Web Video / Exploring Lost Wads

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Exploring Lost Wads is an ongoing Web Video Series by Michael9r9r in the genres of Digital Horror and Mystery Fiction with Found Footage elements, based on Doom (1993) and games that use its engine. It was started in July 9, 2024 with a single upload, but it took until December 3, 2025 for it to become active and start regularly uploading.

Michael9r9r, a long-time fan of classic Doom, decides to play and show the wads he found on the hard drive of FrostProspektor97, his posthumous friend. However, while doing so, his computer gets infected with a strange anomaly that affects all Doom engine games he plays, altering the levels, generating strange messages, and even dropping levels into the folder. Thus, he decides to investigate the anomaly, using YouTube to reach out to viewers for help and to publish his findings.

An official Discord server, with an in-character section, has been created, and it can be found here.

Exploring Lost Wads includes the following tropes:

• Absurdly Long Stairway: One of the maps featured in the Gen Exploration 3 video has a very long stairway, which takes an entire minute of running to traverse.
• Agent Scully: As Michael tells various commenters, he'd rather not immediately assume that the anomaly is supernatural, and would rather believe in either sophisticated malware or an artificial intelligence being the source of the anomaly. This is despite it doing things like pulling (not generating, pulling) existing wads when the internet is turned off, and his friend (from whom Michael received the hard disk that spread the anomaly to his PC) smashing his own computer before killing himself, which would probably be an overreaction if the anomaly was entirely mundane in nature.
• Amateur Sleuth:
  • Michael becomes one when he starts investigating the anomaly infesting his computer, so as to uncover what it actually is and how to get rid of it.
  • Stephan, who runs the Obscure Tech Videos channel, is trying to investigate the mystery of the Nexearch Image Terminal (a program that generates images) in order to preserve it and find out how it became lost media.
• Audience Participation: Since the framing of the series is that of a man trying to understand what's happening with his Doom (1993), viewers can interact with the protagonist in the comments and in the official Discord server, making their own theories and suggesting ideas for future experimentation, with some of these comments being featured later on. A poll was also made at one point, asking viewers on what to do next, with the winning option being to try new types of experiments, such as using text chat.
• Author Avatar: The protagonist is a fictionalized version of Michael9r9r himself, with the same backstory as a fan of Doom and amateur modder of the game.
• Badass Bystander: While the moving error signs normally just slowly try to follow the player, the Anomaly Analysis 5 video shows that they may attack monsters under certain circumstances, instantly killing them.
• Creepy Changing Painting: In a digital video version, the video of somebody playing iridium.wad that is present on Frost's hard drive. The version that existed in 2024 showed normal player behavior, lasted for 3 minutes and 57 seconds, and had good video quality. The version found in January 2026 has low-skill and at times bizarre player behavior (almost like a demo desyncing), a length of 2 minutes and 37 seconds, complete absence of sound, and noticeably worse video quality. Notably, the copy of the video present on Michael's computer has not changed at all from its 2024 version.
• Cryptic Conversation: While examining maps that were generated by the anomaly, Michael finds encrypted conversations between -s, -a, and -f (the last one probably being Frost) in comments contained within otherwise empty SCRIPT lumps. It's not clear what exactly they're talking about, but it seems to imply an attempt to create a level generator.
• Driven to Suicide: Michael implies that this happened to Frost in comments under the Gen Exploration 2 video, as he mentions that there was a lot of talk about mental health at Frost's funeral service.
• Easter Egg: The version of iridium.wad that the viewers can download contains a broken level called SAWMARK that Michael didn't play. It's hard to get it running, as trying to launch it conventionally will just give you an error.
• Foreshadowing: In the Discord server, Michael posted a meme of a ZDoom error sign asking the waiter for more missing textures. As it then turns out in Anomaly Analysis 5, they are attracted to missing textures.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • In the Anomaly Analysis 4 video, when Michael runs ZDoom and GZdoom at once, Shadow Guy appears for a split-second in ZDoom when Michael tries to bring up the console in GZDoom.
  • In the Strife anomaly testing video, Shadow Guy appears for a few frames at 18:27 inside the river when Michael turns the camera to the right.
  • The start of Communication01 has a few images rapidly flash. Most notably, one is showing a program called "Nexearch Image Terminal V3" (Nexearch having been present on a few textures in Gen Exploration 3)
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: In the Gen Exploration 4 video, Michael hears an archvile laugh even though he just closed Doom.
• Genre Savvy: Michael's replies to comments show that he's quite aware that his situation is similar to those of Digital Horror stories like SKY//BOX (2022). As an experienced Doom (1993) modder, he also does his best to examine every anomaly he encounters from a technical standpoint (which makes the things he can't explain all the more terrifying), and also opens every map he plays in SLADE in order to find secrets and abnormalities.
• Glitch Entity: A certain entity, first introduced in the Gen Exploration 3 video, is a moving ZDoom error sign. As it turns out in Anomaly Analysis 5, it has a rudimentary pathfinding AI, is attracted to missing textures and somewhat to the player, behaves differently in an environment that has no missing textures, can occasionally change colors (which affects its movement capabilities), and may attack hostile monsters under certain circumstances, instantly killing them.
• I Never Told You My Name: In the Gen Exploration 3 video, Michael gets hit with a message in hex, which translates to "Micha". After being told the translation in comments under the video, Michael expresses concern, as it's the name of his Windows install.
• Is This Thing Still On?: In the Gen Exploration 4 video, Michael forgets to turn off OBS, which means that the video captures his computer making an archvile noise despite Doom being turned off.
• It Can Think: The Communication01 video implies that the anomaly is sapient, given the video's title and the fact that it shows an image of the Gen folder (where generated wads reside) with a red arrow pointing towards an empty space, as if the video is trying to tell Michael to do something with the folder.
• It Won't Turn Off: In a variant, the anomaly that infected Michael's computer can insert Doom (1993) maps into a folder on his desktop even when the internet is turned off. This is despite the timestamps showing a date that is several years earlier than when these maps appeared in the folder, which makes it unlikely that they were created on the spot by a level generator.
• Jump Scare: A human-shaped shadow (known as Shadow Guy) occasionally appears for a few seconds when Michael is playing Doom, startling him most of the time.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The Nexearch Image Terminal, an image generator that might be connected to the anomaly haunting Michael's computer, is extremely obscure, with no known copies existing and practically no information being available on the internet. Stephan, who found out about the terminal, is trying to preserve the program, uploading any videos he finds about it on his channel. invoked
• Mind Screw: The Communication01 video, which has an odd MIDI track playing over it and comes with equally odd visuals — random screenshots and videos that Michael had on his computer, a screenshot showing the folder labeled as "FrostProspektor97's Stuff" with Shadow Guy appearing twice over it, two images of Shadow Guy standing in front of a brick wall, visual noise with Shadow Guy standing in front of a few such images, and then an image of the Gen folder (where generated wads reside) with an arrow pointing towards an empty space.
• Minus World: One way in which the anomaly messes with Michael's game is by turning every level he plays into something like this, from altering the appearance of certain textures to messing around with sector properties, depending on the source port. On Skulltag, in particular, it only took a few minutes for Entryway to turn into an unplayable, ugly mess.
• Move in the Frozen Time:
  • As shown in Anomaly Analysis 4 video, Shadow Guy can appear and disappear even when the Freeze Mode cheat is on.
  • In the Wad Exploration 5 video, Michael spots a black snowflake-shaped thing on MAP03 of Doom II and finds out that it's immune to Freeze Mode, forcing him to chase after it.
• No Fair Cheating: In the Anomaly Analysis 4 video, Michael's attempts to use the console get thwarted twice:
  • Initially, he tries to activate the automap cheat at a higher level. However, instead of working as intended (showing all the things that exist in the level), UZDoom instead removed all the textures, gave a whole bunch of messages about runaway scripts and things not being found, then crashed.
  • While running ZDoom and GZDoom at the same time, he tries to bring up the console in GZDoom when all the textures get removed and MAP01: Entryway gets expanded. However, pressing the tilde (~) instead shows the vanilla help screen, thus forcing him to explore the level fairly. It's also implied by Michael to remove the vanilla Doom cheats, which are normally entered during gameplay.
• Nothing Is Scarier:
  • In one of the maps played in the Gen Exploration 2 video, something happens to trigger teleports multiple times. However, it's never made clear what it is, and it doesn't count as an enemy in the stats screen. Examining the levels in SLADE doesn't show anything like that, and if the viewer plays the uploaded level, they won't see the teleport triggering.
  • In the Anomaly Analysis 5 video, one of the first tests on moving error signs has the kill count show that there is one monster roaming around the (very simple) test level, even though Michael didn't place anything like that. Whatever it is, it never shows itself.
• One-Hit Kill: If the moving error signs attack a monster, they kill them instantly.
• Plot-Triggering Death: The death of Michael's friend leads to him getting his hard drive. The basis of the channel is exploration of the drive and the anomaly within that infected Michael's computer.
• A Rare Sentence: In Wad Exploration 5 video, Michael says these two sentences:
  "I can't believe the ranch dressing is fighting spiders. That is, out of context, one of the most insane sentences I've ever said."
  "I think I'm just going to kill the salads and wait for the rockets to blow up the LGBT marines. Once again, uh, crazy-ass sentence."
• The Reveal: Michael eventually finds out where the Shadow Guy's sprite came from — the sprite for civilians in Zombies TC, which is based on Dawn of the Dead (1978). This means that the anomaly can pull information from mods, not just the base game and source ports.
• Revealing Continuity Lapse:
  • clip0137.avi, which Michael found on his friend's hard drive, appears to be a video from 2013 recorded with HyperCam 2 of somebody pulling a level for Doom (1993) and playing it, and the video's quality and lack of sound, along with the version of ZDoom being played, seem to support this. However, there are a few timestamps from the future, with the player's ZDoom configuration file, in particular, being timestamped as if it was last changed a few minutes into the future, although Michael acknowledges in a follow-up video that there are tools that can be used to fake timestamps. In addition, the icon for Google Chrome, as seen on the desktop, is from 2023 onwards, and the processor shown on the ZDoom loading screen was made in 2020, thus implying either time travel or an attempt to fake an old video.
  • In Gen Exploration 2, Michael's gen folder is timestamped as if it was last changed in 2028, even though the video was uploaded in 2026 and the folder used to show the correct date in earlier videos.
  • In 2024, Michael reuploaded a video of somebody playing iridium.wad with decent skill, which he got off Frost's hard drive. When he checked the copy of the video on the hard drive in 2026, however, the video became noticeably altered, with multiple visual artifacts (such as lower quality and stuttering), reduced length, and noticeably lower player skill, with some behavior resembling that of a demo desync.
  • clip0112.avi is supposed to be a video made no earlier than 2013 (judging by timestamps on a file) of somebody failing to pull a level for Doom (1993), but the icon for Google Chrome on the dekstop is one that was only used in 2008-2011.
  • Communication01 shows a screenshot of clip0112.avi at one point. However, the icon for Google Chrome has been changed to a more modern one.
• Single-Attempt Game: In Gen Exploration 4, Michael ends up dealing with a single-attempt level when a wad unexpectedly puts him into a level that wasn't present in its files, as dying in that level immediately kicked him back to Entryway, with all attempts to return being foiled
• Sinister Silhouettes: A recurring anomaly that Michael encounters while playing Doom (1993) is a human-shaped silhouette that suddenly appears for a few seconds, only to disappear once again. Michael calls it Shadow Guy.
• Sound-Effect Bleep: Michael's swearing is covered up with the grunt that Doomguy makes when he falls or tries to interact with something that can't be activated.
• Stylistic Suck:
  • The Doom (1993) maps created by the anomaly on Michael's computer are of very low quality, with things like poor balance, overuse of the same textures (especially the default STARTAN1 texture), simplistic geometry, poorly marked exits, decorations and items being placed with no rhyme or reason, and generally being ugly to look at.
  • A video of the Nexearch Image Terminal being used shows it generating low-quality images. Also, like many early YouTube videos, the video's creator communicates with the viewer by creating a notepad file and typing things into it, instead of either providing a voiceover or displaying text over the video.
• This Is a Work of Fiction: After numerous people got confused on whether the videos are real or not, a disclaimer was added to the description of all videos, stating that they're works of creative fiction.
• Wham Line: In the Gen Exploration 3 video, Michael finds out a comment in the script lumps of one map that freaks him out greatly and causes him to stop the video, leaving the fourth map for the next video:
  "Okay... this one freaked me the fuck out. There's no way it could possibly know what the building looks like. -s"