I enjoyed my visit to the House of Usher. I thought the dress my avatar was wearing complemented her very well, as opposed to her usual outfit. When I arrived, Roderick, who said “hello dear Madame, glad you’ve arrived”, greeted me. This was my first shock to touring this house; I knew they were actors but I did not think the way they talked would be that different. But, I felt that this really helped make me feel like I was in the House of Usher back in 1839. But, I knew I had to fit the part too, and I found it humorous when I tried to speak the language too, saying things such as “tis very nice” with my kind female manners, but I just found it humorous which in a way took me out of the scene.
I really enjoyed the part when we walked into Madeline resting in her bed; it really allowed me to immerse myself in the scene as if I were in a movie. She told me about how Roderick takes care of her, and then we went to the guest room. I saw a large rat crawling on the ground; I thought that was a good animation addition. Then I looked around and noticed that the rooms are all very large and open. They are so large to the point that there is not enough that you could put in the room to fill it up. In the 1800’s, what more could you put in a bedroom besides a bed, desk, and dresser? The objects that they did place in the bedrooms though were very complementary to the time period – I liked seeing the candle lit on top of the barrel. 
I thought Roderick’s bedroom was very cool because I liked the theme of dark red. The red windows and the red bed added a very dark and gloomy mood to the tour. This was perfect timing, because right after this, he left me there. And a minute later, I heard screams! When I walked back into Madeline’s room, I found Roderick accusing Jamie Wonder by saying “Jamie, what have you done with my sister?” Then Roderick uses his question marks and exclamation points to the best of his acting abilities to convey his shock of his inability to know where his very ill sister is. Then I hurried down the stairs with Roderick to find Madeline, but we waited for Jamey, who was having navigation problems. As we waited, there was one last chat message from Madeline saying “AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH”, then Roderick says “I am afraid that the time has passed”, and then “everyone meet at the front door” as if we failed to complete the tour. Even though our tour has a bit of a “let down” ending because we did not get to see what happened to Madeline, I still enjoyed the suspense.
I thought the actors, the house, and the props were all great and very precisely constructed and designed. Just by going on the tour I could tell that much work has been done to the house to make it what it is today. The only problem I encountered is that the timing of the events that happened on the tour really depends on how fast the visitors can follow Roderick. Since Jamey Wonder was late to come downstairs with us, we did not get to see what happened to Madeline. But, there is nothing you can really do to change that, it is not the actor’s job to push the visitors around the tour, it is our job to be able to keep up! I really appreciate the actor’s role in the house, because they really do set the stage of how interesting people will find the house. I found the house to be bare at parts, but you cannot really fill it with objects back in 1839. The tour and the house were very spooky and suspenseful, and overall I give the effort of the actors and designers an A plus in this project. They really could not have made the place any better.
