OHR House: A Reminiscence
Hosted by Kingston C. Rockwell (Uncommon)

OHR House 3 ended earlier this month, bringing the series to a satisfying close. To celebrate, Uncommon invited producer JSH357 to a fireside chat, along with The Giz, Season Two's third co-producer; RedMaverickZero, Season Three's graphical virtuoso; and Hachi-Roku, notorious IRC lurker and one of the men who'd seen them through it all.

	Uncommon: God, where to begin?
	RedMaverickZero: The beginning, how House 3 happened, why he decided to make another sequel.
	Hachi-Roku: How House 1 happened!
	JSH357: We're here at the end of the OHR House saga. Two black men got rich, one white man won what was really important... ...and that man was Hachi-Roku.
	Haha
	The Giz: Hail Hachi!
	Choo choo?
	RMZ was asking why I started Season Three. At the end of Two, I left it ambiguous because I wasn't sure if it would be worth the time to keep going. But nearly 10 seconds later I started thinking of ideas again, and I think by a week, the whole cast had been picked out. I was tentative about starting because OHR games just don't get the reception they used to, but I thought I really had something here: good ideas, good characters. And I wanted to give the series a better ending.

	So, if we told you when you started the first one where this would end up going, what would you think?
	Gee, I thought it was just not gonna fly. I mean, people were cynical back then.
	Were?!
	All the Heroists, game design enthusiasts, etc. I just wanted to make something fun then, something like American Idol or whatever that people could get excited about. I was nervous the day I released it, but I got a pretty good turnout. Never saw myself making another season because I just wasn't sure if it would work.
	Season 1 was a hit, and everyone loved it, but for whatever reason after that, the viewers went down by a lot, at least the active ones.
	Yeah, there was big drop off in viewers midway through Season Two. It was during that HACKED BY HACKERS! fiasco on CP.

	Yeah, Season Two almost fell of the face of the earth due to lack of viewership, was it hard to keep going with Three for the same reason?
	Well, I'll admit I got excited when I started Season Three and I didn't even think much about it until after releasing the episode. 16 votes in the first week; that was the highest I ever got in Season Three. Season One had a fair amount more, but it was never so huge. By the end of Three, I had stopped caring, the voter shortage was what it was.
	You were apathetic to the apathy.
	Yes, exactly, Giz. Even on the forums, there was little discussion. In House Two there was a lot more. Same in IRC.
	Well, House 2 was born on IRC.

	Well, I think the cast was less and less popular in the community.
	Why's that, Red?
	RMZ, I don't think the cast mattered, most people didn't even know half the cast of One and it had the most interest of all three seasons.
	Well, a lot of active members knew them.
	But I can't play House 1 and 2 anymore, not after making this season. I've tried, even. Parts of the older ones embarrass me, and I don't just mean the Kirby train incident.
	It wasn't visibly noticeable he was a train, in my opinion.
	He...wasn't, he was firing at a train.
	He was supposed to have a rocket launcher hat.

	Looking back, how well do you think it all turned out?
	It's a bittersweet turnout. Personally I really enjoyed the plot in House 3. It was lots of fun to write and rewrite, and I got everything I wanted in, but I'm kind of divided on creating it. In a way I feel like I wasted my time, over 2800 text boxes that maybe 30 people will read. I do feel like it was a good OHR game, maybe one of the best, so I should just be proud and forget what other people think.

	Red, how about you tell us a bit about your work on the graphics for Season 3?
	I don't know about you guys, but the house in Season 3 definitely looked the best of them all. I remember originally, the house looked "too realistic" for JSH so I had to basically take away more and more details.
	The graphics were the best of all three seasons, for sure. I felt we could have done more with Season Two's. But RMZ's delays were the main reason the show took two years!!! He even abandoned me around Week Five. (kidding about the first statement)
	Scandalous! Red, a rebuttal?
	Dude, I had the graphics done for the house like 2 months before he started the show beyond the intro.
	Yeah, I think RMZ floated off to do his own work once he got into his spin-off, but to be fair, he did do most of the graphics in House 3.
	And in my defense, there was a HUGE amount of delay between episodes of House 3.
	We can talk about the delays, but they won't seem relevant to anyone watching the series as it is now.

	Was there any conflict of interests doing the graphics on House 3 while working on House Heroes?
	Well, I didn't feel like it anymore. You kinda get in the zone when you work on a project. I was on board, and quick to get the stuff done, but I got discouraged when it took forever, so since I was constantly on standby I did my own thing.
	Fortunately, I didn't have too much left to make.
	Yeah, Wiz did a good job at making the tiles based on the style JSH wanted me to do for the show.
	Wiz's contributions were great because that episode took place in another world.

	How do you two feel about the sort of rivalry between House and Heroes? They are pretty much the only entries to the Epic Marathon, sadly. And as a sub-question, who would win in a fight, Hugh Laurie or Masi Oka?
	Masi Whoka?
	Do they have time travel/deduction skills?
	Sure. We'll say it's Gregory House versus Hiro whateverthehellhislastnameis.
	Hiro for the win. House can plot all he wants, but he's no match against deus ex machina.
	I don't know. Remember that episode of House where he was telling three stories at once? He's used to time not being a fixed construct. And every patient he has ever is Deus Ex Machina. "HEY THAT COUGHING KID REMINDS ME! TUBERCULOSIS!"
	At the last minute!
	I'd say Hiro would complete his mission, but House would put all the pieces together and be like "That doesn't make any sense... unless... someone time traveled" and he'd look right at Hiro.

	Anyway, I haven't paid any attention to the Epic Marathon or House Heroes, really. I haven't watched any of Heroes since Week Three. I didn't ever consider the spin-offs to be rivals.
	Ouch.
	I think George Lucas ignores all the fan works when making his movies, right? That's pretty much what I did.
	Don't recall who, but some have said they prefer one to the other. It's funny, 'cause they're the same formula, but totally different in terms of delivery.
	Well, whether they do or not doesn't matter, I was just making my show. Also I just got that, "House vs. Heroes". This is why Uncy should have guest-written. Though I have to say, House has gone downhill, while Heroes has been picking up.
	I dunno about guest writing, I think my weeks on House 2 kind of ruined it. We were just constantly one-upping each other each week, and when you hit the ceiling, well, where do you go from there?
	You wrote some good stuff. I don't think it was your fault, that show was just messy; too many writers with conflicting ideas. We did a good job keeping it together, or as good as we could, but it was bound for disaster. Giz did a great thing by taking that next episode in a new direction.
	I did?
	I still think Week 5, where they were stuck watching TV, was a brilliant concept.
	Oh!
	It wasn't epic or anything, but it was the best way to follow Week Four. Who knows, House 2 might have been better if we'd gone on as we had been, but that's all in the past.
	Week 5 was good because it let everybody take it easy. Week 4 was so much stress.
	I would've liked for us to work as a team, instead of alternating.
	Well, three people writing one script gets really busy.
	As it turned out, OHR House ended up being a classic trilogy: first one was fresh, second was experimental and didn't always work out, third one felt like the best of both worlds. I think I outwrote House 2 Week 4 with Week One this season in terms of length. The quality is pretty subjective, but like I said, I find it hard to watch Seasons 1 and 2 now.

	This whole season was a good send-off to the series, but what do you have planned next? Where do you go from the House?
	Well, I'm definitely getting away from the OHR. It's not because I dislike the engine or the people, there's just not enough of them. If I'm going to make any more games I want someone to play them! I've made, what, 25 games now? The days of making them just because are over, if I make another game I want it to be something more people can enjoy. I have an idea for a Mermaid Game, don't know if it'll ever surface, but hopefully it will be less writing-intensive. It's easy to burn out doing stuff like OHR House.

	What would you say were your influences making OHR House?
	The premise and structure of the game were taken almost directly out of the NBC show Last Comic Standing. I only watched the first two seasons, but I really enjoyed the first one. Comics made for interesting housemates, but now I think the show is all stand-up? It completely kills what made the show fun in the first place. The only difference was the comedians were competing with stand-up while in OHR House the cast mates were competing in more of a The Real World fashion... I guess it's still sort of like stand up, the funnier characters tended to win. In the end, the show was a comedy. I was also influenced by scenes in RPGs: Final Fantasy games, Xenogears, etc. and much later, the Phoenix Wright series.
	Didn't someone go on a date on a ferris wheel, ala FF7?
	Yes, in Season One, the scene was probably influenced by FF7, I don't even remember.
	JSH and Lucier... Heh, it just now dawns on me how creepy that could've been if the date was played romantically.
	Ha. JSH isn't really gay! But whether he would have had the nerve to get with Lucier is up to speculation. I had a lot of fun with "JSH is gay" in Season Three.
	But, all the same, that scene would've been loads creepier if he'd been trying.
	The whole thing is kind of creepy if you think about it. "I WROTE FANFICTION ABOUT MY FRIIIIIIIIIENDS"
	I suppose it's like fanfiction, but I think fanfiction is a pretty important thing, joke about it all you want. The Aeneid was basically a fanfic, you could argue the New Testament too. Lots of TV shows and movies reference others.

	Is that one of the reasons the "JSH is gay" joke was so prolific? Because of how sleazy it would've been to try to play him romantically with a character based on another real person ON THE INTERNET?
	Plus it's easy.
	Maybe so. JSH wasn't really concerned with romance throughout the series.
	Come to think of it, most of the romantic subplots in the series were either so far removed from the community member that inspired them or with a fictional character.
	Now that you mention it, yes. It's all a coincidence... Well, no, it's because there are so few girls in the OHR Community. Romances... Lucier, Princess Lana and White Mage had them, but two of those are gimmick accounts.
	Both of them even referenced their gimmicks; Lana unmasking as No_Shot, White Mage working for JSH.
	Just don't think too hard about White Mage being an alt account for JSH and him getting it on with CN.
	White Mage was one of my favorite characters this season. Playing with her gimmick, playing with her loyalties, and the romance subplot, I knew she wouldn't be winning any votes, but fortunately she stuck around.

	Throughout the whole series, have you had any great story ideas you had to scrap because a character was voted out?
	Sticking with House 3, there's two things: I wanted to develop RMSephy and Fenrir's relationship more. Not a gay romance, per se, but I wanted to keep them bickering and becoming friends again. The other thing was I wanted to have a "Meet the Parents" episode in Week Seven. It was on the drawing board for a long time, everyone's Mom and Dad would show up and get into crazy hijinks, but it just seemed too random.
	...why did you say that? Now I want to see a 4th season with everyone's parents! I'll be up all night dreaming about it...
	Plus Komera was still around And her parents were supposed to be dead. And then I had the idea of destroying the house, which I felt had to happen. I had to end the series and just doing it swiftly in Week Eight would have been too fast. I didn't have many ideas for 1/2 I didn't use.
	Pssh, I remember him talking about one during House 2. Apparently the week my character got voted off, he was supposed to sober up.
	I think in House 2 we were expecting No_Shot to be voted off after he unmasked himself, so in week four I was gonna try bending the one joke RMZ had, but I think what we ended up with was way better.
	No_Shot staying in was great! It was unexpected and led to the show being better.

	On that note, is it me or did all the characters in House 3 exit stage right just as their time was up or as their hand got played?
	I don't think so. I think the voting went well, but there was room for more with everyone.
	That does tend to happen a lot.
	Or maybe not everyone: Jack, Fenrir, Sephy. There were lots of votes where I would have been happy either way, but I was the saddest about Sephy leaving. I know he wasn't that popular a character, but I enjoyed him.
	I felt like the last few weeks of House 3 were really, really tough
	I don't know, those last two examples are precisely what I'm talking about: Fenrir had the RP ep, then gone; Sephy came out and grew a spine, gone.
	To answer your question Hachi, if you thought everyone left at the right time, then good. That means I must have done something right.
	That's pretty much what I felt (even though I was rooting for White Mage to stay in longer).
	It almost felt like every episode was A Very Special Episode in that way.
	I tried to make most of the episodes have something unique this time, but not just a gimmick. Weeks 4 and 5 kind of run together on the replay, but not in a bad way.

	I want to ask for the record, if Jack had survived what would we have seen from him? Like, just any ol' plot thread out there?
	We voted Bena out to see what Jack had in store, but I guess he only had one more week given to him before you put him on the block again.
	We would have seen Jack's gambling addiction swirl out of control, It would have led to a House M.D. parody. Seriously, with Sephy or someone trying to diagnose him, and Zoidberg would have come in.
	Wait, what? Really?

	Surlaw'd mentioned his disappointment with his namesake character last year, what're your thoughts on that?
	I personally thought he was really hard to write for.
	Don't care, really. I agree that it was a crummy character, at the time I thought he was funny, but the joke wore thin. And like Giz says, he was hard to write for.
	He was the least interesting character by far.
	And yet he won.
	I wasn't surprised he won.
	Haha
	I think I'd mostly tried to play him as saying absurd things, but I don't think any of us knew what to make of him.
	Uncy did the best, with that whole down the rabbit hole episode.
	Poptart and Aethereal didn't make any sense as the victors.
	I thought Aeth had promise, if only because I never got tired of the rambling on.
	You actually read all of it?
	Haha yeah.
	Anyway, the only thing I really regret a lot is overusing the lolita jokes with Surlaw's character. He was based on the way Surlaw used to act on the forums, and pretty accurately so.
	In hindsight, maybe we could've given him a Lolita-esque fixation on something silly, like the bunnies.
	You picked one small detail about the characters, and blew it up into their personas.
	It would've been worse if Giz ever made PHC vs. ARMY OF LOLITAS.
	It would've. That went from a funny #JSH idea to "Oh Giz you just make it". But I never really knew what to do with it all, so I put something silly on the gamelist hoping someone'd help, and it never showed up.

	I didn't get the bunny thing, I mean if it was written in somewhere I totally forgot all about it.
	Get The Bunny was a phrase I'd heard him say before, so we put Aethereal in a bunny suit to see what would happen.
	Surlaw always has shown a fascination with bunnies. The problem with that is, like most of the problems with House 2, there was too much reliance on gimmick humor And it's something I tried really hard to correct in House 3, even though some slipped in. White Mage existed almost as a tribute to bad gimmick humor.
	I'll go on record by saying that the White Mage puns were my favorite gimmick of all time ever of everything.
	Honestly, I never saw him as a pedophile or a bunny-eater, just a weird hobo with a childish love of play.
	Yes, but this has been discussed in another interview and it's almost completely irrelevant to House 3, since I think I only referenced Surlaw two or three times in House 3. With that said, I'm glad Surlaw at least wasn't that bitter, he contributed his awesome Zoidberg sprite which was something I had wanted ever since Pepsi Ranger gave me the idea of using him on the show. There was a lot of community interaction this time in terms of just getting stuff done.

	Have you ever had anyone else tell you they were especially angry or pleased with their character in the show?
	I haven't heard many people comment on their characters and when they do it's usually "that was funny". Only Surlaw seemed to dislike his.
	You should interview as many of the people involved. Ask them how they feel about their characterization.
	I kind of thought Fenrir wasn't too happy, but I might have been reading him wrong. I did make him a little arrogant... Wasn't trying to pick on Fen, it just fit the character. Making a show about people but not about them is strange, I never really felt nervous about their reactions for some reason.

	Yeah, a lot of times there'll be a huge dissonance between the character and person, but I guess that's the safest route.
	It is. The forum names just give it kind of a shove to get started. I guess I could have named everyone differently, but would that have been any better?
	OHR House K :(
	Hell no. That would've been awful. Then everyone would've felt like "HEY HE'S MAKING FUN OF ME IN SECRET!" I think it was better to keep it all on top of the table.
	It's like the question of whether or not outsiders might enjoy the show. You can argue that they don't recognize the names so they'll like it better with original characters, but that's not what we look for in REALITY shows, we want to see people who are just like real people, or internet personas as it is here. Even the gimmick accounts are flavored by the person they are based on.
	I might've made a few too many nods to the namesake in my scripts for season 2. No_Shot especially, but he seemed to enjoy week 4.

	How do the people outside the community know our characters aren't original?
	Yes Giz, one of the things I always say to people who ask me about it is that we're never really introduced to ANYONE in a reality show before watching it, or any fiction unless it's referencing someone else, so that hang up confuses me. On the other hand, I probably wouldn't play a Game Maker House, so I guess I'm a hypocrite.
	I guess it might be the prospect of a scripted reality show. There isn't a lot of reality, so it's more of a sitcom.
	That might be it, but the fear of in-jokes could scare people off. OHR House 3 has some in-jokes, but I stayed away from them when possible. It's kind of a fine line to crawl on, I had to reference OHR people somewhere, that's just the nature of the show.
	Biggest in-jokes I can think of were Nathan's personalities, but Rurouni was too good to be true.
	I guess so. But what would have made it appeal to others? Naming them Steve and Doug?
	I wouldn't change it in the least, I like the odd little nods to the people.
	It's a fascinating, strange subject.
	Nathan rocked, lotta characters rocked.
	Nathan ended up being one of my least favorite to write until the very end. I tried to turn him around and give him a "good" side. I didn't want him to be all black and white. I felt like Nathan just came off too evil.
	Strawman, you mean?
	Partly, I wanted him to seem grayer in the end, partly I wanted to make up for JJkaybomb in House 2. I don't think all religious people are nuts, even crazy ones like Nathan Karr. Part of what makes him a redeemable character is that he is religious, and passionate about it.
	JJ was definitely a strawman...
	A funny strawman though.
	Did we do that before or after she went off on that whole WHERE'S THE NOBILITY thing?
	I can't even remember. Whatever we did, it fit her somehow. That's been one of the curiosities of this series. Somehow, everyone ends up reflecting their real persona in some twisted way, like CN's relationship troubles in House 3 are reflective of his real life, but I wasn't even thinking about that. The White Mage romance just came naturally in the story.

	Has anyone talked to him about House 3? Especially with his winning?
	Fenrir told CN that he is in the show, not sure if he knows that he won. I haven't talked to him about it at all, apparently he was surprised more by the fact that I was still making games.
	I think it'll be funnier if he finds out in 20 years.
	Definitely, Hachi.
	I was tempted in preparation for this interview, but it didn't happen. I figured it'd be all, "Hey CN did you know you won OHR House finally?" And he'd say, like, "They still make that?"
	And hey, CN hosted the real life OHR House! I never thought about it but it's fitting that he won in the end.
	This ending just gets better!
	See, this show does stuff like that! Something about it is just mysterious.
	Real drama just happens.
	Someone should check and make sure Hitler's really dead.
	Even more, the viewers were in with you to end this the best way it could.
	Sort of, Uncy. Battleblaze and Hachi came close to winning.
	Haha.
	But I agree, this was the best way for it to end.
	I couldn't imagine a better ending.
	I'm guilty of planning most of Weeks 6-9 assuming CN would win. I made sure to be fair to the others, but it was just bound to happen.

	By the way, Hachi, any sore feelings?
	Over what?
	Over disqualification.
	Haha! I would rather CN have won than myself, plus I was never that deep into the OHR community to actually win shit like that.
	I worked it out so they both won in their own ways. CN getting money... what would he do with it? It would have been like he said, a hollow victory.
	Does this mean you'll be back on the JSH Retrospective?
	Yeah, Hawk's working on the video for...Pixilation I believe is the name, and from what he's intimated it's going to be the best one yet.
	Oh, God. Pixilation. I can't wait.
	The first JSH game I ever played.

	Was Hachi allowed to win, by the way? Would you have respected the voter's choice?
	I'm not sure Giz, I wanted it to end the way it did. If Hachi had won for real I probably would have done things the same way, not going to lie.
	If he had told me that Hachi had won, I would have told him to rig the votes for CN to win.
	Haha.
	Haha.
	Another reason he had to win was so I could end the series, I mean, CN won. What's left to say? He's been there since the beginning, and he broke the chain of black contestants winning, black wizard or not.
	It was the only way for it to end. What would've happened if BB won?
	Riots in the streets.
	Man, I don't know. Like I said, I hadn't even thought about it. I guess that was a bad move on my part, but things worked out how I planned, so no harm done. BB winning probably would have been kind of bland. Sephy winning too, but really, he never had much chance.
	I was surprised he got back in, to be honest.
	Same here, pretty much.
	Me too. I didn't rig it in any way; he made it back in. Like I said before, I liked RMSephy, but I could not have seen him taking the prize.

	It's too bad, I had wanted to rewatch the show before this interview and really take JSH to school, but I can do that later. You know, midnight phone calls for the rest of eternity.
	Ten years later, Giz is calling JSH, asking him why the hell he did that retrospective!
	The retrospective didn't go over well, I had it planned from Week 2 or 3 and was looking forward to it, but apparently everyone just saw it as a waste of time. I guess it meant more to me having made all three seasons. Oh well, can't win 'em all.
	I liked the retrospective, I thought it was a very emotional moment.
	Hey, I had no problem with it, it was fun and nostalgic.
	Yeah, fun and nostalgia.
	That retrospective was great, man. It's like, "Holy shit, that is a lot of OHR House" and JSH never gave it up, never let us down etc. etc.
	Some people liked it, some people complained. I got more complaints about it than anything else, but I won't name names, I don't have hard feelings.
	Xerian was the only complainer I can think of, but he had reasons to not like the show.
	Really? Why would he?
	His character was a sap!
	He clearly liked it enough to make a spin-off.
	'Cause he made Season K.
	True...
	Aw, but there had to be a sap, Xerian was the obvious vote-off. There's one in every season! They're just fun.

	One last thing. The music of OHR House, what inspired it?
	Ah, yes. I could talk for hours about it, but man, it's like they say, writing about music is hard. Some stuff just sounds right. Most of it came from the few bands I listened to in my youth.
	BUM BA-DA-DUM, BUM BA-DA-DUM DUM!
	Is that Dragnet?
	I think one of my favorite parts of the credits was having that TMBG song we'd heard midified from the beginning.
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	That was a left hook out of nowhere.
	I wanted "She's An Angel" there to really solidify the end. It was tradition, it had been there since the beginning.
	No man, I'm serious. That's where I went "...shit man, it's over."
	Totally, I felt the same way coding it. I wanted to fit in the select screen's song too, "Certain People I Could Name", but that might have been pushing it.
	It's like an RPG credits scene where the main theme suddenly has lyrics.
	It was a powerful punch.
	Every time I watched the end I lingered on the last text box.
	If the credits to House 2 were supposed to invoke Earthbound's sense of nostalgia, they were nothing compared to House 3's.
	Yeah, I was going to do more with characters moving around in the credits but the end was running long. Editing is vital to stuff like this. The Earthbound references were 100% intentional. I forgot to mention earlier that the Mother series was a huge influence on this game and most of my other games. OHR House 3 was the first game in the series to use music from it.
	That sign in Earthbound advertising EARTHBOUND 2 is one of the reasons I got into game design!
	Earthbound was special in that it made you feel nostalgic for things you'd done a just a little earlier (at least for me, since I hadn't grown up playing it), but House, man, we've been a part of this show for like six years!
	Yes, Earthbound is a deeply nostalgic game for me and many others. I didn't mean to steal that from it, but I wanted it to be there. It was like saying "EB was the first game I fell in love with, now my last OHR game will tribute it."
	And here we are, and it's over.
	It's over...UNLESS you quit after seeing Hachi's victory screen, in which case for the love of god rewatch. Some people apparently were fooled by it.
	Ahahaha!
	Hahahaha! What kind of a dummy would fall for that? Certainly not this guy!
	I'll tell you what I did: I went right back into the menu to open up the OHR House 3 week 9 results show again and then of course it went HOLD IT!! and so it was great.
	Me too, I will confess that I was like "I'm gonna watch again, maybe I missed something :("
	It was one of my few successful moments of mass trolling.

	So does anyone else have anything they wanna ask or say, or are we about ready to wrap this up?
	Haha, hail, choo-choo, you know the drill.
	I think it was really interesting how OHR House used sound effects this last season. I felt like they really added a fresh spin to things.
	My only requests are that everyone leave the show with happy feelings and someone give me a review or two. It was a blast making it and I'm sad to see it end, but it has to. Even though I've thought of a House 4 cast...

	Well, I think that's a wrap.
	A wrap, indeed. Thanks for having us, Uncommon. It was good to have the whole team together.
	Even though I contributed nothing past yelling at JSH to make House 3 over skype...
	Well, Hachi, that was an important part of the process.
	That was a good contribution, Hachi.
	I got lots of ideas from #jsh and everyone in it.
	Haha.
	You should be proud of your accomplishment.
	The show wouldn't be what it is without your #jsh lurking!
	You're now officially 20 times better than SD "Make Games!" Hawk.
	Haha.
	Good luck with all your OHR efforts, everyone.