Game Theory: Wally Has A Message For You (Welcome Home)

Hello Internet! Welcome to Game Theory, the show that always

welcome

s you

home

like a good neighbor should. And if you want to be the best neighbor, you can go ahead and click the subscribe button. So you'll see how we do, neighbor. If you couldn't tell from the bad puns and strange glitches, today we revisit a franchise that I've been very excited to jump into since I became a host for the channel. The creative and artistic horror experience, Welcome Home. I've been hooked by the way this website tells its story, with misspellings, drawings, and literal errors that reveal the weird and wonderful world of this long-forgotten edutainment show from the '70s, and a group known as Welcome Home Restoration Project that is desperately trying to revive it.

But in classic ARG style, there are dark secrets beneath the surface. Creepy audio

message

s, hidden pages and disturbing videos show us that this charming neighborhood might not be so charming after all. In fact, it is much more than just a children's show. It's a sect. A cult that worships an all-powerful entity that lives in the center of their city, the smart house known simply as Home, and led by its faithful servant and stand-in for Mr. Rogers, Wally. In our last two theories, we've established that Wally somehow managed to make contact with the real world. All of this is to indoctrinate the WHRP and, eventually, the world, through the exhibitions that were being held.

However, it became clear that Wally may not have been doing this voluntarily. Which I guess makes sense. No one could be evil and wear stylish and soft cardigans like that. I should get one of those. Amy! Can we do one of those? Only if you show that people want to buy it! You know what to do, guys. Dive into those comments! Where was I anyway? 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 is someone else in the neighborhood who has been using the website's errors to expose Home's plan.

Local insect enthusiast and resident grump, Frank Frankly. But now, after all this time, the internet's favorite, Wally Darling, is back. And he's got a shiny new website to celebrate a housewarming. Which is the Christmas version of Welcome Home. In March. As you can see, things no longer add up. Which means there will probably be a ton of new stories waiting for us in the neighborhood. So even though it's spring, bundle up, grab a cup of hot cocoa, and join me, neighbor, as we uncover the secrets behind this new website and spread holiday cheer for all to hear.

For everyone to hear. For. All. TO LISTEN. First of all, when I say shiny new website, I mean it. This is not just an update. The old website has been removed and a new one has been rebuilt in its place to remove all those annoying errors, glitches and files. There are these strange new doodles on the website, but I clicked on them and nothing happened, so it looks like this reboot was a success. Other than that, the website looks relatively similar to the old one, outside of the new Christmas themes. But if you take a look at the news section, there is a newsletter that tells us all about the new things they have on the product page.

So I guess that's where we go next. And they really weren't lying. This is by far the largest part of the update. There are audio files of Welcome Home commercials, songs sung by members of the neighborhood, including Wally's tone-deaf rendition of Doris Day's song Toyland. There are even kids' toys that contain real throwing knives and a haunting cookbook full of haunting recipes that I will definitely send to Santi later. But there was one new addition that caught my attention above all the others. Yes, even those deadly weapons. And that was the box of Crispy Sweets frozen cereal.

More specifically, the back of the cereal box. We see our trusty postman Eddie Dear holding a decoder ring, encouraging us to create or decipher secret codes. Call it a hunch, I think it could be a clue. This decoder ring uses images that correlate to the letters of the alphabet. And if you've been paying attention, these images are the exact same ones we've been seeing spread around the website. Ha! I knew those random scribbles weren't just random scribbles. So of course I flipped through 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 I couldn't decipher at first. That was until I remembered that this is a web-based ARG. These letters are not words, they are part of a URL. Three Ws at the beginning, and the T and the E that spell the domain, dot net, which gives us the website www.awayfrompryingeyes.net. And sure enough, type it into your search bar and we'll be taken to a new website. This site contains the writings of a WHRP member, gathering evidence of all the strange glitches on the old website, trying to figure out what's going on.

Looking down the page, we can see that the writer's name is W, which is suspicious given that the only character we know with W as the first letter of his name is Wally. However, we don't really have anything else to go on, so I'll leave it at that for now. But make no mistake, I'm watching you. Anyway, I started reading what W had to say, and as he did, it occurred to me that we'd met this character before. In this post, W notes his frustration, quote: no one has come forward or provided leads, and dead ends have piled up since then.

Which lines up with a quote from a newsletter that was published during a minor update in October, the Halloween update, where again, the writer talks a lot about the lack of information. Our source hasn't sent the full book yet, I don't understand why, what's the point of leaving it out? Tearing out pages, what a waste. It takes a long time to take everything away from them. Still, we are patient, right? If you're reading this, hurry up. So it looks like W is the one who writes the newsletters, but those aren't the only writings of his we've seen before.

Remember on the original website where we found text that said things like, when I unwrapped the first card, I felt it, I heard it, open, open, open. I want it out. I'm going to take it out. Well, the same kind of writing style can be seen in W on this new hidden website. He needed me. I needed it. Everyone started looking at us. You want this as much as I do. Until now, we suspected that these hidden entries on the old website were written by Question Answerer, the museum curator who was hired to put together the Playfellow exhibition.

They created their own hidden website that would tell us about a dream they had about Wally sitting at the foot of his bed, calling them on a toy phone. He was the only one acting erratically, so at the time it made sense that he would be the one making these chaotic entrances. But now, W's writing seems to fit a lot more. Additionally, it would make much more sense for a WHRP member to be able to modify the main website rather than an independent museum curator. We even reference the person answering the question and the events we saw in the last update.

Nothing from our curator who has since recovered. I don't know what happened to them to get so bad, to create that page. Clearly, things got a lot worse for our curator friend between updates. But despite knowing the website and what it said about the phone, W decided to grab the defective toy anyway and keep trying to fix it after the show. We can see a page labeled "Broken Phone" containing his findings, and we learn that no matter what W tries, the phone keeps doing the same thing he did for Question Answerer. It doesn't stop ringing. When they catch him he doesn't give them an answer either.

Until he does. What we hear is Wally's terrible version of the song Toyland. Only this time, there are lines of Wally speaking at the beginning and the end. Wally is still using the phone to communicate with whoever is on the other end of the line, but unlike last time with the answering machine, I don't think this is Wally's side controlled by Home. Listen to what Wally says before you hang up. That line, I don't want to end this call, it sounds desperate to me. Wally says that he is alone with Home and doesn't seem excited, because with no one else around, Home can take control and carry out the next part of his plan.

The housewarming is the next part of Home's plan to keep the neighborhood in line and indoctrinate more people into this cult. And we can see this plan in action if we head to the second evidence of this new secret site called "Commercials." On this page, W tells us that they somehow managed to find clips of the TV show Welcome Home playing on his old TV. Previous entries on the old website talked about how no one seems to remember this show, and despite having a ton of merchandise, they had no evidence that the actual TV show existed.

So this is a big deal, at least it would be if W had managed to record any of it. Dude, you had a job. Although I shouldn't give them too much of a hard time, they seem to recognize their mistake and from then on, they leave the TV on, staring at it constantly, waiting for the show to come back on the screen. Until he finally found something. Quote, I was finally rewarded in December. The channel it appeared on didn't make any sense, but I didn't care. The video and audio evidence began to play, one after the other.

I have captured and collected everything I could. When the images disappeared, I had to switch to another channel, where another one would appear and then disappear again. This explains why it looks like a Christmas-themed update will be coming in March. The newsletter that informed us about the new merchandise is actually labeled December 25, Christmas Day. But immediately afterwards, a new bulletin is published calling it an error. This update was planned for December, but they were so engrossed in 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 that they even claim that things in their house have started to rot. But it was worth it, because now, after a year on the website talking about a show that didn't seem to exist, W finally had video evidence of Welcome Home, and what has been discovered is heartbreaking. This video is mostly filled with commercials advertising things like cereal, sleeping pills, and cigarettes. Ah yes, a balanced breakfast for any kid growing up in the '70s. I'm joking about this, but back then, advertising this kind of thing with animated characters was pretty normal. However, morally questionable ads are not the only thing this video includes.

W laments that the original show they watched never appeared again, except for a couple of clips from the perspective of a character we haven't actually spent much time with. Compared to people like Wally, Frank or Barnaby, he felt like a secondary character. But now he seems to be taking center stage, showing us that decoder ring that started us on this whole journey. I'm talking about Welcome Home's trusty postman, Eddie Dear. In these clips, we see Eddie wondering why no one asked him to deliver anything and then, to pass the time, he starts wrapping gifts for his friends, but constantly begins to doubt his choices.

If no one trusts him with email, are his choices good enough? All of this eventually leads to frustration. He hits the desk and throws things because he feels worthless and alone. Poor guy, just give the man something to hand in, it's all he has! But these clips highlight something that's been bubbling beneath the surface of Welcome Home practically 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 closer, you realize that of all of them, Eddie is the one who is mistreated, insulted or taken advantage of the most. .

When Eddie is talking to Howdy about what he's doing that day, Howdy simply fires him. Barnaby chases him down the street, demanding he be handed over. And in a secret Halloween update video, Sally talks about a famous artist. Eddie remembers the same artist and Sally says... Even the postman gets it, like he's somehow inferior. Clearly, the town thinks very little of Eddie. But there is something else that caught my attention. Why is there no email? It's the Christmas season, surely Eddie has something to offer. Even when the neighbors are mean to him in those earlier videos, he still delivers mail.

Therefore, Barnaby can even chase him down the street. So where did all the mail go? Well, remember the guestbook from the original Welcome Home website? The one who had all those drawings ofWally's reactions that helped us realize he was talking to us? And do you remember what he greeted us before we entered that guest book? A colorful envelope, a pixel art version of Eddie Dear, and an image directing you to visit the guestbook, along with another image of Eddie. Eddie is associated with the guest book, almost as if he is responsible for conveying those

message

s. But what you may also remember is that in July, the guestbook was closed to prevent Wally from interacting with us.

Appointment, I close the guest book, I don't play this

game

anymore, the bell is enough. You could still see the guestbook, but you could no longer submit new entries. There were no new messages to convey, no new letters to deliver. And that's why, upon returning

home

, Eddie has run out of things to deliver. Because the well of fan interactions has dried up. Which means he's out of work and now he's starting to fall apart. And that's exactly what he wants Home. This video continues with residents heading home for the housewarming party. Eddie sits in an armchair and the narrator says: Eddie Dear was happy.

But as the phrase is repeated, Eddie's face begins to sweat. He seems worried. And the audio begins to increase until, suddenly, there is silence. Eddie looks at his plate. A dish containing a single pea. That's pretty strange. But this "meal" appears on the last page of the Welcome Home cookbook as a certified spectacular dish. And at the end of the recipe there is a note. To have a meeting? Consider inviting more peas to the party. Add additional peas depending on the number of guests. Be careful not to place them too close together. The peas are not just peas, they are representations of Hogar's neighbors.

Just as the pins were in the last update. And he's telling us to have them all separate instead of together. Until now, we thought that Home didn't like neighbors constantly fighting with each other. But the more I look at this pea on a plate, the more I wonder if that's really what Home wants. Hogar doesn't want any of them to be too friendly or close. Because? Because it offers them the perfect opportunity for control. In this video, Eddie looks up and finds himself alone in a black void, with Home staring at him. A scene that looks awfully familiar to the one we found under Home on the old website.

A black void with Wally worshiping Home while Home's eyes stare at him. What follows are the sounds of Eddie struggling, his heartbeat racing, him gripping the arms of the chair, his vision beginning to blur, until we return to 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 Home's control, so this new video shows us that he's not the only one. Eddie has also fallen into Home's hands. Earlier in this video we even played a clip showing Wally feeling isolated and alone.

That's Home's tactic. Keep the neighbors at peace by disenfranchising them from the neighborhood and take control. We see the idea repeated in Wally's interpretation of Toyland. While Eddie lived in the neighborhood, he just lived, he was happy. But the moment he saw that the neighborhood was not as good as it seemed, crossing its borders, he has gone too far, he can't go back to pretending that everything is fine. Eddie feels that he is not wanted in the neighborhood, he is separating himself from the group, to the point that he is the only one who does not have housewarming decorations in his post office.

And thanks to the lack of guestbook mail, he became isolated and lacked purpose, making him the perfect puppet. And remember, the only reason he doesn't have mail is because Wally, Home's first puppet, was responding to the guestbook, forcing W to close it. Home has been playing 4D chess all this time and we had no idea. Home is using W to take control of the neighborhood, the WHRP, and the world. The fact that Eddie is under Home's control also explains why W hasn't received any updates since Christmas. The WHRP always said: All information found on this website was extracted from documents that had been discovered in brightly colored envelopes.

Colored envelopes have always been associated with Eddie. He delivers all mail to and from Home in these colorful envelopes, meaning he was always helping Wally send these letters from the beginning. But now Eddie no longer picks up or sends mail. He is working for the Home. But hope is not lost. Frank Frankly is seen at the end of this video talking to Eddie. But when Eddie doesn't respond, Frank becomes more worried. He stops addressing Eddie as Mr. Dear and starts whispering his name. As we discussed last time, Frank is the inside man. He was the one we found on the secret Question Answerer website in an image that showed him with human hands surrounded by parts of his own body.

He is using them to disguise himself and uncover the cult at the center of the neighborhood. He is now using the mistakes and secret videos to help us realize that horrible truth. Since Eddie can barely utter a word during this encounter, it seems that Frank is aware of what is happening to him. He is becoming another puppet in Home's

game

, so he tries to help him escape. Every time Frank says Eddie's name, Eddie's vision becomes clearer. Kind of like in the secret videos we found by clicking on Frank's mistakes, we see Wally's vision start to fail when his name is mentioned.

These videos are of Frank, so he knows that saying his name, expressing concern, and making those connections can disconnect you from Home. But he does it in whispers so that the rest of the neighbors, and especially Wally, can't hear him. Once again, the other neighbors don't know that Frank is not who he says he is. So he keeps what he does a secret while he tries to help Eddie the best he can. As we've mentioned, W hasn't received any new mail since Christmas, which means this solution is probably only temporary. And with 2 of the 8 members of the neighborhood under Home's control, it's only a matter of time before the rest of the city succumbs to Home's plan.

And if Home has its way, soon we will all join them in the void. But hey, that's just a

theory

. A THEORY OF GAMES. Thanks for watching. And if you like ARG puzzles but don't want to spend hours solving them alone, why not click on the video to the left and join Matt as he checks out this latest update for himself? Or if you're interested in another ARG, check out our video on the evil KinetoPET desktop assistant. That video is on the right. As always, don't forget to subscribe, but until next time, keep your smile happy and we'll see you soon.