many others I’ve been obsessing over this wad over the last couple of weeks. I wonder if Veddge is an alias for a well known mapper, filmmaker, or author who figured out the password for their old doomworld account, it would explain a lot Looking forward to pt.2 mate!

Y'know what's cool about the burned house? it's an homage to doom 64's art style. The enemies, the music, the sounds, the environmental effects (colored lighting with gradients); it's all there!

This is a very interesting wad, I do hope this analysis of yours will get more mappers into scripting.

"We'll go back to the altered house and reflect on our decisions... ... ... I'll probaly cut that out." Oh David. Thankyou for keeping it in. LOVING watching these back to back, Doom 1 and 2 WADs can be bizarre and impressive technical marvels.

Probably you've already been told this, but if you remain dead at the bottom of the pit you'll eventually spawn at a hospital bed.

the amount of thought put into every map unit of this wad is absolutely deserving of the popularity it's seen in the past few months. regardless if this was done by one person or a bunch, i sure as hell hope they're sitting back and enjoying their hard work being examined at this level by so many.

When you were talking about the changes in the house, like the PlayStation to Xbox graphic, another change is the toaster in the kitchen has popped and their are now two pieces of toast being shown. It's weird.

the fact you actually gunned that dog down physically hurt me i'm not even joking

I watched PowerPak's video every other night or so for months as I went to sleep. ... I plan on doing the same for this. This video is unbelievable. Being able to go from the visceral/emotional side of this wad to the technical/coding side of its creation ... is fckuing FANTASTIC. I wish i could give you a million subs my friend. This is a fantastic effort.

I fall for that discord notification sound every time I play. Glad to know I'm not going crazy.

played this recently, absolutely loved it, very interesting to see the behind the scenes.

Good job! As always, your analyses are greatly appreciated.

What i loved about this WAD is that using some cheats, (they give some tips/lore) but mostly what i wanna talk about is the noclip cheat how you literally are clipped into the backrooms and how i was just awed about this casual trip into pure hell.

I cant thank you enough for making this. I so desperately wanted to understand this maps inner workings to appriciate it even nore and you have provided that, i wish you the best with your channel :)

The ambient music that starts playing later sounds so majestic.

The second I motivate myself to make doom maps, I’m scrutinising the hell out of this

I believe the whole pitch-black labyrinth is a reference to the horror book House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. The novel is super experimental, but does revolve around a house that defies all laws of physics, primarily in its containing an infinite labyrinth of pitch-black rooms. Some notable rooms within the “structure” include a hallway of repeating doors, a massive square room, and an infinite spiral staircase, all of which are represented here in the wad!!! Edit: holy shit I paused IMMEDIATELY before getting to the part where he explains this reference… whoops

This is exactly what I've been looking for, thanks for creating this great and detailed explanation to satisfy my burning curiosity! This is easy to understand even as someone who never did Doom mapping (or really playing Doom) myself, just watched decino's videos and general stuff about non-euclidian geometry :)

The "Brutalist house" is from The Backrooms. Very interesting stuff.

I gotta say it’s really relieving to see how much of this mod was a collaborative effort. I assumed the creator must have created the portal functionality and all the new monster sprites themselves. Knowing they were from existing projects was very relieving, haha

somehow, knowing all the tricks of this map just makes the whole thing even more insane just thinking about everything someone would have to keep track of while developing a map this complicated and intricate makes my head hurt

At around 6:10 of the video my computer had blue screened. What such incredible timing of that.

This was a really cool video! When playing this last month, there were so many times I would just stop and wonder how the map was doing what it was doing. I only know a little bit about map making, and don't know anything about UDMF features and scripting. Seeing you go through how everything works is incredibly interesting! Looking forward to the next episode!

The brutalist house is a reference to the popular liminal space picture of that UK hotel interior courtyard

Can't imagine how much work went into this series of videos, awesome stuff \m/

I loved your video on Repetition of Time, it's great to see another video in the same format!

I would absolutely kill for a John Romero/Carmack playthrough of this mod

Oooooh, yes, finally! A indepth look into how it was made, just what I was waiting for. Thank you!

I am really looking forward to the continued analysis of this fascinating doom mod

This map is basicallly Doomguy arrives at The Oldest House. Very impressive mechanically.

What a trip. Had to watch all 3 parts to learn more, because this thing was so fascinating. I love that you've gone through most of the guts of it and explained how it works. I think it's clever that he keeps track of the "firehouse key", so that he can trick the player into a sense of progression when they go through the burnt down house and continue on, without immediately punishing them. Just a lot of interesting game design tricks and ideas in this, can't help but wonder if this is the only project this person has worked on.

Oh look who's got recommended! Nice! Very "interesting" map to experience, and great explanation!

I just want to say this to the author of the map: Thank you! This is a work of art, specially considering the aesthetic use of.... well, everything. Please, continue to drop more maps like this

...I just realized that one of the items controlling Lock 15 (23:29) is internally called "Lookatthisphotograph".

House of Leaves holy moly, I never thought I would see this mentioned anywhere. Top notch dude.

This is a VERY, VERY interesting video that I've been eagerly waiting for. Thank you.

wow this stuff is amazing, and you explain everything so extremely clearly

Amazing work. I can wait for part 2!

I was always curious on how it works when I watched videos on it I'm actually going to go to my way to watch other two parts after this one just to see how all the tricks work and the unique enemies that are here also by the way nice profile pic

really informative and well edited!! loved watching this

I know this video is more about the technical aspects of actually making the map but I hope whoever made this understands that they made one of the greatest pieces of interactive horror. The entire thing, for lack of a better term, oozes soul and passion. You can't define it but you know it when you see it and this my friend has IT. I hope one day we see some other projects from this person/team because MyHouse was an absolute pleasure to experience.

I really appreciate the attention this mod got, but I finally came across a video about its machinations that is very well explained, the most interesting thing about this mod for me is just how it works, I think this is impressive.

What an absolute work of art. Imagine a full doom game full of wads like this. I still think the original doom holds up better than any of its future iterations.

Remember when I said there two versions of the house? Well there are actually 21

Even knowing HOW its done you still marvel at the amount of time, effort and creative energy that went into it.

Glad i went and played this before watching, lots of surprises! Now to see what I missed.

Nice breakdown, this map is incredible

so glad your video blew up more people need to watch your FIRE videos !!!

i tried to play this level for 30 minutes but gave up. maybe i'll try to finish it later. it was really cool to see someone playing this and even cooler to see this video!