The Horror Game of the Year Is a Doom II Mod | Hacker News Reader

The Horror Game of the Year Is a Doom II Mod

kotaku.com

277 pointsbryan067 comments

How to play:

    1. Read the supporting material for context

    2. gzdoom -iwad "/data/steam/steamapps/common/Doom 2/base/DOOM2.WAD" -file myhouse.pk3

Going to the forum page, reading the release post, and then clicking on the download link there is part of the experience.

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/134292-myhousewad/

The page is tall enough to avoid spoilers. Going in blind is the right choice.

Agreed, we're in art territory here so convenience takes a back-seat.

I just want to add to that, for all the Silverblue users, that you can start it from a Flatpak of GZDoom like this.

    flatpak run org.zdoom.GZDoom -file ~/.var/app/org.zdoom.GZDoom/.config/gzdoom/pwads/MYHOUSE.WAD

Note that you still need one of the official game wads or the Flatpak of GZDoom will not start at all.

Worth noting, that the myhouse.wad file, at least for me, does not contain the full level. You instead need to use the myhouse.pk3 file.

Oh yeah? I'm at the 4th level already, not sure how deep it goes.

If you've reached MAP03 - The Gantlet at any point then you're not playing the right version.

Oh I must try the pk3 then, thanks for the heads up.

3. Don’t panic if the level takes a while to load.

(Gleaned from the John Romero play through on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIl_TqFJNO8 - there’s some UI config tips there, too)

I at first thought this was referring to the dementia mod (youtube below), which seems interesting enough to warrant sharing here (I haven't played it), but I appreciate the artistry and learning about the MyHouse (above).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwgytHBu4sg

Don't even read the news article on it. Go to the forum page, download it, and play it. It's great.

I wouldn't put it in the horror genre. It's a thriller.

Equally though, when you think you've finished it; have a read / watch about all the fantastic things that you missed.

The entire project, and including the journal on the Google drive, is just incredible.

I very much enjoyed this video that goes through all the content:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wAo54DHDY0

Also, this one to learn about the methods used to create "myhouse" in the doom2 engine.

Also, the link I failed to paste

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Iq1-TZXz9xo

I made a small playlist with playthroughs that each touch on more and more aspects of the level. Then just some notable other playthroughs n the music. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLi4842O5fEfIQT6sti69A...

This mod doesn't give up its secrets easily. I ended up using that video as a guide to figure out what I missed. It wasn't ideal but it worked out. I wish HN had a spoiler tag so I could gab about this in more detail!

I bought House of Leaves and am on the third chapter. It tells a very different story. MyHouse.wad is certainly inspired by it but they're completely different.

Spoilers here...

Second warning...

Apparently this is the TikTok of the creators wife, where she has pictures of the house and some of the wall art that show up in the game. She days they're getting a divorce, it seems he channeled some of that energy into the game and it's artifacts. [1]

[1] https://www.tiktok.com/@bananapantsamy

FYI to those concerned about doxxing (I assume that's why the downvotes?).

She purposely posted this information about their house. She is aware of the myhouse.wad and posted the info, and she says she right in her feed that she did this with the consent of her ex. She masked him out of the photo he's in.

The mod is great, and I found seeing the real life house just as fascinating.

I basically can't play horror games because they are all too intense, but I watched a video on this mod and found it interesting but not at all scary.

I couldn't play Wolfenstein because it got too intense. I took a multi-year break from video games and I like what I see, but many FPSes are just too intense to me with its sensory overload. I get the appeal of Fortnite and other Battle Royale style games though, they got that sweet spot of competitiveness and ease of getting into them perfectly.

I can't stand FPS:es anymore. They are so repetitive and you need to concentrate too much. Also I guess I don't think violence is cool/exciting anymore since I got older.

Yes after years of playing FPS, the S in the acronym is pretty boring. I love the First Person perspective, I just wish more games would explore non-combat mechanic possibilities.

It's not a morality thing either, I am just bored of it and feel it is a massive crutch of an industry that's petrified to make a game without combat.

Ever tried Subnautica?

I have, I loved both games, exactly the kind of thing I mean too. The Occupation is another good example I like to recommend.

Agreed entirely. The Metroid Prime series scratches that itch for me. Perfect balance of combat and exploration. Now if only they’d finish MP4…

Hadn’t played a fps for 20 or so years (since UT , Q3, and Half Life) but decided to play duke nukem 3D for the first time in forever

Those face sucking aliens in the dark corridors are hella scary, far scarier now than they were as a teenager in the 90s.

It’s more unnerving than outright scary. I wouldn’t call it a horror game.

>Doom II Mod

Lets make it clear, its a GZDoom mod reusing some Doom2 assets. Features used https://zdoom.org/wiki/Teleport_Line are impossible in original Doom 1/2 engine. Later Doom source mods received Non Euclidean Geometry support inspired by other engines like Portal System based Build engine (duke3d etc). https://www.dfdoom.com/gzdoom-portal-tutorial/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUCji83Xt50

on mac?

go to gog.com and buy a doom2 copy, then forget about it

search for doom2.wad and get it from the archive

get gzdoom 4.x

mkdir -r ~/Library/Application Support/GZDoom && open ~/Library/Application Support/GZDoom

put the doom2.wad in that folder

download the myhouse.pk3 from the google drive and drop it on the gzdoom app

enjoy!

Or just get freedom WADs from https://freedoom.github.io and rename freedoom2.wad to doom2.wad

As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, you can download the Windows offline installer from GOG, then use innoextract to extract the desired files: https://constexpr.org/innoextract/

A Mac GUI version of innoextract can be found here: https://macsourceports.com/utilities

Aside from Doom engine games, this also works for Build engine (Duke Nukem 3D), idTech games, and countless others. Very useful tool for being able to play these games legitimately with a modern engine.

> illegal option -- r

Doesnt work for me?

At a guess, probably should be mkdir -p

this is right – I apologise for misleading folks on creating that folder

my local alias is actually: mkdir='mkdir -pv'

How do I play it? "gzdoom myhouse.wad" doesn't work. "gzdoom -wad myhouse.wad" doesn't work either. There's also a pk3 file in the drive. What is it for?

You add doom2.wad (Doom II – Hell on Earth (v1.9)), then run the pk3 file with gzdoom.

where is the doom2.wad coming from?

Your purchased Doom copy of course ; ) (just search for it, come on, the top results give it to you - just like the search results for "how to run myhouse.wad")

I just purchased I and II from GOG, they're EXEs; i'm on a macos machine :'(

IIRC they can be extracted using innoextract: https://github.com/dscharrer/innoextract

Needs to be used with the offline installer files from GOG

GOG's installers are made with InnoSetup, you can use a tool like InnoExtract to get the files out of them (source at https://constexpr.org/innoextract/ or in MacPorts/Homebrew).

You can uh

find them on the internet.

I wont tell you that the record 2020_03_22_DOOM on archive.org has it. I can't confirm.

Or just use freedoom2.wad from the FreeDOOM project and rename it as doom2.wad

There's an encrypted copy on the Quake CD.

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:7b97c87435e91b6b38eee8fcc601c6588d44e89e

my gzdoom download had one included iirc.

watch the video: https://youtu.be/5wAo54DHDY0

I was a Doom II junkie back in the day and probably don't consume youtube videos like some people - but this video kept my attention.

Follow the download link from [1], download `myhouse.zip`, put `myhouse.wad` from the zip where your other WADs are. Run GZDoom and use the [Browse…] button in the initial dialog to load `myhouse.wad`. Voilà.

[1]: https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/134292-myhousewad/

No, do NOT use the .wad version. Use the .pk3 version.

The .wad was added at a later date, it's not the mod, it's a stripped down vanilla level with no magic.

I'm pretty sure the .wad was always there. It was just hidden in the .zip file in the Google Drive download as a red herring. It's not something to be avoided, just play the .pk3 file afterwards.

Get freedoom2.wad from https://freedoom.github.io and rename it to doom2.wad

You're going to have not the same textures as regular Doom 2 so plenty of designs and custom textures based on the originals used alongside them will look out of place. For playing with MyHouse for the proper experience, it would be best to get proper Doom 2.

Most environment textures of FreeDoom (if not all) are designed to be compatible on art style so you can play IWADs with no art clashing.

I played Requiem, STRAIN and lots of classical PWADs (even Back To Saturn) and the megawads always looked great on every level.

1: Get gzdoom set up. 2: Get gzdoom to run Doom II so you know everything is working. 3: Run myhouse.pk3 with gzdoom.

The file myhouse.wad does work, but it's very short.

Nice to see that GZDoom WADs are alive and kicking. Nothing like a round of Doom mayhem to start the day.

Talking of excellent Doom mods, Ashes 2063 is a mix of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Fallout.

It's standalone, so no need to patch an existing Doom install: https://www.moddb.com/mods/ashes-2063/downloads/ashes-stand-...

RagnarRox even made a video about it a week ago (which is how I found out about it): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5_zJoJhbOM&t=418s

I liked it but a lot of the map is too dark to navigate properly.

Posts like this make me realize the target audience of HackerNews is mid to late 30 something to early 50s dudes (speaking as a big Doom fan myself!)

This WAD in particular has wide appeal I think. Some of the scenery/references are pretty fresh.

Think your right … almost 45 here :). Thought the same thing the other day on a thread about old sierra adventure games …

The late teens early 20s crowd -- they're making shit in Minecraft and Terraria.

Even Kerbal Space Program enthusiasts would be in their early 30s by now!

This is a really great experience, but go in as blind as you can.

I am so excited to play this tomorrow

I'd never thought I'd see Romero and Danielewski mentioned in 1 article, yet here we are. Now I never fully stopped playing doom, so this one goes on my todo list.

Game is great, but GOTY it is not.

Yeah I'm sure that it's amazing for doom veterans that are unnerved by all the things that are slightly off, but as someone who never played original doom this doesn't particularly speak to me.

Replace Doom GUI and you might have Stanley Parable in there.

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