do you remember unhomes?
you probably don't, but you should if you really care about indie horror. unhomes, for the unfamiliar, was a webseries-turned-video-game, known for being one of the best but most unknown low-budget indie ARGs. (i mean, calling it an ARG is kind of a stretch, but... you know how it is. people see something weird online and can't stop themselves from going WOW! AN ARG! but i digress.) it followed a protagonist only known as "the visitor" as he/she/they/it (their pronouns were different depending on which video you watched or which save file you played on) as they explored a city of houses, identical on the outside but wildly different on the inside.
if this sounds interesting to you, stop reading and go play/watch it. you can find all the links through their youtube channel, and while there are some secrets it's nothing you can't solve with a little bit of elbow grease, a pen and paper, and some online decoding tools. i'm about to spoil one of the coolest things about this game, and it's best if you don't know about it.
still here? officially having agreed to getting spoiled for this indie masterpiece, or (shockingly) already familiar with it's ending? alright then. let's begin.
i'm going to write this section assuming you've actually played it, since i'm too lazy to actually explain everything. i'm not going to touch on it thematically, either, which is probably weird for one of my game articles (girl who wrote six articles on the anime death game voice) but that's mostly because i plan on covering that in a sequel article. ok. with all of that pretext:
did you know no one's actually FINISHED unhomes? i mean, we've gotten endings, but it's clear through scrubbing through the files that there's something the community is missing. and that's infuriating. the thing is, nowadays, pretty much no games will have this happen. because most gaming communities have people who are... competent enough at coding to find literally everything in the game files. (i mean, it took two days to find the icetomb route for delratune! TWO! AND THAT THING WAS CRAZY WELL HIDDEN!)
but not a lot of people have actually played unhomes. it never took off in the way other series have, and while there is a dedicated community, it's mostly me and some internet buds. that's where you guys come in. so, a brief description of what i've found:
in the room where you normally encounter the architect for the last time, you can actually clip out of the wall on certain save files. it's about a 1-in-7 chance that you'll get it, but if you do, you'll find this incredibly large room, seemingly empty. if you walk down the same sequence you take to get out of the maze, however, you can access ANOTHER hidden room, this time containing a computer. when you interact with the computer, you get this screen:
the text is a little hard to read, so i'll put it in here:
A bloody stain in the bathtub,
Within the mad scientist's ramblings,
A light deep within his mind,
Hidden within the Angel's house,
Overheard in an old conversation.
Blue, Pink, Orange, Red, Yellow.
.org/(input...)
so, it seems like it wants us to input some sort of phrase. and the thing is, we can get a better idea of what it wants. elsewhere in the game, when you enter the scientist's home, in the third paper you can find, one of the words- "love"- is written in pink. so it seems like we need to find other words or phrases hidden in the game. here's the issue, though: as far as anyone can tell, there aren't any more in the game. but here's the thing. unhomes is, like, freakishly coded. intentionally so, so that people like me (sorry, mr john unhomes) can't find everything. so i'm basically sending a call to everyone else who might find this sort of thing interesting.
see if you can find the codes. i know it's kind of a crazy idea, but i think if a bunch of people work together, we can actually find the last bit of content in unhomes. and... i mean, you know how it ends currently. it's unsatisfying in a way that feels intentional, it just kind of... fizzles out. we deserve something better than that.
don't we?
EDIT: we've found some hints! it turns out, whenever there's quoted text ("like this") in the visitor's house, you can interact with it? it looks like we might be able to find more with that. neat! there also seems to be more evidence that they're supposed to be genderqueer, which is cool.