MyHouse.wad

Veddge · March 3, 2023

MyHouse

Excited to finally release this tribute map. Last August I lost a good childhood friend of mine and took it pretty hard. When I was visiting my hometown for his funeral, I connected with his parents who shared with me some of his old belongings. Among them was a copy of an old map of his backed up on a 3.5” floppy from high school. Thomas and I were into amateur Doom mapping in the early 00s but I had never seen this map of his prior to uncovering it on one of the old floppy discs. As a way of paying tribute to him and all the great memories we had together, I took the plunge and installed Doom Builder in order to polish up his map and add a few modern amenities just for convenience sake.

I haven’t touched an editor in over 15 years so it was quite a surprise to find out how easy mapping has become. I may have gotten a little carried away with these new UDMF features and, as such, the map is designed for GZDoom. From the text file:

* Doom 2 - GZDoom, hardware renderer

* 1 map: Not much of a challenge and roughly 10 minutes of play time. All difficulty settings implemented.

* Jumping & crouching disabled, freelook is fine

* Lots of Doomcute!

Making maps of your house was all the rage back-in-the-day, but I feel like this is a pretty adorable and detailed tribute to my friend and a great way to share something of him with a community we loved. Miss you, Tom.

Download myhouse.wad

Screenshots:

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ChaseC7527 · March 3, 2023

looks like a banger, ill give it a shot.

ChaseC7527 · March 3, 2023

pretty good, i played on the true color renderer so mid textures were wack but that was the only issue.

Ludi · March 3, 2023

Ah, a classic level design theme. I really should do something like this eventually :p

Fishytza · March 3, 2023

I love the twist that happens half-way through, and the abstract section. Really awesome trip. Even after reaching the airport section I'm not sure I've seen everything, heh.

kevansevans · March 4, 2023

Glad to see this finally released, thanks for having me on board. I'm still in love with all the details.

Though, problem, (and sorry for posting this here, you don't seem to be online on Discord), I could have sworn this door was asking for a blue keycard, but I think you accidentally left this on blue skull. It's a mistake I've seen a few times when new mappers convert to UDMF, so I don't blame you.

SleepyVelvet · March 4, 2023

I don't do ZDoom, but I do love a MyHouse.wad. Thanks for posting.

esselfortium · March 5, 2023

Congrats on getting this thing out the door! Thanks for letting me take some small part in its creation.

Jimmy² · March 6, 2023

Got a bit stuck in this. Decided I'd try noclipping...

Worst mistake of my life.

Not Jabba · March 7, 2023

Holy shit.

On 3/4/2023 at 4:56 AM, FishyClockwork said:

Even after reaching the airport section I'm not sure I've seen everything, heh.

Me either. In fact, I'm sure I haven't. I'm gonna spoiler some thoughts here so people who've played it can start putting their heads together if they want. I'm sure it's going to take more than one person to crack all this. For those new to the thread, please don't read this until you've played the map through once. Or if you want to keep looking for mysteries yourself for the time being, probably don't look at this either.

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Ended the map with a route that went: regular house (several versions, and I think the route through them all is one-way) => ruined house 1 => abstract brutalist (two or three connected versions) => airport house => airplane => ruined house 2 => empty lot for sale/exit.

Got 81/117 kills, so there must be more realities with more monsters somewhere.

Didn't get the 1 secret. No idea where it is.

Got 1/3 items, which was the health bonus in the airport. Another item is a Megasphere that you can ledge jump for in the abstract brutalist reality with Evil Dog. However, once you get on this ledge, there seems to be no way off, so I had to reload and didn't get the item. The third one I guess would be the Soulsphere that you can see out of the window in Regular House, but I don't know how to get to it.

There's a panel in the abstract brutalist section that requires the blue keycard. This is the only one of the six keys I never found, so I have no idea what's there.

I found the section Jimmy was talking about, but I'm assuming it's an easter egg for noclippers and is meant as a dead end. I didn't look too hard for a way out, but I don't think there is one.

I checked to determine that you can kill Evil Dog by killing Good Dog, but then I reloaded my save because that's terrible and I didn't want to do it. As far as I could tell, it doesn't open up anything else in the brutalist sections. Evil Dog doesn't drop the missing blue keycard or anything like that.

MOST IMPORTANT:

If you try to use IDBEHOLD (most likely for an automap, but I actually did this because I couldn't see shit in the basement and just wanted to orient myself with a liteamp temporarily), you get a message. It says (paraphrased): "The living room painting holds a clue, if you can find all the artifacts."

My guess is that the artifacts are the objects you pick up throughout the realms (not the item count items). I found: soda can and milkshake (toward the end of the Regular House sections), three separate "memories" (ruined house 1), pumpkin and tuna can (abstract brutalist section; the tuna is hidden in a high vent), empty pill bottle and full pill bottle (restroom in airport). Possibly the T-shirt you pull out of the closet near the end of Regular House also counts, but I think that one's just a "switch" to progress.

The painting in the living room is the four-panel piece with the pink flowers on it. Thing is, by the time you collect any of these artifacts, you no longer have access to that painting. Assuming the soda can is the first one, you get it in a reality of Regular House where you can no longer get back upstairs (I think). The rest of them are in ruined house, brutalist, and airport, where there is no painting there at all. I couldn't figure out anything to do with the walls where the painting should be either (in Ruined House, the wall is ripped open and you just walk through from room to room). By the time you have all the artifacts I found, the only places you could possibly get the clue are airport and ruined house 2, unless there's a secret way to return somewhere else. (Do you have to use noclip? Oh god.)

Edited to add:

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Definitely will be returning to this at some point. There's got to be more going on.

Edited March 8, 2023 by Not Jabba

Not Jabba · March 8, 2023

Found some more stuff, including an area not reached in the previous playthrough. I still haven't made it to the "true ending," whatever it is, but I'm now certain there is one and I think I'm getting close.

This post is even more spoilery than the previous one. My suggestion is, don't read my previous post until you've played through once, and don't read this one until you've played through twice and found all you can.

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To start with, I'm going to refer to the first-time player's ending -- the one where you ride the airplane back to Ruined House and exit into the empty lot for sale -- as Ending 1.

Before you go anywhere, note that you can open a crate in the garage right at the start to get a chainsaw. You'll probably want this later.

The blue keycard can be found in the very first reality, the first version of Regular House. All three keys are keycards in this reality. Once you enter the second reality of Regular House, the three keys become skull keys. Therefore, to get all keys, you need to pick up the three keycards *before* you switch realities. The Soulsphere out the window is there to trick you into leaving early; as soon as you leave the house to get it and then come back in, you will switch to the second reality. So, to get the blue keycard, first get the yellow keycard, stay in the house, go downstairs, open the door, get the red keycard, stay in the house, go upstairs, open the attic door panel, and grab the blue keycard (no stairs to the attic in this first reality; it's just there in the closet). Then you can go outside and continue the map.

If you leave the house with the blue keycard, you can open the exit gate and simply exit the map. I'm going to call this Ending 0. Nothing special happens; you just go to Underhalls. Once you circle the house once, or possibly if you go back inside, you switch realities and the gate is now locked with the blue skull instead of the blue keycard, so you can no longer exit the map.

I don't believe it's possible to get the Soulsphere fairly, since it's clearly intended as a red herring to pull you outside. Once you see it through the window in Regular House 1, you can actually clip outside through the window and grab it. Then, when you go back into the house, you'll still be in the Regular House 1, and you'll see yet another Soulsphere outside the window -- it respawns. If you do this multiple times, it continues to respawn, and the item count goes up by one. So I don't think it's possible to get 100% items. That said, cheats seem to be an intended part of the experience of playing this map, so if you go outside and get the Soulsphere this way, I think that's probably "legit," and you can call it an unmarked secret. I didn't keep it, though; I reloaded my save.

While you're still in Regular House 2 (just to be safe, let's say before you enter the new rooms to get any of the "artifacts"), you can open a closet door in the far upstairs bedroom and it will open into a shadowy hallway that goes off into the distance. If you close the door and open it, the hallway will be gone and it's just a closet again. By leaving the room and coming back, I sometimes managed to make the hallway reappear and sometimes didn't. I don't know exactly what triggers it or if you can lose it forever.

Anyway, if you follow the hallway, you end up in a maze of similar hallways. It's all looped by portals, but sometimes you can find a new opening. Eventually, I ended up in some larger rooms, still dark and empty. I followed this maze around as long as I could, and never found anything; I'm not sure if I missed something or if it's just a horror-themed easter egg. At some point, I found a lighter patch of wall; after finding nothing else, I clipped through it and it took me back to the starting door, where I returned to Regular House 2. Maybe you can get farther than I did -- good luck!

In any case, you're now in Regular House 2 and you have all six keys. This is where you start finding the "artifacts." You get the soda can in the room with the fireplace first. This is a new room that appears in this reality after you have the blue skull.

At this point, I noticed a piece of art in the living room I hadn't seen before, opposite the pink painting with the flowers and off to one side. At this point, when I had the soda can, it looked like this:

Then, I went into the next new room that appeared, the chic basement living room in black/white/red. Here, I got the milkshake. Now, when I went back upstairs, I saw that the new art piece had changed:

This is confirmation of what I suspected: The art is tracking how many artifacts you have. This means there are eight total that you have to find. Unfortunately, it's not that straightforward. In my first playthrough, I got nine: soda can, milkshake, tarnished history, ruined memories, innocence lost, a pumpkin named "Pumpkin Rick," a tuna can, an empty pill bottle, and a full pill bottle. You have to successfully complete the airport bathroom sequence for the full pill bottle, and I got the tuna can in the vent in the brutalist section. The rest you should be able to find pretty naturally without a lot of hunting around; just make sure to thoroughly search each reality you come to. There's actually a tenth one in the brutalist section that I found in the second playthrough (see below).

Since we're still here in Regular House 2, let's go over the clues we already have from the cheat codes. They are as follows:

IDBEHOLD*: "The living room painting hides a clue...if you find all the artifacts."

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."

IDCHOPPERS: "Leave the entrance to the bathroom unsullied for a big fucking reward."

We're already on the trail of the artifacts, so let's leave that aside for now. Up in the attic where you got the blue key, there's a mirror covered by a cloth. Use it to pull the cloth aside, and you'll see in the mirror that there's a blue Christmas ornament in the mirror where the blue skull was. I don't think you can do anything with this? I wonder if it could be yet another artifact (it would be the eleventh one known to me). But you can't use or break the mirror, or noclip through it. I found no way to pick up the ornament.

In the room where the soda can was, there's a fireplace. The Ruined House seems to have been destroyed by a fire. The IDDQD off clue seems to suggest that you want to prevent the fire to save the house, so I tried putting out the one in the fireplace. However, I found no way to do this in Regular House 2, so I moved on.

Finally, you can go to the new closet near where the front door used to be, and you can press Use to take the shirt. In my first playthrough, where I was disoriented and flustered, I thought this was a "switch" that opened the room with the soda can. However, it's actually a Green Armor!

This is the part where we find the electrical panel in the basement behind the slightly ajar bookshelf, which takes us to Ruined House 1. Maybe that's what caused the house fire? Anyway, the main thing here, as you should already know, is to find the three artifacts upstairs, and then use the basement exit to get to the brutalist realms. The one other interesting thing I found here is that you can clip outside the house and use the exit gate (since you have the blue skull), but this time it doesn't actually exit the map. Instead, it takes you to the dreaded Noclip Place, domain of the Narrow Fellow. This time, it took a while before the Narrow Fellow appeared, and I did quite a bit of exploring, but I still didn't find any kind of way out. (Not this time. See below.) One thing I did find is a strange computer sitting on the floor in one of the many cubicles. It's the only object in the whole place. Using it didn't seem to do anything, though.

So, now we're in the brutalist sections...but we have the blue keycard this time. The locked vent opens a small closet with a plasma rifle and a decent cache of ammo and health (but doesn't seem to offer any deeper answers than that). I also found an additional (tenth) artifact this time. If you look off the ledge at the start of the brutalist area, toward the exit sign, and then look right, you'll see a small ledge below you. Head through the doorway toward the living room, take the first left (before the stairs), and you can drop down onto the ledge from the opening here. Follow this path to a small room with some door panels to open. One of those panels leads to another small room with another panel you can open. Inside is a doghouse with a food bowl and some dog food. The dog food is the artifact.

I still didn't figure out how to get and keep the Megasphere here. Not sure if there is a way or not.

By the end of the brutalist section, you should have eight of the known artifacts, with two more to go in the airport bathroom. I also am mindful of the hint about leaving the bathroom entrance "unsullied." There are many bathrooms in the map, but I kind of assume that the one the hint is referring to is the airport bathroom with the two pill bottles, the bloody mess, and the red Demons. The wording is ambiguous. Do you have to pick up the first pill bottle, but avoid the portal sequence that bloodies the walls and not get the second pill bottle? Or does it just mean that after you clear out the Demons and leave the bathroom, the blood is now gone, the entrance is unsullied, and the "reward" is the second pill bottle? I have no clue. I tried it both ways, and both still led to Ending 1.

At this point, I decided to see what happens if you avoid the airplane. I had all ten known artifacts. I know I'm supposed to find the painting in the living room somehow, now that I have them. So I tried noclipping through the gate for the airplane (which is in the same location as the living room painting), and entered the Noclip Place. I ran around a bunch here again -- the Narrow Fellow is actually fairly easy to avoid due to being so slow. But I found something new! After a sequence of turns I couldn't possibly remember, let alone describe, I found a poster of a kitten with the message "Hang in there, baby!" written on it. I ran around some more and eventually found a metal door marked "exit."

This door leads to an endlessly looping staircase. If you loop around this staircase different numbers of times, you can use the metal door again and get different results. From what I could tell, two do nothing, one leads to the same staircase loop you're already in, one leads to an empty room with a bright cloudy sky for walls, and one leads to a FIREBLU passageway that takes you back to Ruined House 1. Beyond that, it seems to repeat.

The sky room doesn't seem to go anywhere right now. If I take the passage to Ruined House 1, then it's the same as I left it. I couldn't find anything new. I can still go from there to the brutalist section and repeat the whole second half of the map if needed, which would let me find artifacts I missed if there were any.

I think I've done something wrong, still. I feel like if I had all the right artifacts, the sky room should have its own passage back to Regular House, and that would take me to the living room painting. I'm stuck here, and don't know what to do to finish the map. But there's definitely something in this staircase.

I tried getting neither of the pill bottles (so I have eight artifacts total and the bathroom entrance is unsullied) and then entering the Noclip Place. Doing this, I haven't been able to find that metal exit door at all, but I don't know if that's because i'm not holding the artifacts or because I just don't know where to go. I think one of two things is true: either you need to find the staircase with the "right" eight artifacts, or ten is the correct number that unlocks the staircase, but there's something about the staircase I just haven't figured out yet.

Hopefully someone else can find the missing pieces.

Edited March 8, 2023 by Not Jabba

Jaws In Space · March 9, 2023

I played this on Sunday & I've got to say this is fantastic map. At first it seems like a typical My House WAD with a lot of Doom cute details, but it evolves into something so much more amazing. It's one of the most emotional & haunting maps I've ever played. I just had a feeling of melancholy as I progressed through the map interspaced with moments of true terror as the horror elements ramped up. The music here is great, from the slightly edited version of d_runnin that gives off the first hints that something is amiss to the fully ambient track of the brutalist sections of the map. My only gripe is that the progression was a little bit confusing at times, jumping into the bathtub was the biggest roadblock for me. Overall though I got to say that this is a must play wad & it will certainly be in my top 10 list at the end of 2023.

ZeMystic · March 9, 2023

Played through this a few times! fucking fantastic detail and atmosphere.

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Not Jabba · March 9, 2023

On 3/9/2023 at 10:51 AM, ZeMystic said:

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Also continuing from where @Not Jabba left off, I found a bit more details but not anything too groundbreaking. In the .pk3, the player height is changed. This is noticeable when you beat the first level and go into Underhalls, everything feels extremely small. Also, Doom Launcher lists this .pk3 as having 33 total maps. I haven't noticed anything changed with Underhalls besides the map feeling small.

Also upon the completion of Underhalls, you go back to MAP01. I haven't had a moment to test, but maybe you could collect all the artifacts in your first run through, and then have them on your second?

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I've also got a small update to what I posted above:

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Edited March 9, 2023 by Not Jabba

Not Jabba · March 9, 2023

(sorry, accidental post, was trying to edit the post above)

Jaws In Space · March 9, 2023

On 3/9/2023 at 11:08 AM, Not Jabba said:

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I figured out how to reliably get to the endless staircase in the Noclip Place.

First, look for the big wood-trimmed room.

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Not Jabba · March 9, 2023

On 3/9/2023 at 11:44 AM, Jaws In Space said:

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Just to check, but are you aware that you can reach the endless staircase by walking off the building in the brutalist area?

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Jaws In Space · March 9, 2023

On 3/9/2023 at 11:46 AM, Not Jabba said:

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Does it have to be in a specific place? Every time I tried walking off of the brutalist building into the dark abyss, everything would go pitch black and silent, and I wouldn't be able to go anywhere.

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Speedy Eggbert · March 9, 2023

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Scuba Steve · March 9, 2023

What the fuck did I just play?

Not Jabba · March 9, 2023

On 3/9/2023 at 11:56 AM, Jaws In Space said:

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That's strange, it seemed to happen anywhere for me. I think I only tried it after picking up the Pumpkin, I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it though.

I'll be damned. I guess I just never thought to

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So a couple minor addendums based on this:

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Edited March 9, 2023 by Not Jabba

Speedy Eggbert · March 9, 2023

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Edit:

I'll just edit this post instead of making new one but

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Edited March 9, 2023 by Speedy Eggbert

ZeMystic · March 9, 2023

On 3/9/2023 at 11:56 AM, Speedy Eggbert said:

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I found how to get the ornament,

Walk into the mirror on the main floor bathroom with the toilet

Then just walk to the up to the attic in the mirror world and you should be able to grab it.

There appears to be a lot more stuff in the mirror world too

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Catpho · March 9, 2023

Imagine playing this thinking you are just helping a fella out by playing through their house.

Perhaps it is destiny that on Doom's 30th anniversary, a myhouse.wad will be considered for the Cacowards.

Speedy Eggbert · March 9, 2023

On 3/9/2023 at 1:59 PM, ZeMystic said:

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You weren't kidding about more stuff. If you go through the exit in the mirror world you go to a mirrored version of Underhalls. I played through but haven't yet found anything important. Exiting this takes you back to the mirror world. I replayed through the house again starting from the mirror world and grabbed the christmas ornament and the baby bottle from the attic. I then found a bunch of balls leading down to a closet. Opening this closet takes you to a slide in some playhouse version of the house. I progressed through and a door spawned behind me which leads to an outdoor area with another artifact called snugs and shrek (yes, actually.) attacking you. Trying to open the door back says you need a key, despite me having all three skull keys. Don't know where this key is but I'll update in a new edit when I do.

EDIT: Also I think some of the music is edited to have discord notifications in them.

DOUBLE EDIT: Also the shrek doesn't take any damage as far as I'm aware.

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Edited March 9, 2023 by Speedy Eggbert

Not Jabba · March 9, 2023

Good lord. And here I thought I'd been kind of thorough.

ZeMystic · March 9, 2023

Again, absolutely fantastic detail and atmosphere. I can't keep not saying that.

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Not Jabba · March 9, 2023

On 3/9/2023 at 2:21 PM, ZeMystic said:

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Use every sink in the level. Grab the ducky. Ducky doesn't count as an artifact for the house?????

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ZeMystic · March 9, 2023

On 3/9/2023 at 2:24 PM, Not Jabba said:

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Based on Speedy Eggbert's images, it looks like Ducky is a required artifact for the Mirror World, not the Regular House. As far as I can see from those images, it looks like there are 16 artifacts total? Or have y'all already found more than that?

When you say every sink in the level, is that every sink in Regular House 2 (the reality with the skull keys)? Or every sink in both versions of Regular House? Or every sink in both versions of Regular house plus other worlds?

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Speedy Eggbert · March 9, 2023

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Update:

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Edited March 9, 2023 by Speedy Eggbert

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