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 Welcome and congratulations, by clicking this thread you've just become the prosecuting attorney in the nation's hottest murder trial of 1995....and not the one you're thinking of. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqSNnS4aZeg What is this game? In The 1st Degree (IT1D) is a legal adventure game written by Peter Adair & Haney Armstrong and produced by Broderbund for Windows 3.1 in 1995. You play as District Attorney Sterling Granger prosecuting the murder of Zachary Barnes, the owner of a prominent San Fransisco art gallery. The accused is Barnes' business partner and renowned artist James Tobin, who lives with his girlfriend in a loft above the gallery. Further complicating things is the mysterious theft of several paintings from the gallery just days before the shooting. It's your job to examine the evidence, interview the witnesses, build a case, and ultimately go to trial against seasoned defense attorney Cynthia Charleston who will stop at nothing to see her client acquitted on all charges. Can you prove grand theft and murder in the 1st degree? If you bought Myst on CD-ROM, you may remember that it came with the above preview trailer for this game. And just as Myst was a watershed moment for interactive exploration in video games, In The 1st Degree is a captivating, impressive ode to interactive FMV drama. Okay, so maybe it's not as groundbreaking as Myst. But it is pretty drat good. FMV-based adventure games were certainly not new by the time 1995 rolled around, what with the LaserDisc being around since the early 80s, but the rise of CD-ROM as the chief format for PC software in the early 90s rejuvenated interest in the genre. Wing Commander III, for example, was praised for its use of real Hollywood actors in its cutscenes which enhanced the experience of the game. I think it's fair to say that most FMV games were still downright bad though - three months prior to In The 1st Degree's release, the Johnny Mnemonic Interactive Action Movie video game debuted to disastrous reviews, with one critic going as far as saying that the game was "a painful example of why FMV so often fails to achieve significant interactive gameplay." So most FMV games are bad. Why is IT1D worth playing? Because it's one of the few games to ever do it right. It's one of the most realistic detective games ever produced (within reason, of course), with actual San Mateo County District Attorney Al Giannini having provided consultation to the game's writers, including Edgar award-winning author Dominic Stansberry. After release, Giannini would reflect on the finished game's accuracy to real world legal scenarios: from 'The Making of In The 1st Degree' posted:There was a real focus on this game to force the player to make real choices, but realistic choices, and to have the results be the results that would follow from those choices. I was happy with how true-to-life the final product was. It was a tremendous amount of effort and a lot of fun to collaborate with those guys on trying to develop a game that was realistic in a technical sense - trying to simulate what it was like to try a case, but also realistic in an emotional sense, of posing the dilemmas and posing the questions that are really posed to a trial lawyer. How you talk to your witnesses and the way you frame the questions you ask them will change their mood, affect the responses they give you, and can even have a lasting effect on how they testify at trial. Your own analysis of the case documents will affect the lines of questioning available to you with each witness. Though there are only three witnesses in the game, there is an incredible amount of variation and possible dialogue trees to explore, all enhanced by the performances given by the actors in the FMV sequences. Other games have gotten close to the atmosphere of IT1D, Her Story probably being the best example, and L.A. Noire being a distant cousin, but nothing I've ever played has scratched that same "you be the lawyer" itch. Phoenix Wright is a lot of fun but it's a little too goofy, too cartoonish. L.A. Noire leans a little too far into the action genre to really hit the spot for me. If you've played a game that's similar to In The 1st Degree, please let me know, because I want to play it. Okay, I'm in. How is this LP gonna work? This LP is going to be primarily a written one, largely driven by YouTube videos of relevant and important FMV sequences that I have put together from the ripped .MOVs. It's going to be a collage of multimedia, from the FMV sequences to screenshots, transcripts of dialogue, and my own thoughts and opinions along the way. This is primarily a stylistic choice, because I'd like this to be a longform written LP and it makes things easier to break down, but also a technical choice, because the game likes to crash randomly no matter how I've tried to emulate it. QuickTime is not a nice codec. I'll be slicing up my progress through the game into multiple chapters spread across the three acts of the game's story. I have lovingly named these acts after the tagline in the trailer: Someone's Dead, Someone's Lying, and See You In Court. The first two will have us exploring the crime and interviewing its witnesses (there is a LOT to unpack), and the last will have us in court attempting to convince a jury that James Tobin murdered his business partner in cold blood. I don't anticipate there to be audience participation over the course of this LP but I certainly do encourage discussion and dissection! Let's be lawyers together. Table of Contents  Chapter 1: And Then...We Were On The Case Chapter 2: Teatime Takes A Tragic Turn, Tall Tale or Truth? Chapter 3: The Eyewitness Chapter 4: The Loyal Girlfriend Chapter 5: The Right Hand Man Chapter 6: The Suspect  Chapter 7: Questioning Ruby 
barnold fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Aug 1, 2023 |
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Sep 2, 2021 06:24
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Chapter 1: And Then...We Were On The Case Welcome to In The 1st Degree. Clicking "Start a new game" from the unceremonious main menu puts us in what is presumably the kitchen of the player's character, District Attorney Sterling Granger.  First of all, I'm sorry, what the absolute gently caress is on that plate? SpaghettiOs and Ritz crackers garnished with a single stick of celery, and I can't tell if that's supposed to be cottage cheese or some kind of intensely hosed up looking scrambled eggs. Thinking about eating what's on this plate makes me want to vomit. Luckily, it's easily overshadowed by the tasty looking cinnamon roll sitting on the table next to our ultra-chic gray brick of a cell phone. I did a little research and that's a Motorola Digital Personal Communicator. It was supposedly one of the smallest and lightest phones of the time and it still looks like it weighs ten pounds. As we sit down to enjoy our gourmet meal, we turn on the TV and flip through the channels just in time for the start of the evening news... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9QXa9026Js (Quick note about videos: Most of them were designed to be embedded in a larger still image. This video, for example, would have been overlaid where the static is on the TV in the screenshot at the top of this post.) Yeesh, the lead-off story is a doozy. A prominent local celebrity arrested for the murder of a long-term associate? Now that's exactly the kind of thing that gets the attention of national media. It's worth pointing out that IT1D was released in August of 1995 - you have to wonder if the game was at all influenced by O.J. Simpson. Surely the story had to be finalized long before the FMV was shot and the gameplay programmed, but the similarities are uncanny. Well, at least we can expect some level of public pressure to be a factor in this case. We'll be hearing more from these news broadcasts throughout the game. This is a good time to point out that Laura Zimmerman and Frank Somerville are, or were, actual KTVU news anchors in the Bay Area. These news segments were filmed in the real-life KTVU studio. This must have been a real trip for people living in the area when they bought this game. I'm hoping someone reading this recognizes them and has fond memories of watching their newscasts on TV. So far we've been introduced to the victim and the accused, and we know that Zachary's widow is the one that called 911 thanks to the news broadcast. Let's jot that down for our notes.  - Zachary Barnes (the deceased) - James Tobin (the accused) - Yvonne Barnes (Zachary's widow)**FAST FORWARD 3 MONTHS** After the news broadcast ends, the game drops us off three months in the future outside the DA's office on one of the piers along SF's Embarcadero. We've been officially assigned to the Barnes case and our first order of business is to meet with police detective Inspector Looper. She's nowhere to be found, but lucky for us Granger seems to know just where to find her and we're quickly whisked away to a nearby diner for another FMV sequence. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfak5u8qP0I  - Inspector Looper (our inside woman at police HQ)Inspector Looper is a real gem. I get vague Mona Lisa Vito vibes from her and I love it. In between bites of her thankfully-normal order of pancakes and bacon, not only does she tell us that she's given us copies of each witness' interrogation on tape, she also reveals that the victim had been intimate with Tobin's girlfriend as evidenced by a love letter written on Barnes' computer. We've been given a copy of that letter along with the rest of the police documents in the case file. Good stuff. Looper says she was able to talk to Tobin briefly before he lawyered up which is really good news for us, but based on both Looper and Granger's reaction to the name "Cynthia Charleston", I'm guessing Tobin's choice of lawyer is bad news for us. We'll worry about her later. What's important right now is that Tobin violated a major rule of thumb: never talk to the police.  - Cynthia Charleston (Tobin's defense attorney and bane of Granger's existence)As if the murder wasn't enough, there were also some paintings stolen from the gallery just before the shooting. These paintings were insured by a policy worth half a million bucks, with Barnes and Tobin named as beneficiaries. Could it really be possible that Tobin was mad about Zach getting busy with his girlfriend, Zach was upset about not getting more money as the owner of the gallery in the insurance fraud scheme, the two got in a fight and Tobin shot Barnes in self-defense as he claims? I don't think I buy that story, but for now I have to consider its possibility until I find something that contradicts it. I guess we'd better go back to the office and take a look at the stuff Looper left us. Let's get to work. barnold fucked around with this message at 07:19 on Sep 4, 2021 |
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Sep 2, 2021 06:25
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Well this looks fascinating. Count me in.
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Sep 2, 2021 07:28
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Calling it now, it was the butler.
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Sep 2, 2021 14:09
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i have that same phone lol
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Sep 2, 2021 15:34
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pnac attack posted:i have that same phone lol how heavy is it? is it truly the lightest and smallest smartphone like the ads say?
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Sep 2, 2021 16:04
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barnold posted:how heavy is it? is it truly the lightest and smallest smartphone like the ads say? i bet it was, it's a lot lighter than it looks. feels great to pop up that antenna and flip it open
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Sep 2, 2021 16:07
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based on the evidence so far, I'd call this second degree manslaughter, it was actually the dog
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Sep 2, 2021 16:46
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nut posted:Calling it now, it was the butler. the nutler op its time to solve the crime
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Sep 2, 2021 16:47
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Actually, it's the insurance people, they saw it coming and solved the problem, permanently.
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Sep 2, 2021 17:38
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Breakfast of champions this is going to be a breeze
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Sep 2, 2021 17:44
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It's absolutely a trip hearing those news anchors. I don't really recognize the names or faces but the voices completely took me back. I imagine I must have heard them all the time at houses of friends or just wherever, even if I didn't regularly watch them. The SoMa gallery looks like it's probably an authentic location as well, though I don't know the specific street. I had friends who lived near there at the time, and I worked down there as well for a bit. I remember seeing ads for this game when it came out; now I'm said I missed playing it back then.
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Sep 3, 2021 04:37
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I am super intrigued as to how this thing will all play out.
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Sep 3, 2021 10:03
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Chapter 2: Teatime Takes A Tragic Turn, Tall Tale or Truth? On our way back to the office, we're treated to a brief driving scene through the cable car-laden hills of downtown San Francisco, the city hustling and bustling as we pass by. Suddenly, our cell phone rings. It's 1995 and the concept of "distracted driving" hasn't really been invented yet, so we're all too happy to answer behind the wheel. (From now on, when you see bold text in quotes, that means the player's character is speaking.) quote:Granger here. We haven't even begun to scratch the surface of this thing and we've already been dealt a pretty brutal blow. Finding out who the murder weapon was registered to is crucial in establishing its involvement in the crime and the fact that it belongs to Zach's cousin is definitely going to bolster Tobin's defense. That fact begs another question - how did Darryl Barnes' firearm end up at the gallery? He wasn't there at the time of the shooting and if we can't figure out where this gun came from, we're gonna be in hot water during cross-examination on the murder charge. I think it's pretty funny how this game is framed. From the trailer, to the news anchors in the intro FMV, to all the little expository detail we were given by Looper at the diner, the presumption is that Tobin unquestionably did it. The police have completed their investigation, they've arrested Tobin, and now it's our job plain and simple to prove that this man is guilty in a court of law. In fact, we never see or deal with any part of the police apparatus other than Looper, and the game goes to great lengths to emphasize that she is an Inspector - not an officer, not a police chief, just the resident homicide investigator. This not-so-subtle implication seems to be as equally a vehicle for progressing the game from a technical standpoint as it is a broadly stroked criticism of the American justice system.  Maybe that's realistic. My gut tells me it isn't. Sadly, I lack the inside knowledge of trial law to tell one way or the other. We arrive back at our office on the pier a short teleport later.  It's a pretty snazzy little office with a great view of San Francisco Bay. A little Google Earth sleuthing reveals that what we're seeing is Pier 7 jutting out into the hazy blue, with Yerba Buena and Treasure islands visible in the distance. Our office must be on the second floor of the Pier 5 building. Someone should totally see if they can get up to the room this picture was taken in and see what it looks like now. It's probably office space and they won't let you in, but I hear a hi-vis vest and a little confidence goes a long way in getting to places regular people aren't supposed to be. This will be our base camp until the trial begins. We could choose to skip looking at any of the paperwork or talking to any of the witnesses and go straight to trial if we wanted to, which is fun, but let's not do that. On our desk is the package from Looper and a letter with a return address stamped from the mayor's office. The mayor's office? Isn't that where the deceased widow works as a press officer? I've got a sinking feeling about the contents of this letter. I'm going to set aside the personal mail for a moment because I'm really excited to sink my teeth into what Looper's gathered for us. Opening the package and dumping out its contents, Looper's stash consists of a manila folder containing ten assorted documents, crime scene photos and witness statements, and a small cardboard box containing five hand-labeled VHS tapes. Let's see...one each for Ruby Garcia, Yvonne Barnes and Simon Lee, and two for James Tobin - one says "Tobin's initial story", the other says "Tobin's interrogation - new story".   The official police report is nowhere to be found. I guess that would make things too easy. I decide to flip through the crime scene photos real quick to acquaint myself with the layout of the gallery:  - Crime Scene Photo #1 - Crime Scene Photo #2 - Floor plan of gallery/loft + crime scene diagramBrutal crime scene. That goofy looking CGI blood underneath Barnes' body is really cheesy, and the dainty little splatter on his chest doesn't make things much better. And why is one picture in color and the other in black & white? Wouldn't the pictures all have been taken with the same camera? Tsk tsk. In these photos, I see a gun near Barnes' head, an open cash box near his waist, and shards of broken glass strewn about the area. In both pictures of the body, we can clearly make out that shards of glass coat his shirt along his shoulder and arm. The drawn diagram indicates that the glass table nearby was broken when police arrived, so that must be where that came from. Nothing in the document folder lays out the sequence of events the day Zachary Barnes died, so that should be the priority right now. Let's watch some video. In fact, I think I'll go through what I've got here in chronological order for the sake of keeping a timeline. And what better person to hear from about what happened that morning than the man of the hour himself? We turn on our little RCA TV and pop in the tape labeled "Tobin's initial story". Holy poo poo, Looper got Tobin to answer questions on camera while still sitting in the gallery? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-rO5yqDXNc I get really, REALLY weird vibes from Tobin on this videotape and I can't put my finger on what it is that bothers me so much. He's oddly composed, he speaks like he's reading a chapter of Julius Caesar out loud to a freshman English class, and the way he points out how lucky he is to be alive is unsettling when his friend lies dead a few feet from where he's sitting. Then again, he also refers to him as his "business partner", not his friend. Maybe it's shock? Let's recap what Tobin said. He was sitting at the table drinking coffee, Barnes rushed him with a gun, Tobin was shot in the leg, they tussled, broke a table, then Tobin wrestled the gun away and accidentally shot Barnes in the neck in the process. Nothing in this story makes sense. Look back at the crime scene photos. Barnes is lying on his back with his feet pointing towards the corner of the room. Tobin didn't say anything about being cornered or pushed up against the wall. If Barnes had rushed Tobin, his body would be much closer to the glass table and his legs would be facing in a different direction. Speaking of that glass table, Tobin stated that it was broken in the initial struggle, after he had been shot in the leg. How is it possible that shards of glass ended up all over Barnes' shoulder if they were both standing upright? Furthermore, if the two men were standing close enough to be wrestling for control of a firearm, wouldn't there be blood spatter with a shot to the neck at close range? The gun in that color photo of the crime scene appears to be shiny and pristine, meanwhile Tobin has blood all over his shirt. The last thing I notice about the diagram is that Tobin's chair is facing the opposite wall. If he was sitting at the table and facing the wrong way, how in the world could he possibly have seen Barnes running at him with a gun? Then again, Barnes could have yelled "I'm gonna kill you" and that's what alerted him. Or maybe Tobin just turned his chair around because he didn't want to stare at a dead body until the police showed up. I eject the tape from the VCR. Tobin is so full of poo poo you can practically smell him through the screen. There's shock-induced amnesia, and then there's the whopper he just gave Looper in that video. At least he had the courtesy not to run upstairs to the loft and clean up before police arrived. If Zachary Barnes really was facing the direction that the positioning of his body indicates when...then he must have been shot from behind. There goes that self-defense claim. I glance at the tape labeled "Tobin's new story" and so badly want to find out what's on it, but it looks like his interrogation was the last one due to his hospital visit and I really should watch these chronologically. Yvonne Barnes was the first to be brought in for official questioning, and I'm eager to get her side of this mess. I'm starting to think this Tobin guy might actually be guilty of murder. barnold fucked around with this message at 07:25 on Sep 4, 2021 |
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Sep 4, 2021 07:17
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Aw, that video is "private," can't be viewed.
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Sep 4, 2021 07:26
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Spookyelectric posted:Aw, that video is "private," can't be viewed. Whoops, that's fixed! Sorry about that - rookie mistake 
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Sep 4, 2021 07:30
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If Barnes was shot from behind, doesn't that imply that Tobin also shot himself in the leg? It's not a great shot (  ) of the corner, but I don't see any blood dripping down the walls, like I'd expect there to be if someone was shot in that corner. Not a lot of blood, either, and the visible surrounding area is clean which implies the body wasn't moved. Hmm.
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Sep 4, 2021 09:19
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I don't know that we have enough evidence to accuse Tobin of shooting himself in the leg just yet, but what we do have implies that Barnes was shot in the back. The defense will probably say that Tobin had almost been killed and was afraid Barnes was going for another weapon. I'm not a lawyer but I do know that in the eyes of the law, the minute someone turns around and starts to move away from you, it goes from self-defense to involuntary manslaughter. Could Barnes have grabbed the cash box to try and bash Tobin? Maybe the shot to the neck messed up some central nervous system stuff and Barnes went into brief autopilot mode before finally collapsing. Let's hope Yvonne can help us with this problem. barnold fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Sep 4, 2021 |
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Sep 4, 2021 13:31
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Looper, my love~ Won't comment, I know this game too well. But what a pleasure to see someone playing. I like the style, too. Thanks for this!
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Sep 5, 2021 20:27
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superior office view
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Sep 5, 2021 20:48
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barnold posted:Look back at the crime scene photos. Barnes is lying on his back with his feet pointing towards the corner of the room. Tobin didn't say anything about being cornered or pushed up against the wall. If Barnes had rushed Tobin, his body would be much closer to the glass table and his legs would be facing in a different direction. idk mych about forensics but surely if someone gets shot they like stumble around, clutch their wounds, make oh god its over looks with their eyes before falling down. i know he was shot in the neck but still that being said its a sketch af story and im glad we get to prosecute and not uh, defend the dude e: wait, maybe im an idiot
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Sep 5, 2021 22:42
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Chapter 3: The Eyewitness We insert the tape containing Yvonne's interrogation. True to her word, Looper pulled out the juiciest bits for our perusing. This tape has six segments labeled "Saw Tobin outside", "Crime scene", "The business", "Tobin", "Ruby", and "Background", and right away, the title of the first segment gets me excited. Tobin didn't mention being outside before or after the shooting, so this could be very important testimony later on. I hit play on the tape as I kick back with my notebook. The first witness in this case begins to speak: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT8JEpAB3HI This poor woman. She spends all day as a press officer for the mayor, undoubtedly having to clean up for all the political messes at town hall on his behalf, then comes home to find her husband shot dead by a man who was already straining her personal life. Yvonne Barnes' first recorded words have a haunting level of calmness to them. Her hands, however, betray the stoicism in her voice, anxiously straining her fingers against the table as she tells Looper exactly what she saw, and equally as important, what she heard. Tobin, uninjured, standing in the alleyway wearing a black shirt, carrying some kind of stick and a yellow bundle, dashing inside the gallery's back door as she arrived. The locked deadbolt on the gallery door, a single shot ringing out before she could get it open, her husband dead on the floor, and the gun underneath her knees. Truly horrifying. She states that she is absolutely certain she saw Tobin in the alley and clearly recalls his clothing and what he was carrying. A stick? Why would Tobin be carrying a stick? And a yellow bundle....well, the shirt Tobin was wearing when he was interviewed by Looper at the crime scene was yellow, wasn't it? Hang on, I think I've got a few photos of the evidence collected at the crime scene in here somewhere:  Ah, good, photos of the gun, the shirt Tobin was arrested in, and a crowbar. The police have also ripped out the door jamb from the back door of the gallery that sports a suspiciously crowbar-sized gash in the wood. This is the first time I've heard of a crowbar being involved in the crime. Why was Tobin carrying a crowbar? The theft at the gallery that we heard about happened a month before the murder, not the day of, so was Tobin trying to stage a break-in? Tobin's bloody shirt looks pretty orange through the 256-color artifacting in that particular photo but it's yellow enough for me in his initial questioning video. If Tobin had on a black shirt in the alleyway as Yvonne says, then he must have changed shirts. Could double-locking the door have given him enough time to change shirts? Where did the black shirt go? And then Yvonne says she only heard a single shot before entering the gallery, but Tobin said the second shot occurred just after he was shot in the leg. If I'm inclined to believe Yvonne, and I have no reason whatsoever to believe Tobin over Yvonne, then that means... I can't believe it. That crazy son of a bitch shot himself in the leg. Looper asks about the murder weapon and Yvonne's demeanor immediately changes as she goes on the defensive, indignantly rejecting the notion that she could have seen the gun before. I was really hoping she was going to say that she knew the gun was in the gallery, or that Zach borrowed it from his cousin for protection after the theft and kept it at his desk, as that would give us an easy way to argue that Tobin had access to the gun. I hate to accuse her of lying so quickly but her reaction to Looper's question gives me the impression that she is being less than forthcoming about the presence of what would be construed as an illegal firearm in a building she owned half of. At least, I'm pretty sure it's not legal to simply borrow your cousin's pistol and hold onto it. It's possible that Zach really did get the gun without her knowing. That would be a really huge hurdle for us to overcome as the prosecutor and I'm hoping that's not the case, but the possibility is there. Yvonne goes on to paint a pretty clear picture of what went on behind the scenes at the art gallery, detailing Tobin's mental instability, his financial distress, and most importantly, how bad his most recent series of paintings sucked. Tobin was a mercurial egomaniac. He would blame Zach for his creative struggles and threaten to leave the gallery, but Zach had more than one client and would have been less hurt by this decision than Tobin, who relied on his partnership with the Barnes gallery in order to keep a roof over his head. Yvonne also makes a thinly-veiled accusation about Tobin's most recent girlfriend, Ruby Garcia, claiming she "isn't as innocent as she appears, or is completely under Tobin's thumb". Her disdain may be motivated by that love letter Looper found on Zach's computer that was addressed to Ruby, which I will follow up on shortly. The videotape ends with her somberly describing long hours at work and how Zach would complain that he didn't see her enough. She really did love her husband. I eject the tape. After watching the interrogation, I decide to finally rip open that letter I got from Yvonne. What does she have that is so special it had to be sent directly to us?  Gee.....thanks? I'm glad Yvonne thinks that Granger is a competent attorney, but the tone of this letter is a little more forceful than the video we just saw and no offense to this lady, I know her husband got murdered, but she kinda talks to us like we're an idiot. She adds some information that wasn't included in her interrogation about Tobin insisting that the alarm system at the gallery needed to be turned off and that he confessed to staging the theft at the gallery. Yvonne lays into Tobin hard, shedding the restraint she showed in her responses under interrogation and telling us how she really feels. She offers to take the stand at trial, which is good, because she's going to have to as one of the only direct witnesses of the crime scene. She also heavily implies that the publicized affair between Zach and Ruby is nothing but a rumor, seemingly embarrassed by the press coverage surrounding it. Tobin's motive is becoming clearer now. He was struggling financially, couldn't afford to keep taking the hunnies out on dates, painted a series of art that didn't sell and therefore threatened his livelihood as an artist, finds out his business partner was sleeping with his girlfriend, and his solution to the problem was to kill him and collect on their half million dollar insurance policy. That's downright evil. And the guy shot himself in the leg to make it seem legit. He's insane. Since the affair will be an important piece of the puzzle in establishing Tobin's motive to kill Barnes, we should take a look at that love letter real quick. I want to know how far this rabbit hole goes and what Zach had to say, in his own words.  Oh dear. The rabbit hole goes all the way down. Zach sounds like he had a pretty guilty conscience about cheating on his wife. It's hard to deny what happened between them with this letter in existence. Looper said this letter was found on Zach's computer, so it doesn't sound like it was ever delivered to Ruby. Conveniently enough, Ruby's interrogation was the next one after Yvonne. I wonder what details, if any, she will reveal about this. I'm really hoping she's not so loyal to Tobin as to cover all of this up for him. Did Zach have the opportunity to confess to Yvonne about what happened with Ruby before he was murdered? If so, Yvonne certainly doesn't make it seem that way. I guess I have to keep in mind that she is a chief press liaison for an established politician, so maybe she's just really good at holding it back when she wants to be. The interest in this trial must be taking a toll on her professional appearances and I feel like the emphasis on her job title is intended to give me that impression. I make a note to be very delicate in how I bring up the affair when I go to talk to her myself. The last thing I want her to do is try to deny it in court and potentially undermine her testimony by pretending it never happened. I put aside Yvonne's documents and pull out the ones for Ruby Garcia. Since Ruby lived above the gallery with Tobin, she's bound to have some more information about what was going on between him and Zach. barnold fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Sep 8, 2021 |
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Sep 8, 2021 00:53
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Loving your presentation on this!barnold posted:Tobin's motive is becoming clearer now. He was struggling financially, couldn't afford to keep taking the hunnies out on dates, painted a series of art that didn't sell and therefore threatened his livelihood as an artist, finds out his business partner was sleeping with his girlfriend, and his solution to the problem was to kill him and collect on their half million dollar insurance policy. That's downright evil. And the guy shot himself in the leg to make it seem legit. He's insane. Never call the defendant "insane." It opens up certain avenues for the defense. He was sane, he was in his right mind, and he did every heinous act with pure premeditation!
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Sep 8, 2021 13:52
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this james tobin guy sounds like a real jerk!
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Sep 8, 2021 14:10
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Chapter 4: The Loyal Girlfriend We're back! Sorry for the extended delay. Ruby Garcia's tape is a little bit shorter than Yvonne's, but it's broken up into seven segments compared to Yvonne's six. On this tape, we've got "First reactions", "Her location", "Crime scene", "The meeting", "Background", "Relationships", and "Art theft". As Tobin's live-in girlfriend, surely she would have noticed if there was tension between him and Zach before things got to this point, right? It occurs to me that Ruby might have no idea whether or not there was pre-existing tension between Tobin and Zach. If she had an affair with Zach under Tobin and Yvonne's noses, then maybe she thinks Tobin somehow sniffed it out and that's why this whole thing happened? Let's find out what Ruby was doing that day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgjwVcIK3s8 Woah! Ruby, understandably, goes through a lot of different emotions on that tape. Emotional, sentimental, confrontational, aggressive. Looper really had her hands full. How do I feel about Ruby's character after listening to her answers? Truth be told, she makes me a little nervous, and in ways that differ from how I feel about Yvonne's more predictable and almost professional kind of outrage. Ruby can be a little impulsive. She says how she feels, but seems to display a little self-awareness in the sense that she can quickly reel it in if she thinks she's gone too far. She's very loyal to Tobin as you'd expect a devoted girlfriend to be, and the slightest insinuation from Looper that the truth may differ from how Ruby explains something is enough to provoke an outright attack. But she also has a gentler, softer side, and you can hear how much she cares about her friends by the way she talks about Zach and Yvonne. I really liked the bit where she and Looper bond over the "no cursing" rule implemented by the police chief. Alright. Let's get into the information she provided. Looper asks what her relationship to the victim is and Ruby noticeably hesitates before calling him her friend. For a split second, you can almost see it in her eyes that she thought about getting the affair off her chest right then and there. She ominously states that Tobin warned her this was going to happen, and that Zach could not be trusted. If we assume that Tobin is innocent, this could simply reinforce his story that their relationship became strained to the point of violence, and Zach pulled the gun and said he was going to kill him. If we assume Tobin is guilty, this could mean he was laying the groundwork for his defense before the shooting took place and become a crucial part of proving premeditated murder. Ruby is asked whether she was told what Tobin and Zach were arguing about, and immediately says yes. A beat later, she retracts that statement and excuses herself by expressing how frazzled the whole ordeal has made her. There is zero doubt in my mind that Ruby knows what the beef was about. The way we are introduced to Ruby's character leads me to believe that the first thing she says is usually the most honest thing she says, for better or worse. This leaves the possibility open that Ruby was aware of the insurance fraud scheme as well. She becomes incensed by Looper's questions about where she was before the shooting, as though any possible suspicion about her location is unthinkable. Then she starts talking about what she saw when she finally got to the gallery - Yvonne was on her knees next to Zach, Tobin sitting in the chair covered so completely in blood that she initially assumed Tobin had been shot in the chest. Then she says she never saw a gun at the crime scene. This aligns perfectly with Yvonne's interrogation, where she states that she was kneeling on the gun while she was attempting to resuscitate Zach. If Yvonne was kneeling on the gun, that explains why Ruby didn't see it. Ruby goes into Yvonne's reaction after realizing she could not save her husband, lunging at Ruby and Tobin in hysterics, yelling about how Tobin killed Zach, Ruby killed Zach, she herself killed Zach. She loved him and she killed him. A side of the story that Yvonne did not tell in her interrogation, the grief of a wife and a widow. Looper gets called out again for the notion that Tobin planned this meeting with Zach in advance and I have to say, I'm with Ruby on this one. I think it's the tone of Looper's voice and the way she dismissively looks down at her papers as she asks "How long in advance?" I get a really good kick out of Ruby telling her to go to hell. And it gives us one of the greatest reactions in the entire game:  Absolute daggers. The slight head turn and eyebrow raise kills me. The interaction continues trending south as Ruby indignantly rejects the idea that she was in bed with Tobin before his divorce and Looper gets really close to unleashing one of the most powerful utterances of the word "bitch" I can think of...but manages to pull up at the last second, softening Ruby's demeanor a little as Looper We hear a bit about Ruby's backstory and how she came to live in San Francisco after leaving her lower-class family in San Jose. As much as I hate to say it, any seasoned prosecutor would likely latch onto this as a reason to be complicit in the insurance fraud scheme. I don't actually get the impression that Ruby is so down bad as to stoop to that level though - she's fantastically talented on her own merit, she's shacking up with one of the city's most prominent artists, and she's best friends with one of the most successful gallery owners in the area (well, up until recently anyway). Ruby certainly has had seemingly no issues supporting herself and her lifestyle since moving to the Bay Area. I'd like to try to get more information about Tobin's finances from her, but I'm afraid that any inkling that she may have been involved will cause her to clam up and refuse to speak to me. Guess I'll keep that on the backburner. Ruby says that Tobin and Zach were best friends and that they worked well together as a team, getting slightly verklempt as she corrects herself and refers to Zach in the past tense. Ruby also says she gets along well with Yvonne, but feels as though Yvonne unfairly compared her against Tobin's ex-wife at the beginning of their relationship. However, once they had gotten to know each other, Yvonne's attitude towards her softened and they were able to get along just fine. Regarding Zach and Yvonne's marriage, she responds noncommittal and says "They loved each other, I guess". Is Ruby is throwing a little shade at their levels of devotion? On Yvonne's part, because she started working late nights at the mayor's office and didn't spend much time with her husband. On Zach's part, because, well, he had sex with Ruby while Yvonne was at work. Huh. This is the closest we'll get to seeing Ruby acknowledge the affair and that she has a little inside information about the dynamic of their marriage during this interrogation. It's not much, and it's incredibly oblique, but I'll take it. Looper attempts to hammer Ruby on this point and asks if Yvonne might have been jealous about her husband's relationship with Ruby, which she flatly denies and asserts that there is simply no reason Yvonne could be jealous of her. Looper tries again, substituting Yvonne for Tobin, and Ruby dismisses the line of questioning altogether and refuses to answer any more about the topic. As the last segment of tape rolls through the VCR, Ruby states that the only unusual event at the gallery was the theft of Tobin's paintings, though they were insured much to her relief. Looper changes the subject real quick and asks if Tobin had ever become violent with Ruby, which sets her off again. She accuses Looper and the rest of the police department of lying and tampering with the case. Looper just shakes it off and lays her cards on the table; Tobin will be charged with murder, and Ruby ought to prepare for some tough times ahead. My heart aches for Ruby after watching her interrogation. She spent countless years building this life for herself, now her best friend is dead and her boyfriend is in jail. I can only imagine and empathize with the severe anxiety she must be feeling as she watches her whole existence suddenly spin wildly out of control. I'm going to make a point to be extra gentle when it comes to questioning her later. I want her to know that I'm not out to get her, but her natural and well-deserved mistrust of police authority is going to make it difficult. I am glad that Ruby's story lines up with Yvonne's for the most part, though there is one small thing that bothers me here. Since Ruby dropped Yvonne off at the alleyway to the back door of the gallery and then left to park the car, nothing Yvonne said about her actions up to the moment Ruby walked through the door can be corroborated by anyone other than James Tobin. I don't think this is a problem, but it's something worth noting. We were clearly not intended to get a definite timeframe by the way Ruby punted on the question when asked by Looper, so we have no idea how long it might be. Could Tobin have been doing stuff while Yvonne was wrapped up in giving CPR to Zach? I'm not sure. I pull the second to last tape out of the envelope: Simon Lee, who worked at the art gallery in Tobin's employ. He was not present at the gallery the day of the murder, and was summoned by the police for questioning later in the afternoon. Let's see what Simon Says. (im sorry i did this. im trying to delete it) barnold fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Nov 6, 2021 |
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Nov 4, 2021 05:34
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Looper's daughter is the chief of police? Regardless of Ruby's suspicious reactions to the affair, I get a strong sense that the note from Zach is a fabrication. It only exists on his computer, so would have been very easy for James to write himself. Maybe to somehow convince Ruby to break it off, or maybe for another reason. Ruby's mention of 'parking under the freeway' is authentic to the time, although I bet you could usually find street parking a bit closer without much trouble. In particular she says '9th St'. That'd be around here I don't think we have a specific address for the gallery, but it'd be up on Howard or Folsom most likely. That would be about a ten minute walk, plus the time to drive there (probably a couple minutes).
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Nov 6, 2021 15:28
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Kangra posted:Looper's daughter is the chief of police? I don't think it's her daughter, Looper doesn't give a name but says "they made me promise to stop cussing" followed by "she's a tyrant" so I'm assuming it's the police chief, or I guess it could be the head of the homicide division. The letter could be a fabrication! Good point. Though I'm not sure we know whether Zach's computer is located at the gallery or not - Tobin and Ruby live there, but Zach and Yvonne live somewhere else entirely. It would make more business sense to have the computer at the gallery, but we can't confirm that based on the crime scene pictures and we don't have the luxury of wandering around the gallery ourselves. Interestingly, the sketch of the gallery layout does not seem to indicate anything on Zach's desk, which is only a few feet from where his body was found. Ruby actually does give the address of the gallery (or more accurately, the address of her upstairs apartment), #2 Brannan Place, but it doesn't exist in real life as far as I could find. (There is a Brannan Street, but no Brannan Place) But I agree that a 10-15 minute span feels about right! barnold fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Nov 6, 2021 |
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Nov 6, 2021 16:19
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She definitely says it's her daughter that made her stop swearing.
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Nov 6, 2021 18:13
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Dabir posted:She definitely says it's her daughter that made her stop swearing. well poo poo, you're totally right I've listened to that line probably a couple hundred times writing the chapter and it never clicked in my brain. but now that I'm going back in, I can totally hear her say "my daughter" and not "they". just one of those weird mental processing things I guess barnold fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Nov 6, 2021 |
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Nov 6, 2021 18:49
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This LP will be continued in the new year - posting now before the holidays so I can avoid the dreaded archive lock. The trial must go on!
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Dec 24, 2021 04:01
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Chapter 5: The Right Hand Man Simon's tape is broken into nine sections, the most of any witness so far. Looper's list includes "First reactions", "Tobin and Zack", "The gun", "Simon and Tobin", "Background", "Ruby", "Zack and Yvonne", "His job", and finally, "Tobin's temper". Gee, Looper really delved into the interpersonal dynamic of the gallery in her interrogation with Simon. I'm hoping that being a degree of separation away from the main emotional conflicts at the gallery allows Simon to give us a slightly more neutral account of the behind-the-scenes business at the gallery. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB0FGsGhqwY Simon, a spry 22 year old originally from Miami-Dade County, is your garden variety drifter - moving across the country, working odd jobs to support himself, accidentally finding his way onto the wrong side of a juvenile auto theft charge, you know, normal stuff for a 22 year old. He arrived in San Francisco determined to leave his past in Florida behind and immediately found work as a a bike courier for a local delivery company. It was the first steady job he ever had, and his penchant for slickly navigating downtown SF on his bike made him popular with the company's owner. Then he decided he'd had enough. He quit his job on the spot and began walking the streets in search of new work. And that's how he came to walk into the Barnes Gallery for the very first time. Oh, Simon. If only you could have known what you were getting yourself into. Simon wasn't present at the gallery that day and the cops had to awaken him at his house to take a trip to the station for questioning. He wasn't a direct witness to anything that happened on the day of the shooting, but his testimony will be incredibly important at trial as Tobin's (former) right hand man, and Simon has some really important insight to share. It was Tobin who hired Simon off the street as a janitor and errand boy of sorts, and it was Tobin who gave him most of his marching orders. Sure, as he says on the videotape, Zach was his boss too, but Zach had seemingly little interest in putting him to task and was really just focused on the art. It's clear that Simon owes a great deal of his livelihood to Tobin, speaking excitedly about how he was allowed to make his own hours and receive cash advances on his paychecks. As far as he's concerned, Tobin is a really great guy, and that's a problem for us as the prosecutor. We're just going to have to get Simon to disavow his allegiance just a little bit lest he paint a pastoral picture of Tobin's personal life. But there's much to be encouraged by Simon's answers under Looper's poking and prodding, and he eventually speaks just as highly about Zach as well. I noticed while watching this tape that Simon has this habit of answering a question with a question, sometimes repeating exactly what was just said to him. It's one of the hallmarks of someone who is flustered and trying to buy themselves just a little extra time in order to formulate a response...and it's also pretty decent way to sniff out a liar. Simon exhibits this behavior a few times over the course of this interrogation at some particularly opportune moments: quote:
quote:
The first one I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. It's the beginning of the interrogation and Simon is just finding out why he's sitting in a room with a detective at the police station. His slight shiftiness as he asks whether this is about the stolen paintings screams "guilty conscience". The first indicator that Simon may know a little more about the situation he's found himself in than he lets on. The second one is less forgivable. After spending a significant amount of time describing Tobin as his boss and listing off the responsibilities Tobin had bestowed upon him, he is suddenly confused by who is meant when Looper asks if his employer has a mean streak. Maybe I'm coming down a little too hard on Simon here, but his reaction just says "uh, poo poo, how do I avoid throwing my boss directly under the bus" before he can come up with the easy out by insinuating that if Tobin had a violent temperament, he doesn't know about it. The ol' plausible deniability trick, oldest in the book. Simon is young and already has a little experience dealing with the police as we find out on this interrogation tape, having stolen a car with his friends when he was younger. He could be thinking that this is his only way to avoid casting any sort of suspicion onto himself. Surely the last thing Simon wants is to be implicated as an accomplice in the murder of Zachary Barnes, right? Simon is shown the photograph we were given of the crime scene, to which he can only raise a meek objection, and is asked if he can identify the firearm laying near Zach's body. Simon abruptly denies having seen the weapon before and insists that he knows nothing about the murder. We see this same defensive indignance when Looper plays on his age, asking if his parents know he's out here in San Francisco, and again when asked if he ever heard Tobin threaten to kill anyone. He is quick to object to any line of questioning that places him in any role of responsibility in the murder, but otherwise produces what I consider an objective and truthful account of daily life at the gallery. If Simon knew about the gun in the gallery before the murder, that's also going to be a major hurdle to overcome. I'm not thrilled with his reaction to being asked whether he's seen the gun before. Is he uncomfortable just because he thinks knowing about the gun would make him an accessory? I would love for Simon to be able to link the gun to Tobin somehow or otherwise indicate that Tobin knew about it too. Perhaps it'd be a little too easy if Simon just came out and said "Hey, of course I've seen that gun, everyone knows about the gun, that's the famous gallery gun that we keep in an unlocked drawer at the gallery." What I take away from this whole interrogation is that Simon knows more about what's going on here than he elected to share with Looper. This seems like a stupidly obvious thing to point out, but I think it's good to acknowledge that we don't just know this information because we can infer it from his responses, we know that because he flat out tells us: quote:
Cat's out of the bag on that one, my friend. The affair clearly was not a secret, and if Simon knew about it as a mere gallery lackey, then surely Tobin also must have known. It would significantly improve our case for murder if we could get Simon to come through on the stand to testify in no uncertain terms that Tobin knew about the affair before the shooting. The alternative is that Simon learned of the affair through his own snooping, which doesn't help us much and unfortunately may give the defense the ammunition to accuse Simon of being involved in the planning of the crime somehow. Overall, I think Simon is a good guy who knew too much. He's probably wishing he was still a bike courier right about now. If he admits to knowing the circumstances surrounding the murder, he opens himself up to legal scrutiny as an accomplice. If he stays quiet and denies everything he knows, he spends the rest of his life knowing that he had the opportunity to speak up and let it go down the drain. It feels like a catch-22 - we may be able to exploit Simon's fear of being implicated in a crime in order to get him to work with us if we have to, but we also have to somehow reassure him that there are no repercussions for doing the right thing to make him comfortable enough to do so. I guess that'll be the challenge of interviewing him ourselves. I eject Simon's tape from the VCR. We've got one last tape to watch, and it's our suspect James Tobin again, roughly eight hours after he first spoke with Inspector Looper at the gallery. I wonder what he's got to say after the adrenaline has worn off and he's had some time to think about his story. This could be the moment we discover Tobin's true tactical genius and his ability to be two steps ahead of the prosecution. Then again, how smart can he possibly be? The guy agreed to talk to the police without a lawyer twice! What a jabroni. Let's check out this final interrogation.
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Feb 23, 2022 05:44
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This isn't about those stolen paintings, is it?
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I am truly pumped to find out if this case is a straightforward battle to prove this fucker guilty or if there will be any ridiculously contrived Ace Attorney twists in it.
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Mar 8, 2022 01:29
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*accidental post while previewing, new chapter incoming shortly, sorry about that - almost ready*
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May 4, 2022 22:41
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Oooh. Can’t wait!
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May 26, 2022 22:03
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Chapter 6: The Suspect The last tape slides out of the envelope and into our hands. James Henry Tobin. He was brought into questioning at the station after Looper spoke with everyone else involved, and for good reason - we're about to see how Tobin's story compares to not only his original account at the gallery several hours prior, but the story of those involved with the gallery as well. It's a pretty short tape, and in fact it's the shortest of all the interrogations by about a minute. If Tobin gave any details that don't jive with the others, this is how we can really nail him at trial. Demonstrating that Tobin lied to the police would give us a huge leg up to insinuate that the murder was premeditated, and would show that he was of sound enough mind to be able to deceive. Stuck just underneath the tape, a few photos glued to a sheet of cardstock can be found. They appear to be some general photos of James Tobin:  I'll be honest. I have no idea what purpose these photos serve. They don't appear to be related to the crime whatsoever. Looper helpfully labeled him as the accused and added her own editorial at the bottom, informing us that Tobin is husband material. I'm gonna go ahead and assume that the "one small problem" being referred to is being arrested for murder, though I'm choosing to believe the comedy hurr option that it could be a veiled reference to the size of Tobin's wiener. Thanks, Looper....I guess. I'm going to put these back in the envelope. Unless owning a sailboat or riding in a helicopter becomes a fact of some importance, I think these are the least helpful pieces of "evidence" we have. Back to the tape. It slides into the VCR. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwZAEPwhX5I Tobin boldly waives his Miranda rights and says “I have nothing to hide,” which obviously means we should just pack up the briefcase and turn him loose. Nobody who would talk to the police would ever be involved in any kind of murder, right? You can really feel his ego oozing through the screen as he tries to present himself as calm and composed, at first attempting to lie about his gunshot wound by chalking it up to luck that it magically missed any major arteries or bone. He also denies Yvonne’s story about seeing him in the alley behind the gallery as she and Ruby returned, trying to leverage that “hysterical woman” trope into claiming that Yvonne cannot be trusted to recollect the day’s events because she would have been too distressed to think clearly. And because he just can’t help himself, he has to start talking some poo poo about the deceased too. Tobin had never seen the gun before, it was Zach’s idea to get the gun, Zach’s business was failing, Zach was too ashamed to be secure with his wife, it was Zach’s idea to commit insurance fraud, and then he tops it off with the crown jewel of the entire thing by calling him a real loser. The guy is a total piece of poo poo. Every single part of our introduction to James Tobin has been carefully designed to make us hate him, and it’s working. Usually when someone kills someone in self-defense, they are very remorseful and wish that it had never come to that. Tobin walks into the interrogation room and says yeah, I fuckin’ killed that guy and guess what, he sucked too. As I’m mulling over how stupid this self-defense scenario Tobin is trying to stick to with Looper feels, she finally drops the hammer. quote:
Tobin takes a long, pensive pause and if you listen closely, you can almost hear the gears turning in his head as he folds his hands over the bridge of his nose. Then he speaks, and delivers one of the most exciting developments in the case so far: quote:
Then it all comes out - it's true that the business wasn't so hot lately. It's also true that Zach brought the gun to the meeting, and pointed it at him too, but Zach didn't fire the gun. Tobin rushed Zach, wrestling the gun away. The first shot killed Zach during the scuffle, after which Tobin panicked and decided the only way anyone would possibly believe what happened was to shoot himself in the leg with Zach's gun. He doesn't address the part about him being in the alley. Also he mispronounces trigger and says "tirgger." I don't know why I find it funny but I do. Jesus loving christ, Tobin. The request to speak to a lawyer at the end of this tape is the most intelligent thing I’ve heard come out of his mouth since we’ve been introduced to him, and it comes after just over an hour of interrogation as evidenced by the timestamp. This is a guy who heard that saying about “setting yourself on fire when there is nothing left to burn” and instead of taking it as a motivational phrase, he mistook it for a guide on how to murder your business partner. But hey, this isn’t completely out of left field here, didn’t someone call this? Oh yeah: oldskool posted:If Barnes was shot from behind, doesn't that imply that Tobin also shot himself in the leg? Well, oldskool, myth confirmed. Tobin fesses up to shooting himself in the leg in order to make the situation seem more believable for the police and completely obliterates any opportunity to use his own injuries as a justification for the self-defense hypothesis. The only piece of this interrogation I find out of place is the bit about the cash box. I didn't think about it until now, but yeah, the cash box was on the floor right next to Zach's body, and Tobin never mentioned it in any of the versions of his story so far. This feels like it's going to be an important sticking point in the future, so I guess I'll try to remember this moving forward. This is going to be a slam dunk case, right? I mean come on, who in the world is going to take the word of the guy who shot himself in his own drat leg and then was recorded on videotape lying about it at trial? Not only that, but killing Zach would make him the sole beneficiary of the insurance money from the theft of the paintings. If that's not motive for murder one then I don't know what is. Then I remembered his attorney, Cynthia Charleston. I have no idea how she is going to rescue Tobin from the pit he just dug himself into, but if she's as good as everyone says she is, I'm sure she'll find a way. I eject the tape and put it back in the stack on my desk. I pull out the witness statements from Yvonne, Ruby, and Simon again. I suppose we should get out there and interview these people now. Now that some time has passed since the interrogations we just watched, I wonder how different (if at all) the stories are going to be. I get the impression that it may be slightly more difficult to get, say, Ruby or Simon to want to work with me, doubly so for Ruby because it's her boyfriend I'm trying to convict. Hmm, maybe I should talk to Ruby first out of the three. I think that's the best option here. I'm a little nervous about her tendency to defend Tobin but I'm confident that she will see the value and justice in getting up there on the witness stand and simply telling the truth about what she knows in court. Let's do this. END OF ACT I barnold fucked around with this message at 18:33 on Jul 25, 2022 |
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Jul 25, 2022 06:51
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Wait, this is only Act 1? Oh boy.
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Jul 25, 2022 08:46
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Quackles posted:Wait, this is only Act 1? I've split up the acts into preparatory investigation, witness interviews, and then the actual trial itself. The witness interviews are going to feature a lot more dialogue than Act I, because the FMV cannot be easily spliced into a single video due to the nature of how the questioning works, and I anticipate some plot twists as we make our way through the three witnesses that deserve a little extra breathing room to analyze. But yeah. We know the story so far, and we have a pretty good idea of what actually happened at the gallery that day. What is important is getting our remaining major questions answered, and we also have to set the stage for compelling testimony at trial. It's one thing if we get, say, Ruby to admit that Tobin knew about her affair with Zach during our interview. If she gets up there on the stand and flatly denies it in front of the jury though.....well, we may have a problem. barnold fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Jul 25, 2022 |
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Jul 25, 2022 18:23
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Not to get too metagamey, but taking the photos on the level of "this is in the game and may have relevance" I'd say maybe it speaks to Tobin's handedness. Looks like he's gripping the sail/mast with his left hand for support, and might be wearing a watch on the right wrist in the helicopter photo, though it's just as likely that's merely his wrist there. It's not like that's a detail that wouldn't be easily determined in other ways if it becomes relevant, though. Maybe the photos indicate the sort of way his life was going, from kind-of brooding artiste in '89 to jet-setting Ted Turner wannabe in '95.
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Jul 25, 2022 21:45
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Kangra posted:Not to get too metagamey, but taking the photos on the level of "this is in the game and may have relevance" I'd say maybe it speaks to Tobin's handedness. Looks like he's gripping the sail/mast with his left hand for support, and might be wearing a watch on the right wrist in the helicopter photo, though it's just as likely that's merely his wrist there. It's not like that's a detail that wouldn't be easily determined in other ways if it becomes relevant, though. Maybe the photos indicate the sort of way his life was going, from kind-of brooding artiste in '89 to jet-setting Ted Turner wannabe in '95. This is a really great point, I hadn't thought about his handedness. I went back and rewatched Tobin's original story from the video that was taken at the scene of the crime. Not only do his exaggerated hand motions when he speaks seem to indicate that he's a southpaw, but the bullet wound appears to be on his right leg, which would line up perfectly with a left-handed shooter aiming just enough to graze.
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Jul 25, 2022 22:13
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holy poo poo I can't believe it's almost been two months already - so sorry friends, just posting to prevent the archival. I've got some solid progress on Act 2 done so far and I look forward to sharing the first chapter within the next week or two. also can someone make time slow down a little? thanks in advance
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Sep 23, 2022 23:58
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