Portal is one of those games. yeah, you know the ones. the undoubtedly good, undebatably iconic, and maybe subjectively, perfect. everything is just perfect. the puzzles are expertly crafted, the physics are super fun to just toy around and the sweet lore is a good reward for everything else. though i'd say Portal's lore doesn't matter as much as, say, Half-Life, or Portal 2. the game is much more about beating the puzzles and the ingenious portal mechanic.

however, i'm too lazy to finish this. sad honks i know, i know. sorry. maybe one day.

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.