This mod was written about in PC Gamer. The article starts without spoilers with instructions for running the mod. This mod is so cool. I knew if a doom mod was getting attention like this, then...
This mod is so cool. I knew if a doom mod was getting attention like this, then it was worth it for me going in blind and trying myself first. After playing it, I've watched a few playthrough videos including the one posted here. It's been interesting watching both veteran doom players and total noobs play it, because the mod clearly has a good mix of general appeal and a lot of subtle design nods toward veteran doom players and mappers.
I used to be obsessed with doom modding and the zdoom engine 15-20 years ago. I got a lot of my early programming experience in scripting maps I made. Seeing tweets about this mod and the pcgamer article is what got me to download gzdoom again. I've got ultimate doom builder installed too now and it's tempting to try to throw together a map again now.
I thought I'd just watch a few minutes of this to see what it was about. Seemed innocent enough. Just a map based on someone's house, right? Nothing particularly unusual there. Then it was nearly...
I thought I'd just watch a few minutes of this to see what it was about. Seemed innocent enough. Just a map based on someone's house, right? Nothing particularly unusual there. Then it was nearly two hours later.. This is a very impressive piece of work.
Also I wasn't at all sure where to post this. See below for why, but I suggest just diving in and watching first. Some of you might wish to download it and play it for yourself before doing that. Link in the video description.
Spoilers within
This is a Doom mod based on Mark Z Danielewski's book, **House** of Leaves. If you know that book, you will understand why I was wary about posting this in ~games. It's more of an art project/horror story/interactive fiction/etc running on a game engine than an actual game.
Just as an aside, House of Leaves is by far (by far) the most terrifying book I've ever read. I don't want to play this mod at all.
Went into this blind because I haven't ever been a part of Doom modding, just a filthy Doom casual that's played the standard version of each game as they've come out over the years. Started...
Went into this blind because I haven't ever been a part of Doom modding, just a filthy Doom casual that's played the standard version of each game as they've come out over the years. Started getting...
[...]
House of Leaves vibes at the 10 minute mark and pleasantly surprised to have that come to fruition at the intermission. House of Leaves is also by far the most terrifying book I have read and absolutely amazing. I have a newer full color edition (my first edition was lost by a friend that borrowed it) and I remember the first time I read it was over the course of 2-3 days, doing little else. I didn't shower. I barely left my room. I had to be reminded to eat.
It was amazing.
Thanks for posting, I probably wouldn't have found this video otherwise.
I finally had a chance to watch this, and wow! I used to design maps in Doom wayyyyyyy back in the day, and later in Quake/QuakeWorld/QWTF. The software back then was clunky as hell, and extremely...
I finally had a chance to watch this, and wow! I used to design maps in Doom wayyyyyyy back in the day, and later in Quake/QuakeWorld/QWTF. The software back then was clunky as hell, and extremely limited in what it could do. So the fact that the MyHouse designer somehow managed to create multi-story floors in Doom, impossible geometry, and even the sheer level of detail they added to the level is insanely impressive. I wish the video maker had gone into how that was possible a bit more, since back when I made levels it was not, but other than that I have zero complaints. I was enthralled from beginning to end.
p.s. The first time the Discord notification sound happened I actually noticed it, and at first assumed it was my Discord, but when it wasn't I just thought the video maker accidentally messed up and left their own notification sound in the video. When later in the video they explained that sound is part of the map, meant to troll players, I got a good chuckle from it since it even managed to get me secondhand.
Awesome. Thanks! TL;DW - They accomplished it with UDMF and GZDoom, and using silent teleportation lines and line portals. That may make it sound trivial, but it probably required a lot more work...
Awesome. Thanks!
TL;DW - They accomplished it with UDMF and GZDoom, and using silent teleportation lines and line portals. That may make it sound trivial, but it probably required a lot more work than if they had instead somehow managed to make multi-floor maps. They had to carefully design each section of the level to hide the transitions between map sections when teleporting the player between them to give the illusion of the multiple floors and impossible geometry, requiring them to duplicate those sections multiple times, and use a whole bunch of other sleight-of-hand tricks to make everything appear seamless. So the amount of work that went into MyHouse is insane, and IMO the result is even more impressive given the engine limitations they had to work around!
Those tricks aren't entirely perfect, unfortunately; there are some places where you can walk back a little too far in a corridor and the monsters in the room in front of you just "disappear" But...
Those tricks aren't entirely perfect, unfortunately; there are some places where you can walk back a little too far in a corridor and the monsters in the room in front of you just "disappear" But I only came across that problem just once, and it's by no means major.
I played this a few weeks ago after hearing it from IcarusLIVES, whom I honestly don't know why I watch because I don't actually like these kinds of games that much.
That problem exists with the silent teleportation lines, which are the jankier older alternative to line portals that are used in the beginning part of the map. Line portals avoid this issue, but...
Those tricks aren't entirely perfect, unfortunately; there are some places where you can walk back a little too far in a corridor and the monsters in the room in front of you just "disappear" But I only came across that problem just once, and it's by no means major.
That problem exists with the silent teleportation lines, which are the jankier older alternative to line portals that are used in the beginning part of the map. Line portals avoid this issue, but the map intentionally uses the jankier alternative early on to pretend to be an older amateur map.
The beginning part of the map restricts itself to using the game's original textures and Doom engine features that were common in the early 00s, since that's when the original base of the map was supposedly made. Then the map starts subtly using custom resources and newer engine features (including line portals), which to an experienced Doom modder is surprising from being so anachronistic.
light spoiler section about some anachronistic/surprising custom features used
line portals. (Not supported until the mid 10s. Subtly used at first to make some room-over-room areas more polished and later used to accomplish some impossible level geometry.)
actual 3d floors. (It's actually possible in Gzdoom to make a 3d floor with proper room-over-room, which a few writeups about MyHouse get wrong, but the feature does have limitations and is used sparingly in the map)
3d polyobjects. It's really funny watching playthroughs of MyHouse because you can immediately recognize the experienced Doom players by their instant reaction to the house suddenly changing to having swinging doors instead of the classic vertical sliding doors.
the classic weapon animations being replaced with higher-fps animated versions midway through the level. Many players don't notice, but very experienced players get very confused at this point trying to remember if these animations were always present, because the idea of a map contorting itself to be able to suddenly activate these in the middle of gameplay is too silly of an idea to consider.
custom enemies. Maybe not exactly anachronistic as zdoom supported custom enemies since 2006ish, but it feels unusual for a map that appears to be going for a classic vanilla style to introduce these later on. Especially when during a usual run of MyHouse, they're first introduced during a sudden eery moment in the map.
Experienced Doom modders are definitely one of the primary target audiences of the map. It's impressive that the map managed to be built for that while at the same time being so interesting to inexperienced players too.
Yeah, the video @mat linked to shows a few more imperfections as well, like if you look up while you're about to go through the basement door you will see the above kitchen level vanish from view...
Yeah, the video @mat linked to shows a few more imperfections as well, like if you look up while you're about to go through the basement door you will see the above kitchen level vanish from view and be replaced by a blank wall. But those are pretty minor issues, especially considering how impressive the overall level design is.
This mod was written about in PC Gamer. The article starts without spoilers with instructions for running the mod.
This mod is so cool. I knew if a doom mod was getting attention like this, then it was worth it for me going in blind and trying myself first. After playing it, I've watched a few playthrough videos including the one posted here. It's been interesting watching both veteran doom players and total noobs play it, because the mod clearly has a good mix of general appeal and a lot of subtle design nods toward veteran doom players and mappers.
I used to be obsessed with doom modding and the zdoom engine 15-20 years ago. I got a lot of my early programming experience in scripting maps I made. Seeing tweets about this mod and the pcgamer article is what got me to download gzdoom again. I've got ultimate doom builder installed too now and it's tempting to try to throw together a map again now.
I thought I'd just watch a few minutes of this to see what it was about. Seemed innocent enough. Just a map based on someone's house, right? Nothing particularly unusual there. Then it was nearly two hours later.. This is a very impressive piece of work.
Also I wasn't at all sure where to post this. See below for why, but I suggest just diving in and watching first. Some of you might wish to download it and play it for yourself before doing that. Link in the video description.
Spoilers within
This is a Doom mod based on Mark Z Danielewski's book, **House** of Leaves. If you know that book, you will understand why I was wary about posting this in ~games. It's more of an art project/horror story/interactive fiction/etc running on a game engine than an actual game.Just as an aside, House of Leaves is by far (by far) the most terrifying book I've ever read. I don't want to play this mod at all.
Went into this blind because I haven't ever been a part of Doom modding, just a filthy Doom casual that's played the standard version of each game as they've come out over the years. Started getting...
[...]
House of Leaves vibes at the 10 minute mark and pleasantly surprised to have that come to fruition at the intermission. House of Leaves is also by far the most terrifying book I have read and absolutely amazing. I have a newer full color edition (my first edition was lost by a friend that borrowed it) and I remember the first time I read it was over the course of 2-3 days, doing little else. I didn't shower. I barely left my room. I had to be reminded to eat.
It was amazing.
Thanks for posting, I probably wouldn't have found this video otherwise.
I finally had a chance to watch this, and wow! I used to design maps in Doom wayyyyyyy back in the day, and later in Quake/QuakeWorld/QWTF. The software back then was clunky as hell, and extremely limited in what it could do. So the fact that the MyHouse designer somehow managed to create multi-story floors in Doom, impossible geometry, and even the sheer level of detail they added to the level is insanely impressive. I wish the video maker had gone into how that was possible a bit more, since back when I made levels it was not, but other than that I have zero complaints. I was enthralled from beginning to end.
p.s. The first time the Discord notification sound happened I actually noticed it, and at first assumed it was my Discord, but when it wasn't I just thought the video maker accidentally messed up and left their own notification sound in the video. When later in the video they explained that sound is part of the map, meant to troll players, I got a good chuckle from it since it even managed to get me secondhand.
More information on the technical side of things
Awesome. Thanks!
TL;DW - They accomplished it with UDMF and GZDoom, and using silent teleportation lines and line portals. That may make it sound trivial, but it probably required a lot more work than if they had instead somehow managed to make multi-floor maps. They had to carefully design each section of the level to hide the transitions between map sections when teleporting the player between them to give the illusion of the multiple floors and impossible geometry, requiring them to duplicate those sections multiple times, and use a whole bunch of other sleight-of-hand tricks to make everything appear seamless. So the amount of work that went into MyHouse is insane, and IMO the result is even more impressive given the engine limitations they had to work around!
Those tricks aren't entirely perfect, unfortunately; there are some places where you can walk back a little too far in a corridor and the monsters in the room in front of you just "disappear" But I only came across that problem just once, and it's by no means major.
I played this a few weeks ago after hearing it from IcarusLIVES, whom I honestly don't know why I watch because I don't actually like these kinds of games that much.
That problem exists with the silent teleportation lines, which are the jankier older alternative to line portals that are used in the beginning part of the map. Line portals avoid this issue, but the map intentionally uses the jankier alternative early on to pretend to be an older amateur map.
The beginning part of the map restricts itself to using the game's original textures and Doom engine features that were common in the early 00s, since that's when the original base of the map was supposedly made. Then the map starts subtly using custom resources and newer engine features (including line portals), which to an experienced Doom modder is surprising from being so anachronistic.
light spoiler section about some anachronistic/surprising custom features used
Experienced Doom modders are definitely one of the primary target audiences of the map. It's impressive that the map managed to be built for that while at the same time being so interesting to inexperienced players too.
Yeah, the video @mat linked to shows a few more imperfections as well, like if you look up while you're about to go through the basement door you will see the above kitchen level vanish from view and be replaced by a blank wall. But those are pretty minor issues, especially considering how impressive the overall level design is.