It's like you're greeted by the house, and then you're greeted by the same house wearing a fake moustache, comically large glasses, a wig...

"Don't copy this game anywhere, it'll cause obsession and insomnia" Me, watching my 5th ~hour long video about MyHouse.wad at 5am: huh, I wonder who that sign is for

26:08 "The only thing worse than a creepy Shrek painting, is not knowing where the creepy Shrek painting is."

The chalkboard in the daycare is inspired by a real life chalkboard that was found in a school in Oklahoma. The interesting thing about that chalkboard is that it’s supposedly more than an 100 years old. It depicts nearly identical drawings as the one found in the daycare. Whether it has any significant meaning or it’s merely just used as a stock texture, there’s no telling.

The blood trail from the baseball in the daycare goes into the bathroom in that room first, where the mirror is shattered and there's a crack in the wall. Interacting with that crack is what lets you get the Berserker pack in the hallway closet. My interpretation of that is probably darker than what's intended but it seems like the person who got hit by the baseball (most likely in the head since there's blood) went berserk at the daycare...

I think the idea of Steven and Thomas being the same person has some weight behind it. Duality and reflections are a huge part of the map's whole theme, so it fits in nicely.

I don't know what effect it has on the ending, if any, but... if you die and just wait... you eventually wake up in hospital, with another small mini puzzle, which concludes with you waking up back in the bed in the house. There's also more liminal space in one of the bedrooms when you open a closet and there's a long straight hallway that takes you into more weird maze-like rooms. And as others have mentioned, if you try noclip and go out of bounds at any point in the wad you will end up in the actual backrooms. 😂 What an amazing wad to be packed with so much!

Worth noting that, in addition to the pool rooms, the liminal space theme is present in the brutalist house and the airport as well. In fact, most of the house variations take inspiration from iconic liminal space imagery. The brutalist house is based on the liminal space image from the inside of a hotel featuring concrete paths with green carpet or turf, surrounded by windows presumably into other hotel rooms. The airport is a common setting for liminal space scenes, the carpeting and seat cushion texture is reminiscent of that spacey carpet you might see at a SkateZone in the 2000s or in other children's play places. Speaking of children's places, the daycare house also features the notable "city carpet" that was common in a lot of children's rooms twenty years ago. Daycares and schools after hours are common settings of liminal space imagery as well. The mapper really knew their shit. Glad to see people breaking this thing down, just wanted to throw some appreciation to some of what most definitely inspired this map's design. Probably missed a few other details myself, but this project is just chalk full of detail in the first place.

my interpretation of the contradicting timeline that theres actually two distinct timelines: one where steven marries thomas and has a fulfilling life him before some disaster at the house kills them both, represented by the true beach and mirror steven being able to accept impermanence, and another timeline where steven represses himself , moves away from thomas, and survives whatever killed thomas, represented by the fake beach where steven is extremely isolated in his meaninglessly long life

I like the observation that the true beach ending avoids “confronting” the house fire! That ties into the story and the thoughts in the journal really well. I stopped short of calling the gravestone “the last ending” in my own video because the player can retreat from it, unlike the other places that we call ending - but I was tempted, as this does seem to be a very significant thing to find. The beach that we’ve been calling the true ending might signify happiness but not reality! I loved watching and listening to your thoughts :) Your breathy deep voice is great for narration (you sound like you could be in a Metal Gear Solid game!) and the low-cut filter you use for reading game text is an effective touch to make the voice have a different presence - I don’t think I’ve heard that done anywhere else before.

I had never heard about "The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet" before this video and it prompted me to look it up. The first result from Wikipedia mentions that this song "was recorded from a Norddeutscher Rundfunk broadcast at an unknown date, widely speculated to be 1983 or 1984." Considering the 1984 date on the calendar in the daycare, this seems like an interesting additional coincidence. Whether or not it could be significant is a mad hope from me. Great video and thanks for the incredibly interesting coverage of My House.

I absolutely love your little talky box avatar It’s adorable

Dear god, this is such an incredibly well-made video, like something you'd see from a KZfaqr with ~100k subs. Kept me captivated the entire time, and I already finished the game 100%. Simply incredible. I love how you narrated the item pickups while presumably keeping a straight face, even though they said things like "Good doggies are good doggies" or "Kitties like tunas".

My interpretation remains that the two beach endings represent two paths Steven/Vedge can proceed down now that the map has escaped into the wild, either step away from it and move on with his life, start over, maybe reconnect, or let this obsession consume him. And I also think the QR code is his survivor guilt, guilt at not being there for Tom, and so on. The copypasted details in both obits leads me to suspect such a thing.

My personal take on the ending is that Steven's obituary is to be taken metaphorically. He didn't literally die on the same day as Thomas, but losing his lover in a fire caused part of himself to die as well. Perhaps causing a level of Survivor's Guilt as well, which only exacerbated his conflicted feelings while 'making' the map. I feel like that's the reasoning that makes the most sense. (Well, that and the 'they're parts of the same person' theory, but I dunno how much I gel with that one) I really don't think the creator would pull a "THE AUTHOR WAS DEAD THE WHOLE TIME, AND *YOU* BECAME SKELETON AND WROTE THIS" move, with how amazing the rest of the story is. Or perhaps the ambiguity to the story is deliberate, one of those "come to your own conclusion" type stories. who know,,,,

I think the reason for S + A being so weird to use someone's last name instead of their name may be because if Thomas is Steve's reflection then it would make sense theme wise that his reflection would have their last name first.

In regards to the daycare dream, Steven mentions in his journals that he found a stillborn baby. On top of this, there’s a painting of a rainbow in the map for the daycare dream. My interpretation of this is a bit shoddy, but I think that could be hinting to the fact that his parents had a stillborn before him, making him a rainbow baby.

Whatever you did to brighten up all of the darker scenes really helped! Well done on all the editing on this one; it really helped make sense of this crazy experience.

This is easily one of my favorite mods to ever exist. Not to knock most Doom wads, it's just the engine IS incredibly dated and most transformative mods such as Total Chaos are more novel than impressive from a gameplay perspective. They do crazy things that are indeed impressive, but are ultimately trying to distract from the fact that this is all taking place in the Doom engine. My House, however, is like a bait and hook. You go in expecting a mundane experience and come out WITH an experience. It's not really trying to be difficult and most challenges are pretty standard (outside of the Gas Station ending), but it completely sucks you in with the story it is trying to tell and yet never gives you any concise or clear answers as to what is going on; it gives you enough pieces to the puzzle to see what the picture is for the most part, but you are never outright handed the full picture. It allows you to stew and think about it and that is what I love about it. The technical tricks and storytelling is simply superb. As for interpretations, I mentioned this in your first playthrough, but I believe the story is all about "Change". As in: Time and circumstance changes the meaning of not just people and things, but places. Through the lens of a child, a dog can be big and scary but through the lens of an adult it can simply be a cute dog. In a hurricane, a building can go from a place of sanctuary to a prison. In the case of this mod, so many things he was familiar with as a kid become warped and twisted through the passage of time in gradual, subtle ways, until a point: Your friend dies, and that house you spent your childhood going to and hanging out at stops being this cozy, comfortable place. It is devoid of the person that made it feel whole, and all that is left now are memories and a building of something that used to be. Looking at the game through this lens can explain a lot of the visual symbolism from the minor changes you notice in the beginning to the reason behind the fiery dream to the end where the house is no longer on fire or inhabited by monsters, but simply an empty abandoned shell of something that used to be and is now home to no one. There is nothing left to find or do, so you walk out the front door and poof, it's gone. Like revisiting a friend's old house or a store you used to go to what used to be there is long since bulldozed and gone and is now up for sale, potentially to a new family that may or may not experience that same sequence of events in their own time. I, of course, am rambling and outting way too much thought into this, but that's my point. This wad gains purpose outside of the actual game you play and keeps you thinking about it long after you've turned your computer off. This, to me, is the hallmark of any legendary game; Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy X, Shadow of Colossus, etc, you get the picture. This wad brought me back to a time when games were simply meant to get under your skin and encourage thought, not just be consumed and discarded like candy.

The fact that something this deep and intense was just dropped on the Doom forums with zero hype is just mind blowing. Amazing rundown of it. Thank you, I barely found a quarter of all this from my own blind playing.

The idea of Steven and Thomas being created as a result of mental trauma and then 'dying' when the character 'healed' is very reminiscent of Zac and Francis York Morgan from Deadly Premonition. A solid explaination.

An interesting detail is the way the word house appears in blue in Steve's journal, a formatting choice that was also done in House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski

It kinda seems like as you progress further and more and more monsters start appearing, it could be symbolism for an increasingly horrible home life, with either delusions getting worse, or the parents/caretakers becoming more and more abusive.

Just realized he had his dog in that afterlife instead of his cat is because since it was his childhood dog it probably would've died by the time he reached adult hood.

If it wasn't mentioned already, I really like that you referenced "This House Has People In It" in the thumbnail.

This is such a great piece of surrealism and eeriness. The atmosphere is fantastic and the strangeness of the endings and story bring even more to ponder about than just the fantastic mapping tricks. Glad this map could introduce me to your channel since your first video on it!

Amazing video, very in-depth. Also gotta love how you got jumpscared by the Shrek lmfao This and David's ongoing trilogy showing how the map works mechanically are really satisfying to see. There was so much effort put into the mod it's utterly insane.

Regarding 31:17, the 20 sides dice is already there, only being guarded by the fish. You can actually evade the fish and get the dice.

Love when the analog genre of horror adds an interactive element. I know a lot of people think the fad played out but I’m here for it, it scratches that creep itch on me.

Somethings you didn’t cover: in the brutalist house, you can see a monster peaking at you behind a curtain. In the mirror world if you use the blue skull key, you’ll go to a reversed version of underhalls. In the pool room and sky platforms, falling down will take you to dark void with an infinite stair cases. If you noclip out of bounds you will be taken to the backrooms.

The impossible geometry - I remember my first encounter with it. While playing with Duke3D build. The manual said you can't do room-over-room. I tried to do it anyway: One floor above the other, with a stairwell connecting them. I then realized that making the stairs actually go up (or down) is optional. Even if the stairs are very shallow, you'll still "go up an entire floor". I then realized that the engine doesn't care if rooms intersect and happen to occupy the same 3D space. The engine only cares about how rooms connect to other rooms

I saw another video explaining the theory about the queer lover and I didn't even consider the trans man possibility, but it makes so more sense and it makes their story all the more tragic to end like that after everything they went through together.

Guys will make an elaborate Doom mod about their dead boyfriend only to say “no homo”

Sometimes this is really creepy and sometimes you're fighting shrek and picking up a pumpkin called "pumpkin rick"

I WISH. ABSOLUTELY WISH, stuff like this was something I could pay for and personally thank the creator for making.

i like the second theory that they are the same person. the game is all about overcoming trauma and moving on, thinking about the author warning players not to paly the game, it truly gives me the feeling of him not wanting to face his trauma even offering a secret ending to avoid the memory of the house fire if thats not trauma idk what is, but if you face the truth and face the house fire the game reveals the truth, the same truth the author was running away from.... this game reminds me of that feeling when youre in a dream and you can go through one part of your house and end up in completely different areas and just like in dreams areas from reality are mixed with fiction. i can think of many more hints to them being the same person like how in the journal areas of steven's house are in the map that is based on thomas' house, but this is like Occam's razor, "the simplest explanation is preferable to one that is more complex" basically the theory that has less contradiction/less assumptions that need to be made in order for the theory to make sense is the preferable one.

my personal interpretation is that, and hear me out for this: thomas and steven are the same person, but in different realities entirely. think about it: the mirror world. the mention of the version of veddge sitting on the beach in the mirror world, living happily. theyre one and the same, albeit from the "normal" and "mirror" worlds. the mirror world is the literal mirror of how things are, even down to sad lives becoming happy. the regular world is the regular world. this probably doesnt make too much sense but, ngl, its what personally makes sense to me. i truly love this wad. it found me in a very bad mental state, and, while i am still working through it, oddly enough, its really helped. from the gameplay, exploration, even the soundscapes, it all works together to just... speak to me on a level no other doom wad, or really any other game in general, ever has. tldr: thank you for these videos on it. genuinely so happy to have more eyes on this UPDATE: i have come to a new conclusion. my new take? you're playing as veddge. it's very subtly hinted at, but it's there. the map has the central theme of "you must fight for your own happiness" (such as the literal fighting as well as the actual puzzle solving and exploration) the journal has mentions and descriptions of multiple nightmares, *all of which are represented in the map itself.* the best ending has you sitting on a beach at sunset, seemingly calm and content. you're playing as veddge, fighting through his grief, mental turmoil, and literal nightmares, all to pursue true happiness.

Excellent breakdown of the WAD! I didn't even know about the final ending until you revealed it in this video, and really liked your "walkthrough" style, along with the narrated item pickups. As far as theorizing goes, I can throw my own one out. It's in the same vein as the multiple personalities theory, but maybe "Steven" and "Thomas" are merely "what-if" scenarios that Veddge created, trying to see the outcome of going to different paths in life. Maybe the good beach ending is reconciliation with the two different routes, leading to self-understanding. I doubt it's the case, but I suppose there's many ways to interpret this WAD.

Forgive the reposting I'm commiting here, but earlier I commented some of these thoughts the initial unfiction video, but perhaps here where the full deep dive occurs they may be more fitting. There's some oddities with the IRL evidence in the photos of Veddge's Google Docs that do bring some more thoughts towards what was real and what wasn't. -With the photo album images, two of the four photos though some of them beg questions about the reality of the actual house the map is based on. The photo of the alcove of doors on the upper floor ( 10:06 ) seems to include the second alcove that appears later in the map... the one that logically shouldn't exist, and leads to the other impossible rooms. Then the photo of Scrambles on the bed ( 10:22 ) seems to depict the bedroom closet oddly.. either there's a trick with the light, or the closest is remarkably gray, and vaguely looks like a hallway that may go fairly deep (five and a half minutes deep, you could say). Without giving much away since the video chose to gloss over this, something in the map occurs at this very door. This and the first photo begs the question if something similar occurred in an actual house here, and could've contributed to what truly affected Tom, or whoever he really was. -There's something anomalous about the obituary photos besides the obvious example. For people looking up the original images as opposed to the cropped ones in the video, note the obituaries around Tom and Steve's entries. Visible in Tom's photo, the woman in the top left seems to have an August 2022 death date as well, but the woman below him, Catherine Philbaum, is described as dying January 12, 2023...5 months after Tom. This isn't very normal for obituaries to have such far-off death dates so close together, especially since Tom's obituary mentions his memorial service in future-tense, as usually meant to let people know to come to them. And there's another case in Steve's photo; below him (which also mentions his service in future tense) is the obituary for one Norman Edward Penske, listed as dying February 18, 2023. What logic is there in a newspaper posting obituaries with such distant death dates while still trying to inform people of imminent funerals? Where did this come from, and how have we come to see it? I suppose it's also worth noting, given the map's habit in giving us contradictions on what is real, of a notable parallel with the work it shouts out many times to, House of Leaves. At the core of the book is the story of a house with the ability to morph and change, become bigger on the inside and create strange, very very dark grey corridors and labyrinths, with the hint of something monstrous inside. This story is presented as the account of a documentary called "The Navidson Record", analyzed in a long essay found by the book's protagonist Johnny Truant, who is puzzled by the essay's detailed presentation as the film it describes, as far as he knows, doesn't exist, and its academic citations don't match up with actual sources. Over the course of the book, Johnny goes through a similar experience as Veddge in becoming paranoid, insomniac and hallucinating as the essay's contents trouble him, and his life falls apart and seems to disappear after the narrative has concluded to an uncertain fate. But one more detail exists in the book's appendix, where letters from Johnny's mother, a mentally disturbed woman committed to an institution, dwells on her past and present, and regrets in raising Johnny. One of them goes as far as dwelling on a baby who died in hospital, which brings to mind the possibility that Johnny himself never grew up to at all, a similar paradox to what Steve's obituary suggests. This may be all part of the homage MyHouse.wad pays to House of Leaves, for better or worse ending on mind screwiness where the narrative is contradictory and labyrinthian, and the truth of what may've happened for sure cannot be known.

I didn't know all the other areas were just different versions of the same house! Thank you for pointing that out. When I played it, the thing that freaked me out the most was the change to the doors, but I stopped at the bathhouse because the reflections slowed down my game immensely. Great video!

ugh i HATE IT when my house floods and the basement turns into the poolrooms

18:55 That jumpscare was way scarier than it had any right to be. Goddamn it was good.

I'm glad you mentioned House Of Leaves because that explains the dark maze that has like a 9% chance of spawning whenever you open the closet door of the smaller upstairs bedroom (I think you need the blue skull key too.) I never found the endless staircase inside the maze, but I read the description somewhere and it seems those details were taken straight from descriptions of the maze in House Of Leaves.

just wanted to say that personally your second theory is very compelling - all of them were, but that one in particular for me. given the current social/political climate (esp as an american) it warms my heart whenever the subject of transition is discussed with such nuance and care. it’s also validating in the sense that it immediately crossed my mind when the restroom signs swapped, but i pretty quickly wrote off my gut feeling as just looking for subtext that isn’t there - it’s awesome to see someone else not only got the same vibes, but actually followed that thread and expanded on it. sorry this is a bit rambling, just didn’t see many comments regarding this specific element of the video and wouldn’t want it to go unappreciated :)

I would like to point out that a subtle clue in one of the retrieval missions lends itself to the Tom x Steven gay lover through line (if you subscribe to that theory) being that in the floating sky bridge section, you collect a wedding ring. However, instead of collecting a normal engagement ring, one with a diamond imbed, the kind most commonly worn and associated with brides, the player actually collects a wedding BAND, one worn by and associated with grooms.

The fake beach made me immediately think of superliminal and also me made me realize that this is basically just if superliminal was a doom horror wad

Great work! I think the unreliable narrator aspect is still very important here - as you mentioned in your first video of this map's walkthrough, it doesnt seem like its 90's house, and daycare artifacts and Childhood Nightmare all point to them being fragments of memories from the middle 2000's at least. This may be the case of different memories bleeding into each other, or, you know... we don't see the daycare from a kindergardners's perspective. Maybe Steven had a sibling or even a child? The last one is a stretch, since being 35 in 2022 would make him a teen for the most part of 2000's. Also that whole "mid 2000's" timeline would match up neatly with the last posts Veddge made on their profile on Doom forums...

Steven/Thomas died in the fire. The game is over when you trigger the burnt out house, you just don't realize it yet. You can't find happiness after you're dead. Happiness is for the living, and only found in brief spontaneous fleeting moments surrounded by hardship, confusion, and chaos. You can try to recapture it through memory (symbolized by the false ending in the mirror world), but in the ending you're just dwelling on an empty shell of a moment long gone.

The Navidson maze is located in the closet. The most hellish and terrifying part of the map is…in the closet. Make of that what you will

I saw Shrek coming the moment the drawing vanished, and it still caught me off-guard.

Excellent. Was interested to see your breakdown after those hours in the house.

The level of environmental storytelling and puzzle-solving borders on masterful here. The synergy of real items matching real memories and mirror world items matching nightmares is incredibly inspired. Any game designer could learn a lot from this. An old, formerly cutting edge game engine married to a great imagination produces more interesting results than a lot of triple AAA Studios with a whole paid team can manage.

I could totally be wrong here but i believe the Fire House is the "last ending" The false beach being the middle. And the true beach being the first. Sounds backwards, but I truly believe that Steven believed that he could fight for his dream where he is together with the one he loves. And living a calm life with them. He tells himself he needs only to fight for it, but he never really tries. Thus we get the false beach, where he pretends he is living in this dream world where everything went right, but just behind the curtain there is nothing to his life. Finally the house fire, I believe that purposely he shorted a circut in his basement knowing basic electronics with intention of starting an electrical fire. Taking his own life and Tom's aswell. Afterwards the house is torn down and sold. The Spirit of Steve unable to rest for what hes done works and releases this game, as well as the documentation for it.

I’ve seen many horror projects throughout the years, but this one struck a chord with me. In fact, the ending nearly brought a tear to my eye. Despite knowing how the story truly ends, its still incredibly unsettling and the ending bittersweet, with an air of mystery still surrounding it. Stories with these kinds of endings keep you up at night and remain in the back of your mind for a a very long time. On the side note, absolutely phenomenal video man, you deserve much more attention.

I have several things to say about this video One: this is AMAZING, you managed to keep my ADHD ass firmly planted in my seat and enthusiastically watching this whole thing Two: the Shell gas station gave me some memories, I remember seeing them all over the place in my hometown when I was little Three: the blue fog in the mirrored version of the gas station part really reminds me of the Blue Forest from SCP: Containment Breach and I love it Four: I forgot what I was gonna say, and it’s really bugging me, I’ll edit this with what I was gonna say if I remember this

This is a really entertaining breakdown of the best map we've seen in years, even if it is definitely missing some important beats including everything related to the hospital trip: You somehow managed to dodge that whole sequence in your playthrough via safe play and regular reloads, but it plays an important role in the narrative.

been obsessed with this map for days. can't stop thinking about it

Amazing analysis and such a well put together video! This is the first I'm hearing of the trans* reading and while I agree that it makes a couple of leaps the switch with the bathrooms always stuck with me and I think that alone puts some real weight behind it. Fear around returning to familiar childhood places, having to move away from family and only being welcomed back after a period of time, a traumatic experience in a bathroom with a lot of blood and pain... there's a lot of resonance in it that I haven't seen anyone else cover yet

"This house has demons in it" That's not much of a surprise for a Doom mod.

It’s amazing how the map is so dense that I can watch multiple videos covering it and there will be entirely new details pointed out

I want to mention something I've noticed that seemed too deliberate and may imply even more going on; in the mirror world gas station, where the car used to be, crashed into the tree, there's a flashlight. We know the car belonged to Steven, as not only is the car crash dream most obvious, but you can see the car in not only the car park for the airport, but is also outside the airport terminal, and the day care. We see Steven's car parked by the gas station in the mirror world, the damage from the car crash not being evident on this car, so it never crashed in that, so Steven never was in the forest in that mirror world to hobble his way to the station. So who does the flashlight belong to? Another thing of note is that we have grisly scenes with blood splattered everywhere (the airport bathroom, the airport shop on the tshirts, and the mirrored gas station), but we never see chalk outlines. It's especially odd considering the police tape on the station, too. However, there are two chalk outlines present in the map, and they both seem to relate to how Tom and Steve died, as Tom died in his house but it never says where Steve did. 1. In the House, there's a secret entrance to the brutalist home that can be found in the basement after the house doors disappear. If you interact with the washing machine, one of the water heaters descends, leading to a secret hole that leads you to brutalist home. The hole happens to be outlined in chalk. 2. Shorter, but there's a chainsaw in the cardboard box in the garage that you can open. The chainsaw has a chance every time the map loads to not spawn, and there's an outline of the chainsaw made in chalk. One thing that I found particularly eerie in the garage, is that there's a hole in the ceiling that looks like someone moved the tile to climb down from, or into. One last thing regarding the chainsaw is for whatever reason, in the fake beach ending, on random chance when you interact with the movie clip board, the chainsaw draw noise will play as the screen cuts to black, implying that we now know what happened to Steve, likely at the gas station. The last thing I want to draw HEAVY attention to is how strange it is that the obituary pictures for Steve and Tom are flipped grayscale images from the picture frame photo of them standing next to one another. I want to note particularly that Tom is the strangest part because in the flipped obituary photograph, he has his blue collared shirt, but in the actual framed photo he has a dark blue sweater over the collared shirt. This is incredibly strange, as it almost looks like Tom's picture was placed over someone else. I forgot to point out one last thing, but I love that you mentioned it's line the house is stalking us, as it's the feeling I've had the whole time I was playing the map myself; I want to point out that I have a feeling that none of the endings are good. If you leave the house outside the gate with the exit that warps you to Underhalls, if you finish Underhalls you loop back into MyHouse. It's the same with the mirrored Underhalls in the mirror world, that loops you back into the mirrored MyHouse. Something I considered after is how neither tree ending loads you into a new level, even though you can't use noclip to leave the space when you step in. This may just be me feeling this way but wouldn't that mean that even in the good ending, you never leave the house? One last thing haunting me since is that if Tom and Steve both are dead 1 month before the map is first posted about, then who is posing as Steve? Whose house is this? (P.S. There's a full blown House of Leaves hallway, with Grand Hall and all, recreation that has a chance to appear in the closet in the room right by the bathroom where you enter the mirror, it has I think a 9% chance to appear every time you open the door. Makes it feel like the house is actually cursed.)

I don’t think the connection between the daycare’s calendar and George Orwell’s 1984 is completely unfounded. I think having history be erased as a major part of the book ties into the WAD’s story as well. One interpretation I came up with is it being a metaphor for Steve being an unreliable narrator. As it could hint that some important details are being left out. The other interpretation I have of “history erased” is Steve trying to forget about the trauma he went through in the past. I feel like either or both could apply to the story overall.

I see the mirroring of the house As a symbolism of the perspectives Of two people The mirror world is flipped not only because it is a mirror but because two people saw the same things, but in different perspectives The two could be looking at the same thing but one would think and see differently from the other

This is really cool! As a fan of ARGs and weird games this is awesome! The fact the creator managed to pull it off by modding doom is super cool too!

26:47 “finding blood in an abandoned daycare is never a good sign” Finding blood ANYWHERE is never a good sign

This was a top notch video! Had to watch a full video delving into the map's stoy after watching Vinesauce play through the map awhile back. Definitely subscribing. I've had some strange luck with catching youtubers just as they're about to blow up recently. Here's hoping this'll continue that trend!

The journey videogames present is always an important aspect of the experience, but when the ending is just nonsense or straight up bad it generally murks all the time invested into it. At least there's a "choose your own ending" in this.

One thing I've noticed. And I feel as though others have failed to notice. Is the images provided actually showcase some of the corridors that appear from nowhere and hidden rooms. It's honestly quite amazing attention to detail

Found out about this Mod yesterday, and it's the most impressive game design I think I've ever seen. That it both completely changes the game engine to do shit I never thought was even possible, and has so much hidden within a package presented as simply "here's a friend's house" is just art. This is Shakespeare in gaming format.

I don't play too many wads. But this one made me just love real places in the doom engine. Something about seeing places that are real blocky and slightly uncanny just makes me wanna find what lies inside them

I don't know how this found it's way into my recommendations-I don't play or watch much Doom stuff-but I was feeling so down when it did and watching the play through a made me feel so much better. Seeing the "Navidson Realty" at the end made me smile like, "yeah, of course" hahaha. Nods to your architectural knowledge too. Happy to see your channel growth, subbed

i like how you explained the different interpretations at the end, I hadn't thought that they would be the same person but all 3 seem to have a good amount of supporting evidence behind them. also really like your video making style, I just wish you'd include the music in the description! I recognised some tracks from metroid

I've watched all the playthroughs about this but never caught the true ending or possible queer undertones. I personally love the ending. It's a sad but beautiful story. Thank you for covering everything (though you didn't bring up the hospital section!)

25:57 in 1984 big brother positions itself as the sole authority on every form of love, Steven and Thomas began to suppress their queerness in school. In addition shrek is a story about an outcast who doesnt believe hes capable of finding love, after slaying the corrupted form of shrek the protagonist walks out of a closet

This is my first video I've seen from you and I gotta say -- I'm not entirely sure how to say it, but the way you present yourself, the monitor, and the way the (or your?) face talks and changes is really strangely hypnotic and satisfying the quality in these videos are incredible, and one of the easiest subs I've ever given

it wasn't until this video I realized the text files had any clues, I just looked through the wiki walkthrough after my first playthrough. Even watching your video going over the bonus content, I didn't put the pieces together myself. I hope we see more maps like this one in the future.

I like the metaphor that the house is met to represent the accumulation of Veddge's grief and regrets over the years, and that the whole journey is met to represent how they overcome it despite it consuming them.

One thing you forgot to mention is how multiple floors are impossible in the doom engine due to the raycasting method it uses for building 3D spaces, yet this map has plenty.

I realized that there are references to House of leaves in one of the blog posts at 4:02 instances of “House” is blue and in endings where the house disappears it’s replaced by a for sale sign saying “Navidson reality” which is based off a blind filmmaker named navidson who documents the house Also it’s said that the Backrooms have a huge inspiration for house of leaves

@22:47 If you input the godmode code, you get another clue. The game gives you a message that says "Nothing good can come from a house fire."

Fun fact if you don't kill the dog/ Monster dog, in the fake beach ending the dog is also with you

Doomguy really brought a shotgun to some dudes house

I think that Steven and Thomas possibly being the same person and dead before the game realeased ties it in to House of Leaves really well. Where Johnny Truant begins and Zampano end isn't really defined all that well in the end.

If this released in 1999 then it would've been abso-fucking-lutely insane.

Loved the investigation into the story. And I also love your avatar within the computer.

I stopped the video at the beginning to try playing it on my own and got so creeped out I had to just come and watch this video to experience the rest of it. Was eagerly awaiting you touching on what made me stop playing but was surprised to see it was not mentioned! I'm being a bit of a wuss but anyone know more about the secret room that can sometimes appear in the upstairs bedroom closet? It's a long dark hallway with the same gray colorless walls as the dog version of the house and it loops around and constantly changes as you try to make your way through it. Hit a phobia so I couldn't play anymore myself. My guess is a red-herring/easter-egg like the backrooms one as I've looked through your playthrough vods and the original forum post itself to see if anyone mentioned it, however I might've missed someone bringing it up. Anyway great video I loved the way you told the story! What a great piece of unfiction!

the analysis here is SO beautiful, god. fantastic video

Quick theory, the Shadow thing in the mirror world is the thing (or can be a metaphor) that killed both of them, anyways nice video!

i have never seen your channel ever, but the way you lay things out at the start. and the way you formatted this into such a concise video really pleases my brain thank you

I like that you dubbed the parts when you pick up the key items you need! Really cool!

Such an interesting and brilliant story, the effort of the creator is insane. And this is a very good video covering it. Really like your avatar and how it matched your speaking. I hope you'll do more videos like this :D

If you're looking at the comments before watching this....I recommend playing this before watching videos! It has an absolutely amazing atmosphere like no other custom map in these games

Random theory for the S+A heart: Maybe The A did actually mean Allord, but it could have been a nickname like Al or something. I had a childhood friend who went by a shortened version of his middle name, and even in the movie Monsters Inc, Sully's real name is James P. Sullivan

I actually found the ending twist to be rather interesting.

Euclid is rolling in his grave from all the transitions from place to place.

From the fragments that I've seen, this video appears to be awesome! Right now I'm busy with many things (as usual C:), but I'll be sure to watch the full version as soon as I have enough time!

Your narration, through a simply animated face, really sets up the creepy tone of this video. if that was what you were going for, you succeeded enormously!

Try beating the Icon of Sin without vertical aim and then say it can't fight back.

This was so well put together. Your narration is amazing and your explanations really drive home the various events transpiring in this incredible mod. Honestly, I am a fan of the idea that Tom and Steven were together and that now in death they are reunited but, yeah, I'm hoping that more comes out to clarify the message of the mod even if, as you said, it's more about the journey and as such the mod is fine already as it is.

God imagine being someone who missed the back story and just downloaded this map. It eoukd feel like you ACTUALY FOUND a haunted game..