brutal doom for the video essay generation well, color me impressed. this is actually cool!

it seems like every other day i find a new indie game or analog horror video in my youtube feed using hackneyed "subversions of expectation" or file manipulation or arg elements for spooks. imscared was cool, but imscared came out 12 years ago. so when i heard about myhouse.wad, i brushed it off. it wasn't until last night that i bit the bullet, and let me tell you: i should have done it sooner.

the house of leaves inspiration is blatant enough as to call it an adaptation. there's no point in dissecting it, but i'd like to use it to explain why my house doesn't suffer from the pitfalls you might expect. remember how house of leaves has a bunch of hidden shit inside of it that redditors have been talking to death for years? well, you don't need it to enjoy the book. it's an addendum for people who wanna go crazy over that kind of stuff. my house is the same way with its metahorror. the creepypasta elements are contained in the downloadable journal rather than the game itself. the "deeply emotional" (read: tactless and generic internet psychological horror) themes fans don't shut up about are contained in secret content that you won't find unless you're looking for it. in that case, why should you play the wad?

cuz it's a damn good time! if you liked lost in vivo's combat-heavy take on otherworld from silent hill, you'll like my house. the maps are super pretty and fun to explore. there are cool new enemies too! if nothing else, play it to see a modern action horror doom map with strong atmosphere. it only took me 30 minutes and i'd recommend it even if you already know the "twists".

as much as i still want to mock the fandom and compare it to brutal doom, i do hope this inspires people to take full advantage of gzdoom's special features. maybe someone will make a map that uses similar technical tricks to make something in a genre other than horror. as it stands, i super enjoyed my time in my house and i recommend it to all the skeptics. this one's different.

SOLD

crazy that a DOOM MOD has one of the best storytelling to come out of video games in recent memory

what a fucking mod, man

"There's no good outcome from a house fire."

I really do love horror that focuses on houses! The more ARG/Creepypasta inspired elements were also really, really cool, and I liked how mostly unobtrusive they were. This game (rom hack?) pushes the boundaries of the Doom engine to give you a brilliant experience. The only reason I didn't rate this higher is because there are other pieces of media with similar premises which I felt executed this better, and I felt like the Doom aesthetic shot this in the foot a bit. It didn't quite manage the vibe of liminal spaces for me. But I'm not a Doom person anyways so maybe I just don't have the required context.

If you like Doom, then I strongly recommend giving this a shot. Either way, a neat experience.

Confusing at first. Absolutely impactful at the end. One of the best video game mods I've played in my life thanks to its gameplay, its story and the author's involvement in its creation. I've never played the base DOOM game and I don't think I'll ever play it since the license doesn't particularly interest me, but this mod still managed to pique my interest and I'm really glad I have been able to play it. One of my greatest FINDINGS of 2023. A must (absolutely) play. (while still having a minimum of context in order to not miss the main story.)

like watching a video game go through an identity crisis in real time
unreal . i hope whoever made this continues to make this kind of thing

don't watch the video essay. just play it.
https://cohost.org/lexyeevee/post/1195766-myhouse-wad-tips
and use this if necessary (it will be)

myhouse is more of a tourist town than a videogame. it's an art exposition showing first hand internet trends, doom modding, and universally shared childhood experiences from the generation it wants to capture.

more than house of leaves, creepypastas or doom maps of people's own houses, the biggest inspiration to myhouse is actually liminal spaces. some of the areas are direct recreations of iconic sets such as poolroms, backrooms and abandoned daycare facilities. when the topic started exploding in 2020, it wasn't just another horror trend, but a phenomenon and a piece of discussion between older people (i.e. not children). most of us who saw the pictures felt uneasy, but not scared. we felt nostalgic. the word anemoia was commonly tossed around and defined. this is a feeling i'm all too common with but it was the first time i saw more people feeling. and more, it was felt in mass.

myhouse has the upper hand over other "liminal space games" because its narrative is greatly enhanced by it. most of these areas are so simple and mundane that they can resonate with absolutely everyone that was alive during that era. the daycare has a bootleg painting of Shrek on its wall, the airport has that 90s style of carpet and even the gas station/road at night seem to take inspiration from a classic doom map called "doom city". these uneventfully universal scenarios, when put inside the doom engine, with these textures, and that blade runner esque song, become a legend of its own. iconic set pieces that can trick your mind into remembering things that didn't happen or condensing a myriad of recollections into just one area in a videogame.

my favorite of these areas is the airport. it makes me think of Toy Story. it also makes me think of the carpet at my town's mall's arcade. it also reminds me of childhood trips to Rio. the pattern on the bus's carpet and chairs. a middle-of-the-road McDonald's. another bus. another mall. another McDonald's. another memory. another place. places i have never been to. memories i have never had. things i have never lived. all at once.

the storytelling in myhouse is not just to the service of one guy's house catching fire and their fear of a dog. things such as the Shrek mini-boss (which could be interpreted as a joke, but also as a manifestation of 2000s pop culture) and the console in the living room that goes from a PSX to an XBOX tell a story about not one single individual but us as an entire generation. the house changes because we change, we change because of the passage of time, and the passage of time is unbearably, terrifyingly painful. the horror of myhouse is not demons and atmosphere. is the reality of existing. growing up, transforming.

however, the driving factor of myhouse is its architecture. the enemies might as well not even have been there, because the main point of the game is not to kill, not to get to the end, but to experience these places, either for the first time or again. you can watch as many playthroughs as you want but it will not be the same as actually opening the game and walking around for yourself, staring at the skybox and taking the time to absorb the vibe. and the vibe is absolutely there, cogent as fuck. you're left to wander that space alone and as the game changes you change too, thinking about everything, absorbing your own fear and projecting your own memories onto these familiar sceneries.

this game is monumental in the most unassuming way possible, while at the same time being a complete rehash of a bunch of stuff we've seen countless times before. as i said previously, however, its rehashing is its strength, and that's pretty cool.