Welcome Home ARG

Overview

Welcome Home is an ongoing alternate reality horror game played through the website ClownIllustration.com/welcome-home about a fictional piece of lost media called "Welcome Home," a children's puppet show from the '70s similar to The Muppets starring a yellow puppet and artist named Wally Darling. The website, depicted as a restoration project site for "Welcome Home," launched in January 2023 and became increasingly popularized throughout the first quarter of the year as people uncovered the secrets behind it, such as hidden letters and sections of the website, hinting at a sinister backstory surrounding the show. The game was created by artist Clown Illustrations and became steadily more prevalent online throughout March and April 2023, inspiring fan art and Let's Play videos, among other content.

History

Clown Illustration, also known as PartyCoffin on Twitter or simply Clown, started working on the "Welcome Home" art project in 2018. He started tweeting^[1] artwork from the project on June 16th, 2018, releasing numerous pieces of art between then and 2023 (examples shown below).

On January 14th, 2023, the first news post was added to the clownillustration.com/welcome-home^[2] website. The game is played entirely through the website, which features hidden letters, images and sections that reveal dark details behind "Welcome Home" and the lost media restoration project.^[3] For example, by visiting the URL "clownillustration.com/ywxoev," the visitor is shown a page with a GIF of a sinister-looking house that cycles through the characters' eyes and the text "open" (shown below).

The website's "Welcome Home" page^[11] features a description of the fictional television show and a gallery of scrolling images, including preliminary drawings of characters from the show. The "About Us" page^[8] explains the idea behind the ARG, writing:

The Welcome Home Restoration Project is a team of anonymous individuals dedicated to compiling, restoring, and archiving what few remnants of Welcome Home has been uncovered. It is through these collective efforts that we will awaken the memory of this lost piece of media. We strive to establish a friendly and open community of friends, family, and fans just like the colorful and quaint neighbors in our beloved Home!

Love is clear in the messages of Wally Darling and is as much of a hallmark to him as his charismatic smile, his cheery disposition, and his eagerness to understand the world around him. We too hope to spread this feeling of everlasting joy, caring, understanding, and acceptance to all in the hopes that you will join us in our thorough exploration. Together, we will make this house a home!

Visitors may wonder how we came to uncover such a show, where we obtained these works, and the efforts taken to restore them to the best of our ability. To that we our happy to open our front door to you, neighbor!

On March 21st, 2023, YouTuber^[4] Night Mind posted a video exploring the site and finding various secrets throughout it, garnering over 1.6 million views in two weeks and helping spread word of the game (shown below, left). On March 23rd, the YouTuber posted a livestream in which viewers helped him find more secrets, garnering over 419,000 views in two weeks (shown below, right).

Online Presence

Welcome Home became increasingly popularized online throughout March and April 2023. On March 24th, 2023, TikToker^[5] @neonpawp posted an edit featuring characters from the game, garnering over 3.1 million views in two weeks (shown below).

The game inspired fan art across social media. For example, on March 27th and 30th, Twitter^[6][7] users @time_woods and @KITSUNIC0 posted pieces of fan art featuring the characters that garnered over 14,000 likes and 8,500 likes, respectively, in a week (shown below, left and right).

On March 30th, YouTuber^[9] Inside A Mind posted a video exploring the game, garnering over 290,000 views in a week (shown below, left). On April 2nd, YouTuber^[10] LoeyLane posted a video that garnered over 100,000 views in three days (shown below, right).

Wally Darling Fan Art

The character Wally Darling became notably prominent on the internet as the game went viral, inspiring a notable amount of fan art and content across social media (examples shown below).

Search Interest

External References