Author: Rachel

By Rachel Vellanikaran

Last week, I played Mansions of Madness with Austin and Zamirah. It took an excessive amount of time figuring out the rules and game set-up, but fortunately Austin had some prior knowledge that sped up this initial process. I liked how the game incorporated the use of an app; it was interesting engaging with the two different gaming mediums for one game. Since the game was taking almost over two hours to play, we didn’t end up making it to the final objective, but I still feel like I got a grasp of it’s decision-making and role-playing aspects. It felt like the overall objective was to maintain your physical and mental strength, but more importantly to ensure you didn’t lose your sanity(while also solving the mystery). If you lose your sanity, both you and your team investigators are in danger or at a serious disadvantage. For example, once you’re officially insane, you can complete “Insanity Conditions,” which could include setting fires throughout the mansion or using whatever weapon you have in hand against other investigators. My character, Rita Young had lots of physical strength, but poor sanity. And at one point, I kept racking up horror cards due to unforeseen monster encounters and the like and was too close to insanity level; but I never quite got there. Though it would’ve been unfortunate for my team members, I kind of wanted to see the change and diversity of outcomes in the game after going insane.

In terms of decision-making, I think there was quite a bit of strategic decision-making, from initially choosing your character and their respective strengths/weaknesses/ability levels to exploring or interacting with various objects, rooms, clues, and monsters in the mansion. This incorporates that telescoping and probing aspect as well. And for us at least, this decision-making was very collaborative as we were all determined to reach the end goal. For example, if Austin or Zamirah were exploring a clue, I would try and fend off a monster in another room since Rita, my character had the most physical strength compared to the other two investigators. We also chose to give my character the heavy weapons, since it would be most beneficial to her.

Overall, I really enjoyed Mansions of Madness since it’s basically my first time doing any role-playing-type game. I’m hoping I can play it through completely when I have more time. I’m still very curious about how reaching the state of insanity changes the game…

By Rachel Vellanikaran

This week’s Sidequest assignment was one of my favorites so far. I loved looking through Christoph Niemann’s illustrations, and seeing the clever ways he incorporated random objects, like a banana or paperclip, into his drawings. As for my drawing, I’ve always thought lemon and orange slices vaguely resemble car or bicycle tires, so I chose to use this as inspiration for my “Sunday Sketch” idea. I’m no artist, so I only drew the basic aspects — peddle, handlebar, seat, etc. — of a bicycle around two thin lemon slices. Originally I was going to use an orange slice, but I wanted to make the pun…even though it’s not very funny and probably doesn’t make much sense lol.

By Rachel Vellanikaran

• Various notebooks, binders, and folders for my chemistry and french class
• Course textbooks for french and english
• Wallet
• Calculator
• Pens and pencils
• Headphones
• Laptop and laptop charger
• *not shown in the picture* Phone and student ID/keys, chapstick, gum

I chose to display what’s in my backpack for this assignment containing all of the various necessities that I lug around throughout the day. To be honest, I’ve been using the same sturdy sky-blue backpack since my early high school years. Backpacks are expensive… and this one has been pretty dependable thus far, so why buy a new one? And there are too many memories attached to this trusty bag to ever toss it.

I would say that the contents of my backpack are somewhat representative of me, or at least representative of how I spend a lot of my time: doing work. As a college student, it’s typical that I have quite a bit of studying and assignments to do for my classes.

This type of writing was a reflective experience in understanding what I need and find most important to have with me at all times. I think it’s interesting how this catalog of items in my bag will change throughout different phases of my life. Being a college student with a laptop, and textbooks, and pens and pencils are necessary to my life as of now and the next 4 or so years ahead of me. But as I progress and change, whether it be a new job or house or family, my necessities will obviously reflect these changes.

By Rachel Vellanikaran

My avatar is a picture of myself on our beautiful Emory campus. I chose this picture because I wanted something that best represents who and where I am in my life right now: a college freshman. I was born and raised in Atlanta, so I also wanted to represent my love for this campus and city.

Initially, it was a bit difficult selecting a picture. But once I did, it was easy enough to crop and resize the image using picMonkey. I was also having trouble navigating the WordPress website at first, and figuring out how to edit and insert text/media on my post.