Everything to Know About the Welcome Home ARG

Welcome Home is one of the most colorful, nostalgic children’s television shows of the 1970s—only it never existed. Actually, Welcome Home is an alternate reality game (ARG) where users explore a website filled with hidden clues, trying to solve the mystery of why no one remembers the (fictional) show. We’re exploring everything there is to know about Welcome Home, including what it’s about, how to play the game, the main characters, and whether you can expect any more updates.

What is the Welcome Home ARG?

Welcome Home is an ARG (alternate reality game) about what happened to a fictional children’s TV show from the 1970s. A team of researchers tries to put together the story based on old drawings, scripts, and toys. To play the game, users scour the website for clues, hidden messages, and buried links.

Section 1 of 7:

Welcome Home ARG: An Overview

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Welcome Home is an ARG about a fictional children’s TV show. The game centers on the mystery of Welcome Home, a forgotten children’s television show from the 1970s. After discovering drawings from the show, researchers created the Welcome Home Restoration Project (WHRP), a team that tries to uncover information about the show.
- Like many other ARGs (alternate reality games), Welcome Home appears at first to be a regular website. But as players explore the site, they uncover hidden clues and puzzles that suggest everything isn’t what it seems.
- The Welcome Home game was created by Clown, also known as PartyCoffin.
- At one point, the original site that hosted Welcome Home was taken down. When a new site was re-established, administrators claimed it was because the main site was “disrupted” after “curious” messages were posted to the website’s Guest Book and Code (although these are likely just in-game explanations for a routine site migration).
- The game is updated every few months. Every new update explores new information about the characters, the world they inhabit, and the mystery around the original TV show.

Section 2 of 7:

What is Welcome Home about?

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The fictional Welcome Home show is about a neighborhood of puppets. The neighborhood, called Home, is filled with bright colors and cheerful characters. The main character of Welcome Home is a puppet named Wally Darling, who lives in a sentient (or aware) house that’s also called Home.^{[1]
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- As users explore the Welcome Home ARG, they discover that something is amiss with Wally—he seems to be aware that he’s a character in a show, and he may be reaching out to the audience for purposes unknown.
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In the game, the WHRP explores what happened to the show. According to the game’s lore, the Welcome Home Restoration Project (WHRP) was formed when the founder was mysteriously given brightly-colored envelopes containing drawings and other media from the show Welcome Home. But oddly, no one seemed to actually remember the show. The founder was intrigued and began digging into the show’s history, posting the Welcome Home website as a way to reach out to anyone who might remember the show—and to introduce it to a new audience.^{[2]
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- Within the universe of the game, information about the show is limited, but the creator is thought to be a person named Ronald Dorelaine, and the show is thought to have aired from around 1969 to 1974. It was produced by The Playfellow Workshop.
- Throughout the course of their research, more materials were delivered to the WHRP, including:
  - Original drawings
  - Coloring books
  - A storybook record (featuring the story Eddie’s Big Lift)
  - A toy rotary telephone that plays characters’ responses to prank calls
  - Welcome Home branded cereal boxes
  - Scripts
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As the WHRP investigates, strange things start to happen. Many of the original materials that are given to the WHRP have been damaged by paint or water. Some are also covered in a slimy ooze that seems to be spreading. For instance, one staff member hears a phone ringing nonstop, the goopy substance on the Welcome Home materials makes people feel ill, and the staff’s mental states start to deteriorate.
- Additionally, creepy elements like black spirals, realistic eyes, and cryptic messages appear on the website.
- Theories about Welcome Home are still developing, but some of them include:
  - The neighborhood is a cult, with Wally as the leader
  - Home is actually controlling Wally
  - The show may have been originally cancelled because of a real-life tragedy
  - The neighborhood is host to an infection that’s spreading into the real world

Section 3 of 7:

How do you play Welcome Home?

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Take your time exploring the Welcome Home website. Even though it might be tempting to solve the mystery all at once, the process of discovery is part of the fun of an ARG. There are two ways to start: visit the Welcome Home Entry page to jump right in, or start with the out-of-game welcome page for a little more background information, including trigger warnings and credits.
- If you start with the out-of-game page, click on the round wooden door when you’re ready to enter the game.
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Look for hidden clues on the website. Go through each page of the website, reading about the WHRP’s efforts and what they’ve learned about the Welcome Home show. As you do, look for things that seem odd—they could be clues. For instance:
- Learn about the characters by clicking their images and houses on the Neighborhood page.
- Look for out-of-place or missing letters in text. In one puzzle, users have to locate floating characters, then add them to the end of the site URL. (You’ll get different results if you arrange the characters in different orders)
- Find hidden messages by looking at the first letters of a block of text, like in the edge of a newspaper clipping, or by scanning the spines of books stacked on a table.
- Solve the trivia questions on a worksheet, then use the first character of each answer to unlock a safe and access a “Staff Only” page with creepy behind-the-scenes information.
- Open images in a new tab to find clues hidden in their file names.
- Search for hidden clickable elements, like the bugs that run across the screen or the telephone button in a letter from Frank to Wally.
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Explore more on the creator’s site and fan pages. The community experience is often a vital part of an ARG. Only the Welcome Home website itself is meant to be taken as canon (officially part of the game’s lore), but you can explore additional art, theories, and updates by checking out sites like:
- The creator’s X (Twitter), YouTube, and Tumblr pages
- Fan wikis, like the ones here, here (although this one is no longer updated), and here.
- YouTube videos from creators like The Infinity Force, The Game Theorists, and Night Mind.

Section 4 of 7:

Who are the characters in Welcome Home?

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There are 9 known characters in the Welcome Home neighborhood. The main character is a puppet named Wally Darling, but each character has a special part to play in Welcome Home. Here’s a little more about each one:
- Wally Darling: A painter with the catchphrase “That’s the most!” He’s said to have introduced every episode of Welcome Home with that week’s focus. Wally may be aware that he’s in a show (and he might be trying to watch us, too).^{[3]
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- Poppy Partridge: Poppy is a large, colorful bird who lives in a barn. She’s a nervous character, preferring to stay indoors out of fear of the unknown. Fortunately, her friends don’t mind visiting her.^{[4]
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- Barnaby B. Beagle: Barnaby is a big blue dog who loves to entertain his friends by juggling, balancing on a ball, and telling jokes. He’s Wally’s best friend.^{[5]
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- Julie Joyful: Julie is a rainbow monster and Frank’s best friend. She loves to play games and has 3 siblings: Bea, Franny, and Jonesy. She’s able to talk to plants.^{[6]
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- Frank Frankly: Frank is a grumpy character with grey skin, but he’s Julie’s best friend, and despite frowning all the time, he does enjoy reading and having a good time.^{[7]
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- Howdy Pillar: Howdy is the town’s shopkeeper. He’s a very tall caterpillar with four legs, four arms, and striped antennae, and he’s rarely seen outside of his shop.^{[8]
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- Eddie Dear: Eddie Dear is Welcome Home’s mailman and one of the friendliest characters in the neighborhood. He was also a little clumsy and easily startled.^{[9]
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- Sally Starlet: Sally is a natural performer with a head shaped like the sun. She loves being the center of attention, but also goes out of her way to care for her friends.^{[10]
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- Home: Home is Wally’s house. It has eyes that can move, and although it can’t talk, it can communicate through creaks, cracks, and bangs.

Section 5 of 7:

Was Welcome Home a real show?

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No, Welcome Home is not a real show. It’s a fictional show that’s part of the Welcome Home alternate reality game. The out-of-game intro page to the Welcome Home ARG clearly states that the entire story is a work of fiction. Welcome Home was never a show, and the WHRP doesn’t exist. Neither do any of the characters that were featured in the show.
- If Welcome Home feels familiar, it’s probably because the creators used authentic 1970s color palettes and artistic styles to create a vibe that’s instantly nostalgic. It resembles familiar shows from the era like Sesame Street or Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.^{[11]
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Section 6 of 7:

Will there be more Welcome Home updates?

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Yes, future updates are likely. The “mystery” of Welcome Home has not yet been revealed, making this ARG a work in progress. The team posts updates every few months, and they’re still active—the last update was added on November 29, 2025.
- The most recent update showcased the character Frank Frankly, plus added a new game where users have to look for and click 6 black bugs that are found throughout the site.
- In this update, it’s also revealed that Frank can speak to Wally’s house, Home, using Morse code.

Section 7 of 7:

Want more ARGs?

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Check out these wikiHow articles about other ARGs. ARGs can be a fun interactive experience, especially if you know what you’re getting yourself into. We’ve been digging into some of the most popular ARGs out there, so take a look: