Hello Internet!
Welcome to Game Theory, the show that always welcomes you home like a good neighbor should.
And if you wanna be the best neighbor, you can go ahead and click that subscribe button.
That way, you will see as we do, neighbor.
If you couldn't tell from the bad wordplay and weird glitches, today we are revisiting
a franchise that I have been so excited to jump into ever since I became host of the
channel.
The creative and artistic horror experience, Welcome Home.
I have been hooked on the way that this website tells its story, with spelling errors, drawings
and literal bugs revealing to us the strange and wonderful world of this long forgotten
70s edutainment show, and a group known as the Welcome Home Restoration Project that
is trying desperately to revive it.
But in classic ARG fashion, there are dark secrets beneath the surface.
Spooky audio messages, hidden pages and disturbing videos all showing us that this charming neighbourhood
might not be so charming after all.
In fact, it's way more than just a kids show.
It's a cult.
A cult that worships an all-powerful entity that lives in the centre of their town, the
sentient house known simply as Home, and led by its faithful servant and Mr. Rogers stand-in,
Wally.
In our last couple of theories, we've established that Wally has somehow managed to make contact
with the real world.
This is all in order to indoctrinate the WHRP, and eventually, the world, through the exhibitions
that were being put on.
However, it became clear that Wally might not actually be doing this willingly.
Which I guess makes sense.
No one could be evil and wear stylish, soft-boy cardigans like that.
I should get me one of those.
Amy!
Can we make one of those?
Only if you prove that people want to buy it!
You know what to do, guys.
Get down in those comments!
Anyway, where was I?
Oh yeah, Wally.
It turns out that Home has been controlling Wally this whole time, but now, he's trying
to fight back.
And he's not the only one.
There's someone else from the neighborhood that's been using the bugs on the website
to expose Home's plan.
The local bug enthusiast and resident grump, Frank Frankly.
But now, after all this time, the internet darling, Wally Darling, is back.
And he's got a shiny new website in celebration of Homewarming.
Which is Welcome Home's version of Christmas.
In March.
So as you can tell, things are already not adding up.
Which means there's likely going to be a bunch of brand new lore waiting for us in
the neighborhood.
So, even though it's spring, wrap up warm, get a hot cup of cocoa and join me, neighbor,
as we uncover the secrets behind this new website and spread the holiday cheer for all
to hear.
For all to hear.
For.
All.
To.
HEAR.
First of all, when I say shiny new website, I really do mean it.
This isn't just an update.
The old website has been taken down and a new one has been rebuilt in its place in order
to get rid of all those pesky bugs, glitches and files.
There are these weird new doodles around the website, but I clicked on them and nothing
happened so it seems like this reboot was a success.
Other than that, the website seems relatively similar to the old one, outside of the new
Christmassy themes.
But if you take a look at the news section, there's a newsletter that tells us all about
the new stuff they have over on the merchandise page.
So I guess that's where we're going next.
And they really weren't lying.
This is by far the biggest part of the update.
There are audio files from Welcome Home commercials, songs sung by members of the neighborhood
including Wally's tone deaf rendition of the song Toyland by Doris Day.
There's even children's toys that contain actual throwing knives and an unsettling cookbook
full of disturbing recipes that I am definitely going to be sending over to Santi later.
But there was one new addition that stood out to me above all the rest.
Yes, even those deadly weapons.
And that was the Crispy Sweets Frosted Cereal Box.
More specifically, the back of the cereal box.
We see our reliable mailman Eddie Dear holding a decoder ring, encouraging us to make or
break secret codes.
Call it a hunch, I think that might be a clue.
This decoder ring uses pictures that correlate with the letters of the alphabet.
And if you've been paying attention, these pictures are the exact same as the ones we've
been seeing scattered around the website.
Ha!
I knew those random doodles weren't just random doodles.
So of course, I scoured every page and found every last one of them.
Now all we have to do is figure out what this jumble of letters is supposed to say.
I managed to find the words "Away From Prying Eyes", but I was left with a handful of letters
that at first I just couldn't figure out.
That was until I remembered that this is a web-based ARG.
These letters aren't words, they're part of a URL.
Three W's at the start, and the T and E spelling out the domain, dot net, giving us
the website www.awayfrompryingeyes.net.
And sure enough, type that into your search bar and we're taken to a brand new website.
This site contains the writings from a member of the WHRP, gathering evidence of all the
weird glitches from the old website, trying to figure out what's going on.
Looking down the page, we can see that the writer is named W, which feels suspicious
given the only character we know with W as the first letter of their name is Wally.
However, we don't really get anything more to go on, so I'm just gonna leave that be
for now.
But make no mistake, I'm watching you.
Regardless, I started reading what W had to say, and as I did, it occurred to me that
we've actually met this character before.
In this post, W notes his frustration, quote, no one has come forward or provided leads,
and dead ends have since piled up.
Which lines up with a quote from a newsletter that was posted during a minor update back
in October, the Halloween update, where again, the writer is very vocal about the lack of
information.
Our source has yet to send the full book, I don't understand why, what is it worth
to leave it out?
Ripping out pages, what a waste.
It takes so long to get everything off of them.
Still, we're patient, aren't we?
If you're reading this, please hurry.
So it would appear that W is the one writing the newsletters, but those aren't the only
writings of theirs that we've seen before.
Remember on the original website where we found text that said things like, when I unwrapped
the first letter I felt it, I heard it, open, open, open.
I want it out.
I'm going to get it out.
Well, the same kind of writing style can be seen from W on this new hidden website.
It needed me.
I needed it.
Everyone started to look at us.
You want this as badly as I do.
Up until now, we've suspected that these hidden entries on the old website were written
by the Question Answerer, the museum curator that was hired to put on the Playfellow exhibition.
They created their own hidden website that would tell us about a dream they had with
Wally sat at the foot of their bed, calling them on a toy telephone.
He was the only one acting erratically, so at the time, it made sense that he would be
the one making these chaotic entries.
But now, W's writing seems to be a much stronger match.
Plus, it would make way more sense for a member of the WHRP to be able to alter the main website
rather than a freelance museum curator.
W even references the question answerer and the events that we saw in the last update.
Nothing from our curator who has since recovered.
I don't know what happened to them to become so unwell, to create that page.
Things clearly got a lot worse for our curator friend between updates.
But despite knowing about the website and what it said about the telephone, W decided
to grab the defective toy anyway and continue trying to fix it after the exhibition.
We can see a page labelled "Broken Phone" that contains their findings, and we learn that
no matter what W tries, the phone is still doing the same thing it was for the Question Answerer
It won't stop ringing.
When they pick it up, it doesn't give them an answer either.
Until it does.
What we hear is Wally's terrible cover of the song Toyland.
Only this time, there are lines from Wally talking at the beginning and the end.
Wally is still using the phone to communicate to whoever is on the other end, but unlike
last time with the Question nswerer, I don't think this is the side of Wally controlled
by Home.
Listen to what Wally says before hanging up.
That line, I don't want to end this call, to me, sounds like desperation.
Wally says that he's alone with Home, and he doesn't sound excited, because with no
one else around, Home can take control and carry out the next part of his plan.
Homewarming is the next part of Home's scheme to keep the neighborhood in line and
indoctrinate more people into this cult.
And we can see this plan in action if we head on over to the second piece of evidence from
this new secret site named "Commercials".
On this page, W tells us that they managed to somehow find snippets of the actual Welcome
Home TV show playing on their old TV.
Previous entries on the old website talked about how no one seems to remember this show
and despite having a bunch of merch, they had no evidence the actual TV show existed.
So this is a huge deal, at least it would be if W had actually managed to record any of it.
Dude, you had one job.
Though I shouldn't give them too hard a time, they seem to recognise their mistake
and so from this point onwards, they leave the TV on, constantly watching, hoping the
show would return to the screen.
Until finally, he found something.
Quote,
I was finally rewarded in December.
The channel it appeared on didn't make any sense, but I didn't care.
Video evidence and audio started playing, one after the other.
I've captured and compiled together whatever I could.
When footage would disappear, I would have to move to another channel, where another
would appear, and then disappear again.
This explains why a Christmas-themed update seems to be happening in March.
The newsletter that told us about the new merchandise is actually labelled December
25th, Christmas Day.
But immediately after that, a new newsletter is released calling it a mistake.
This update was planned for December, but they were so engrossed with these commercials,
so determined to record evidence, that they lost track of time and ended up staring at
this TV for months.
To the point they even claim that things in their house have started rotting.
But it was worth it, because now, after a year of the website talking about a show that
didn't seem to exist, W finally had video evidence of Welcome Home, and what has been
uncovered is harrowing.
This video is mostly filled with commercials, advertising things like cereals, sleeping
pills and cigarettes.
Ah yes, a balanced breakfast for any child growing up in the 70s.
I'm making a joke about it, but back then, advertising this sort of thing with animated
characters was pretty normal.
However, morally questionable adverts aren't the only thing this video includes.
W laments that the original show they saw never reappeared again, except for a couple
of clips from the perspective of a character we've not actually spent a lot of time with.
Compared to the likes of Wally, Frank or Barnaby, he felt like a bit of a background character.
But now, he seems to be taking centre stage, showing us that decoder ring that got us started
on this whole journey.
I'm talking about Welcome Home's reliable mailman, Eddie Dear.
In these clips, we see Eddie wondering why no one asked him to deliver anything and so,
to pass the time, he starts wrapping presents for his friends, but constantly begins to
doubt his choices.
If no one is trusting him with the mail, are his choices even good enough?
All of this eventually leads to frustration.
He slams the desk and throws things around because he feels useless and alone.
Poor guy, just give the man something to deliver, it's all he has!
But, these clips highlight something that has been bubbling away under the surface of
Welcome Home pretty much since the beginning.
Eddie is an outcast.
In our last theory, we showed that the interactions between the neighbors are not as harmonious
as they seem, but looking more closely, you realize that out of all of them, Eddie is
the one that is most often mistreated, insulted or taken advantage of.
When Eddie is talking to Howdy about what he's doing that day, Howdy just waves him off.
Barnaby chases him down the street, demanding his delivery.
And in a secret video from the Halloween update, Sally is talking about a famous performer.
Eddie recalls that same performer and Sally says…
Even the mailman gets it, as if he's somehow lesser.
Clearly, the town thinks very little of Eddie.
But there's something else that stood out to me.
Why is there no mail?
It's the holiday season, surely there's something for Eddie to deliver.
Even when the neighbors are being mean to him in those previous videos, he's still
going around delivering mail.
Hence Barnaby is even able to chase him down the street.
So where has all the mail gone?
Well, do you guys remember the guestbook from the original Welcome Home website?
The one that had all those reaction drawings from Wally that helped us figure out he was
talking to us?
And do you remember what greeted us before we entered that guestbook?
A colorful envelope, a pixel art version of Eddie Dear, and an image telling you to
visit the guestbook, next to another image of Eddie.
Eddie is associated with the guestbook, almost as if he's responsible for delivering those
messages.
But what you might also remember is that back in July, the guestbook was closed in order
to stop Wally from interacting with us.
Quote, I'm closing the guestbook, I'm not playing this game anymore, the ringing
is enough.
You could still see the guestbook, but you were no longer able to submit new entries.
There were no new messages to pass on, no new letters to deliver.
And that's why, come home warming, Eddie has run out of stuff to deliver.
Because the well of fan interactions has dried up.
Meaning he's out of a job, and now he's starting to crack.
And that is exactly what Home wants.
This video continues with the residents all heading to home for the Homewarming party.
Eddie sits in an armchair and the narrator says,
Eddie Dear was happy.
But as the line is repeated, Eddie's face begins to sweat.
He looks concerned.
And the audio begins to build until suddenly, there's silence.
Eddie looks at his plate.
A plate that holds a single pea.
That's pretty weird.
But this "meal" is featured on the last page of the Welcome Home cookbook
as a certified showstopper.
And at the bottom of the recipe is a note.
Having a get together?
Consider inviting more peas to the party.
Add additional peas according to how many guests there are.
Take care not to place them too close together.
The peas aren't just peas, they are representations of the neighbors from Home.
Just like the pegs were in the last update.
And it's telling us to have them all separated rather than together.
Up until now, we believed that Home wasn't happy about the neighbors constantly fighting
each other.
But the more I look at this pea on a plate, the more I wonder if that's actually what
Home wants.
Home doesn't want any of them too friendly or close.
Why?
Because it offers them the perfect opportunity for control.
In this video, Eddie looks up to find himself alone in a black void, with Home staring right
back at him.
A scene that looks awfully familiar to the one we found underneath Home on the old website.
A black void with Wally worshipping Home as Home's eye is staring at him.
What follows are the sounds of Eddie struggling, his heartbeat racing, he clutches the arms
of the chair, his vision begins to blur, until we are snapped back into the party with Frank
and Sally talking to Eddie.
Exactly like what happens to Wally during the Halloween update.
We've known for a while that Wally is under the control of Home, and so this new video
is showing us that he isn't the only one.
Eddie has also fallen into Home's grasp.
Earlier in this video we even played a clip that shows Wally feeling isolated and alone.
That is Home's tactic.
Get the neighbors alone, disenfranchise them with the neighborhood, and take control.
We see the idea repeated in Wally's rendition of Toyland.
While Eddie was living in the neighborhood, just dwelling, he was happy.
But the moment he saw the neighborhood wasn't all it was cracked up to be, passing its
borders, he's gone too far, he can't go back to pretending everything is fine.
Eddie feels like he's not wanted in the neighborhood, he's becoming separated from
the group, so much so that he is the only one to not have any home warming decorations
on his post office.
And thanks to the lack of mail from the guestbook, he's become isolated, lacking purpose, making
him the perfect puppet.
And remember, the only reason he has no mail is because Wally, Home's first puppet, was
responding to the guestbook, which forced W to shut it down.
Home has been playing 4D chess this whole time, and we had no idea.
Home is using W to take control of the neighbourhood, the WHRP, and the world.
Eddie being under Home's control also explains why W hasn't received any updates since
Christmas.
The WHRP always said,
All the information found on this website was extracted from documents that had been
uncovered in brightly colored envelopes.
Colored envelopes have always been associated with Eddie.
He delivers all mail to and from Home in these colorful envelopes, which means he was always
helping Wally to send these letters from the start.
But now, Eddie isn't collecting or sending mail anymore.
He's working for Home.
But hope is not lost.
Frank Frankly is seen at the end of this video talking to Eddie.
But when Eddie isn't responding, Frank becomes more concerned.
He stops addressing Eddie as Mr. Dear, and starts whispering his first name.
As we discussed last time, Frank is the man on the inside.
He was the one we found on the Question Answerer's secret website in a picture that showed him
with human hands surrounded by his own body parts.
He is using these to disguise himself and uncover the cult at the center of the neighborhood.
Now he's using the bugs and secret videos to help us realise that horrible truth.
As Eddie can barely get a word out during this encounter, it seems like Frank is aware
of what's happening to him.
He's becoming another puppet for Home's game, and so he's trying to help him break
away.
Each time Frank says Eddie's name, Eddie's vision becomes clearer.
Kind of like how in the secret videos we found by clicking Frank's bugs, we see Wally's
vision begin to glitch out when his name is mentioned.
These videos are from Frank, so he knows that saying their names, expressing concern and
building those connections, it can disconnect them from Home.
But he does it in whispers so the rest of the neighbours, and especially Wally, can't
hear him.
Again, the other neighbors don't know that Frank isn't who he says he is.
So he's being secretive in what he's doing while trying to help Eddie out best he can.
As we've discussed, W hasn't received any new mail since Christmas, which means
this fix is likely only temporary.
And with 2 out of 8 members of the neighborhood under Home's control, it's only a matter
of time before the rest of the town succumb to Home's plan.
And if Home has their way, we'll all be joining them down in the void very soon.
But hey, that's just a theory.
A GAME THEORY.
Thanks for watching.
And if you like ARG puzzles but you don't really want to spend hours going through them
on your own, why not click the video on the left and join Matt as he takes a look at
this latest update for himself.
Or if you're interested in another ARG, then check out our video on the evil desktop
assistant KinetoPET.
That video is over on the right.
As always, don't forget to subscribe, but until next time, keep your smile merry, and
I will see you soon.