0:00

Welcome

0:01

to Solve This Murder. I'm

0:14

your detective Dani.

0:15

And I'm your crime scene criminal

0:17

and witnesses Bill. This is

0:19

part 5 of the Virtual

0:21

Victim. In part 4 we discovered

0:24

the identity of commenter Righteous Lemon

0:26

as Dave's downstairs neighbour Sarah,

0:28

who has some boundary issues.

0:31

We also discovered that according to Sarah,

0:34

on the night of the murder, she saw a person

0:36

wearing a dark GamerCon

0:39

hoodie arrive twice but

0:41

leave

0:42

once. And she

0:44

told us how after sneaking into Dave's party

0:46

two weeks ago, she witnessed him fight with

0:48

the caterers over some lost keys.

0:52

Caterers like Josh Yang? Of

0:55

course Josh is a caterer, I have it written

0:57

right there. I

1:00

can't believe that didn't grab me right

1:02

away. You said the word caterer so many times.

1:04

I said caterer so many times. There were knowing looks in there.

1:07

I said caterer and I raised an eyebrow like this. I

1:10

didn't actually for people at home. And he figured

1:12

that out all on their lonesome.

1:14

So what are you going to do? Are you going to... does this mean

1:16

you're going to rush straight to Josh's house and

1:19

grasp him by the collar and say, where is she? What's

1:23

the plan? Right. Well,

1:26

this is all very fascinating information, but I

1:28

have a couple of other paths that I really

1:31

want to pursue before I just

1:33

go and grab Josh by the collar and

1:35

ask what he's up to. His story I want to

1:37

figure out from afar.

1:38

Danny, I don't know if this made the

1:40

last episode or not, Danny has a goal to solve

1:43

this whole murder without ever talking to Joshua Yang.

1:45

I just think he's a fun character

1:48

to leave off camera much as he was during

1:50

the initial stream.

1:52

True. But we're learning about him. We still know exactly

1:55

who he is. He's not being forgotten by any means. Now,

1:58

we acquired a. hard drive

2:01

last time. Yes, you did

2:03

acquire a hard drive. Not the mystical missing

2:05

hard drive, but that's okay. I'm very

2:08

interested in this one. I would like to go to a secure

2:10

location, hackproof virus

2:12

proof, and examine this

2:14

hard drive a little bit. All right, so

2:17

you take the hard drive back to your hard

2:19

drive lab. Yep. The HQ,

2:21

which stands for hard drive quarters. The

2:24

HDD HQ of D. Beautiful.

2:30

And you try and figure out what's on it. Now

2:32

I will admit to having a little bit of lack of technical knowledge

2:35

here. I know this is a thing, but I don't know how it would present itself

2:37

to you. Okay. But after some analysis,

2:39

you find something

2:41

pretty good. Oh no.

2:43

We're going to have to test your morals.

2:47

It's a coin wallet, isn't it? It

2:49

is a Bitcoin filled hard drive.

2:51

Oh boy, filled. Let's

2:53

say four and a half million

2:56

dollars of Bitcoin. Goodness gracious. This

2:59

is an intense Bitcoin

3:01

hard drive. You know, you hear those stories of like,

3:04

you know, man throws

3:06

out hard drives that had 250 million

3:08

dollars of Bitcoin on it and then just they're searching

3:11

through the rubble trying to find it.

3:13

Not quite 250 million, but there's

3:15

maybe four million dollars worth of Bitcoin

3:18

on this hard drive. This is interesting. So

3:21

I don't know if you've told the police that you uncovered this evidence.

3:23

Maybe you can just not have it as part of the investigation.

3:26

That's up to you. Call on what you do with the

3:28

money.

3:28

That's law for the fan fiction.

3:31

I don't have to make that decision. That's

3:33

all off screen. Who can decide at home what you think Danny

3:35

does in the end of the mystery with this hard

3:37

drive? But there is four million dollars. We have

3:39

heard slight words that he was a bit of

3:42

a crypt bro this day. So that's not

3:44

utterly surprising. And

3:46

not something that got stolen if people were just

3:49

like, if whoever was

3:52

after him knew that he just

3:54

had hard drives of crypto, I

3:57

guess maybe if they were in a rush, they would have just

3:58

grabbed the first one they saw and then ran. run off, but

4:00

maybe they would have tried a little harder as well and

4:03

actually ended up finding this one. Cause this was,

4:05

even though it was a bit buried, it was still in his

4:07

drawers, where they could have definitely, and

4:09

I believe did, have a bit of a rummage

4:11

through.

4:13

So once again, useful to know.

4:16

Don't really know what I can surmise

4:18

from that immediately.

4:21

Especially considering the other

4:23

hard drive that is missing, I suppose

4:25

I should be asking is that going to be some crypto

4:27

stuff as well? It

4:29

was a very different hard drive and didn't really

4:31

give off the impression of necessarily being his.

4:35

I mean, we already know that he was potentially

4:38

stealing programming stuff.

4:41

I don't know if that means it should be more or less

4:43

likely that he's also stealing

4:45

Bitcoin hard drives. An

4:48

interesting question. Yeah, so I suppose that's

4:50

what it is right now. Boring

4:54

HD equals

4:57

coin money. I thought you were saying

5:00

it was boring because it had Bitcoin in it. I

5:02

was like, that's a bit of an odd reaction

5:04

to $4 million. No, it's a boring one. You mean

5:06

it wasn't decorated. Yeah, it wasn't the fancy one. This was just plain

5:08

hard. Yes.

5:11

I don't think there's anything else that I need to examine

5:13

in my HDL lab, right? Yeah,

5:17

the hard drive lab. No, I don't

5:19

think so. I think that was about it. It's just good

5:21

to know. It gets put aside for the moment.

5:24

And again, like

5:26

you denied me last time. What did

5:28

I deny? I sleep for a while until

5:30

daytime. You finally sleep. You

5:32

can refill your energy tracker. You

5:36

can, if it's a comfy bed, you can have an entire

5:38

extra heart. Oh, fabulous. Because

5:41

what I want to do at this point is

5:43

go and investigate gunpoint games. You'd

5:46

like to go to the gunpoint games headquarters?

5:49

If they indeed have them, yes. They don't, the company

5:51

shut down. All

5:53

right, so it's just gone? It's gone.

5:56

Oh boy. A little bit

5:58

after Dave left. was not doing

6:00

brilliantly well and the whole company went under.

6:03

Alright, I assume I give it a good Google

6:05

and then I do my best to track

6:07

down specifically this Emily Shade person.

6:10

You can try and track down Emily Shade.

6:12

You've- Is that even her real name? It

6:14

is her real name. K. You do

6:17

see that she was an employee at Gunpoint

6:19

Games

6:19

and you see that she's made a few games since

6:22

then. She has her own little production company,

6:24

it's called Emily

6:26

Shade. Mm-hmm. In fact,

6:28

you've already talked about one of the games that Emily

6:30

Shade made. Ah, the one with

6:32

the silly name? Yes. Do you

6:35

remember it? Verge told you about the game

6:37

A Gun Fired By The Soul Is Precious

6:39

To Me, which was a Shattered Worlds

6:42

ripoff game that Emily Shade

6:45

actually released as their first project-

6:46

Oh yeah? After leaving

6:49

Gunpoint Games. What was the sort of time difference

6:51

between that and- It wasn't too long after Shattered

6:53

Worlds released originally. Which

6:56

is quite something considering how big

6:58

a game Shattered Worlds was and presumably

7:00

how long it took to make. Presumably

7:02

this one also took quite some time to make. But

7:05

it's just the zeitgeist, right? It's just the

7:07

zeitgeist. Let's find out.

7:09

But you can find her address. She's

7:11

also local. She's living in a far,

7:14

far less fancy sort of an apartment. She's

7:16

actually further out on the outskirts

7:18

of town. She has a little house. You

7:21

get the address and you can head right over.

7:23

Perfect. Sounds like a plan. You

7:25

get in your tiny little

7:28

three wheel car and you

7:30

putt along all the way out

7:32

to the outskirts of town. Foot powered, right?

7:34

Yeah, the wheels don't do that much. And you head out to

7:36

the outskirts of town. You could use that $4 million of

7:38

Bitcoin. You see a house

7:41

is a small but nice

7:43

enough house on the outskirts of town. Little

7:45

brick house. Very flat. Has

7:48

a small garden at the front. Not

7:50

much growing there. You head up

7:52

the stairs and you can knock on the door. Tell

7:55

me about this. Presumably Emily

7:57

who opens it. She's

7:59

a... A bit of a disheveled looking

8:02

person. The picture that keeps jumping

8:04

into my head is Doc Ock from Spider-Verse.

8:06

It's me. It's me, isn't it? Or

8:08

you. Or you. It's either you or the Spider-Verse

8:11

Doc Ock. That's pretty cool. I'll take

8:13

that. Large sort of frizzy hair. Big, or a bit trelawny-ish.

8:16

Big glasses.

8:16

How will a spider look like that in a few years?

8:19

Yeah. She's wearing a long sort of sweater

8:21

that goes down to about knee

8:24

length kind of cardigan sweater

8:26

thing. Aww, those look so comfy. I know,

8:29

right? She's my favourite person.

8:31

And

8:32

she opens the door and she looks at you with

8:34

an odd expression.

8:36

She doesn't seem like she knows who you are. I don't know if you

8:38

called ahead to warn her that the police

8:40

were coming or whatever it is you are. She

8:43

says, um, can

8:46

I help you? Yeah,

8:48

yeah, look, I don't know if you've heard, but there's

8:50

been some drama that sort of rattled the game

8:52

industry lately. And quite frankly,

8:55

I need to do a lot of research. And

8:57

your name thought maybe you could tell me some things

8:59

to fill in some of the blanks I've got. Oh,

9:02

um, no.

9:05

No, as in you don't have

9:07

anything, you give me or no, you just don't want to. The

9:10

first one. Oh, you can't

9:12

tell me anything about the game industry? If

9:14

I could, I'd have a more successful

9:17

career. Think about that. Mm-hmm.

9:21

All right, bye. She starts

9:23

to close the door. I can't react

9:26

fast enough to do anything about it. Yeah,

9:28

this was a bust. I guess I'm

9:30

just gonna sort of sit

9:33

there looking confused

9:35

and hope that she takes pity on me.

9:37

You sit there.

9:39

Eventually. The sun goes down. I don't have anywhere

9:41

to be. The moon comes out. The sun comes up and down

9:43

and up and down. Weeks

9:46

pass. No, no. So you're

9:48

sitting out. She's closed the door. You wait a little while.

9:51

Not days and days. You wait a little bit.

9:54

And the door opens again. And

9:57

Emily says, okay, well...

10:00

Look, I don't want you sitting out there

10:02

all day. Why don't you come in and we

10:05

can talk a little bit. Yeah, that's excellent. That's

10:07

all I want. Great. So she leads

10:09

you inside. And inside the house, it's,

10:12

again, it's not a huge house. There's a little kitchen,

10:15

little living room. We don't need to go too much into the specifics

10:18

of everything that's in there. Does it look like she

10:20

lives alone? Looks like she lives alone.

10:23

The house is a little bit cluttered,

10:24

but it is quite colorful in here. Decoration-wise,

10:28

you see a lot of,

10:29

like the couch is a

10:31

bright yellow couch and it's covered in like

10:33

blue and red throws

10:36

and blankets and things. Great. That's

10:39

what you want to hear. You sit down at the table. And

10:42

as you sit, you notice one other

10:44

thing with color. An

10:46

artwork on the wall. Oh,

10:49

okay, fine. Yep, not quite

10:51

what I was. I know exactly what you're looking for,

10:55

but the pattern, the pattern on this painting,

10:58

to your memory, and you could get your phone out of your

11:01

pocket and slightly look, matches the

11:03

hard drive that was on Dave's

11:06

table, the missing non-boring hard

11:08

drive. Yeah, excellent. Is

11:10

there a small rectangle missing where

11:13

it looks like something could slot in and out? Not

11:16

quite. It's not going to, if you put the

11:18

hard drive in here, it doesn't open a secret base. No,

11:21

but okay, clearly, good to know. And

11:23

then shade. Well,

11:26

because of all the color? Yeah. Okay. The

11:29

color existed before the name. Oh. And

11:32

Emily sits you down, she says, who are you, what do

11:34

you do? I

11:36

tell the truth. Tell the

11:38

truth? Yep. All right. And

11:41

she says, oh, so what

11:43

are you investigating? Investigator?

11:46

You know what? It doesn't matter really. I'm

11:48

going to keep telling the truth. If she has nothing

11:51

to do with it, then great. She'll

11:53

be a bit more forthcoming.

11:55

Ideally, I'll learn some things. If

11:57

she's guilty, she already knows. So.

12:00

It doesn't matter anyway, so I'm still gonna

12:02

be truthful. They're everything. Not everything.

12:04

I'll tell the important bits.

12:06

That is appropriate to know.

12:09

She looks at you, she narrows her eyes and she says,

12:11

I don't want to talk

12:13

about Dave LeCompt.

12:17

So I don't think I have anything to say to you. I'm

12:19

not asking you to talk about Dave specifically,

12:21

but also fair enough been getting

12:24

some weird

12:26

backstory on this guy from what I've seen.

12:28

Look, everybody in

12:30

the gaming industry is the same. They're all self-absorbed

12:34

idiots. Whoa, strong

12:37

language there. Yes, they're all a

12:39

bunch of dummies, a bunch

12:41

of... Just

12:43

don't even talk to those butts. Just play the sound effects,

12:46

just play the beeps. There's

12:48

no beeps to beep. Yeah, interesting. She

12:51

says, I wouldn't trust those

12:54

gum nuts as far as I can throw them. Hold

12:56

on, the kids might be able to hear. I don't have

12:58

any kids. All my life I've devoted

13:01

to games. I've got nothing

13:03

to show for it.

13:04

And yet that's the strongest language you can

13:06

use for Dave? And the gaming

13:09

industry as a whole? I don't like to swear.

13:11

My father was a minister. Those

13:15

kids are the swearingest of them all. Anyway,

13:18

you seem to have lost a lot of

13:21

confidence, not just in the industry, but in yourself

13:24

and your position in it. Like, what's

13:27

up? You

13:28

don't think you're very good at this? No, no.

13:31

I'm fantastic. I've

13:34

made the best games anyone's ever played.

13:36

They're fantastic. It's people who don't know what's good. Yes,

13:39

the classic fountainhead problem. Everybody

13:44

wants something that's... I

13:46

don't even know. You

13:49

look at the games that are popular and

13:51

they're all sound and fury,

13:54

signifying nothing. The game is designed

13:56

by an idiot. Yeah,

13:58

I... I can sympathize

14:00

with that. There's some wild crap. You never know

14:02

what's going to make money. Often you have things where the people

14:05

work really hard and they can

14:07

be a wild success, but then also the

14:09

bizarre ones that someone ripped in 30 seconds

14:12

and somehow that can be even bigger. Exactly.

14:15

The flappy birds of the world. The flap. Don't

14:17

even get restarted on flappy bird.

14:21

Fundamentally flawed design principles, but

14:24

it just looked nice and had pipes. You

14:26

think if it didn't have those Super Mario pipes, people

14:28

would have played that game? No!

14:31

And we are aware of that because we played the game that came

14:33

before it. It's

14:35

just called plane or something. Yes!

14:38

Yes! Helicopter or whatever it was. There's a

14:40

flash game. Now that was in innovative.

14:43

Then they flappy birded it. Do

14:46

you ever play Angry

14:48

Birds? It's always birds stealing everybody. It really

14:50

is, isn't it? Angry Birds is just a rip off across the castle.

14:53

Oh. Alright, sorry. Let's

14:55

be honest. Who knows what those games will rip offs of before

14:57

that? Exactly. See,

14:59

there's no... To rip

15:02

off an idea. Someone with no

15:04

creativity and no talent. It's

15:06

something that nobody should be doing.

15:09

I would never. I

15:11

design original work! So

15:15

Emily, can I tell you a little bit about the

15:17

industry? Absolutely. It's

15:19

a little bit of an axe to grind. Yeah,

15:22

and I'm wondering how much of that I even really need

15:24

to cover. I understand. I've already covered some

15:26

of the various axes there are to grind.

15:29

And she was the one who created this jankier

15:31

version of Shattered Worlds, so

15:33

there's every chance that Dave

15:36

was nicking things from her. I

15:39

get all of that. Don't know if there's too much more

15:41

that I can

15:43

get out of her except perhaps

15:45

on the industry side. Maybe she's got something

15:47

on this Luke mysterious

15:50

meeting and that sort of thing. Probably

15:53

worth discussing. Beyond that,

15:55

I think it's just gonna be standard

15:58

crime questions rather than axes.

15:59

actually asking you anything about the industry. That's just a

16:02

thing to say to tell someone.

16:05

To get in the door. Exactly. Which

16:07

took some time. Yeah, yeah. If we're out of

16:09

the door for a little while. All

16:11

right. So, you know, I'm even going to start

16:14

with that. I'm going to go with, all right. So just the

16:16

usual formalities that I've got to

16:18

ask everyone about, you know, times,

16:21

dates, names. I've got

16:23

your name already. Right. I've already

16:25

written that one down. Yes, Emily Shay. Yes, thank

16:27

you. Middle

16:28

name? Gemma Lee. Cool,

16:30

cool. Jay or G? Jay.

16:33

For Jesus. My father was a minister. Everybody

16:38

my father would say to me, Jesus,

16:40

Emily, referring to me by my middle name. Wait,

16:43

wait. Gemma Lee. It's short for

16:46

Jesus, Emily. He

16:48

was a master. Right.

16:52

Okay. So let's start working back. I

16:54

knew he was a minister because he'd say, I swear

16:56

to God. And

16:58

only a minister would swear. All right. Too much

17:00

small talk. It's getting sadder and sadder. So

17:04

let's go through a bit of the timing.

17:06

So assuming today you've mostly

17:08

been here yesterday. When did the death

17:10

happen

17:11

yesterday? Oh, maybe the day

17:13

before yesterday. By this point, you said

17:15

you slept at some point. I can't remember. I

17:18

think it's probably the day before yesterday. Okay. Well,

17:20

let's just start with yesterday. Blah, blah, blah.

17:22

Don't actually care

17:23

about what I've done. She gives you her day for yesterday.

17:26

And it sounds normal? Yeah, it sounds normal. Great.

17:29

For a game developer. I stayed in this house and I developed

17:31

a lot of games all day.

17:32

Lovely. All right. The

17:34

day before that. I mean, it was

17:36

a similar day. I spent

17:39

the morning here. You're an at

17:41

home game developer and you get up in the morning.

17:44

What's the matter with you? My father was a minister. He

17:46

always said you have to wake up early. And

17:48

I do. Look, I was at

17:51

home working and then I usually

17:54

spend my evenings, you know, watching. Do

17:57

you know anything about live streams? Yes,

18:01

I'm getting awfully familiar with them. Thank you.

18:03

So I watch a lot of those throughout the day. It helps you see what

18:06

people are doing and I enjoy a lot

18:08

of the people out there. There are some very good streamers, there are some

18:10

duds, but there are some very good streamers. And

18:14

then, well, last night I

18:16

went and got my beautiful haircut.

18:18

Last night? On

18:21

the night in question that we are talking about now,

18:24

so two nights ago I suppose, I went and got my haircut.

18:28

Oh, where do you get that on? Oh, that's nice. I get

18:30

it done at Maria's Haircutting.

18:32

Okay, I assume I googled that later

18:34

with that. It's down the road, there's a place called Maria's

18:37

Haircutting. That gives me nothing. Uh,

18:40

wow, Maria stays open late, does she? Yes,

18:43

especially for me. Okay, what

18:45

time was this? Between 8.30

18:47

and 9.30pm. Okay. It's

18:50

a long process. Yeah, fabulous. My

18:52

hair is naturally blonde.

18:54

Do you have a stream yourself?

18:56

No, no, never. Really? I'm

18:59

not an entertaining person, they say. Yeah,

19:04

but you never know. As I'm

19:06

sure we figured out in the game

19:09

industry, sometimes weird

19:11

things get popular, things you wouldn't quite expect.

19:13

Yes. Maybe things that don't deserve it. Well,

19:15

you can say that again.

19:17

Those little dumb butts.

19:20

Those little flappy butts. Those

19:22

flappy butts are out there. Look,

19:25

I don't stream. Sometimes

19:27

people will stream my games. Sometimes

19:29

really lovely, talented people. I send them

19:31

my games and they tell me. They say

19:33

to me, oh, Emily,

19:36

I loved it. But my audience

19:39

wasn't caring. And

19:42

I say, don't, you're meant to dictate what

19:44

your audience likes, not the other way around.

19:47

You understand good games.

19:49

Oh, come on.

19:51

But you know, she still didn't keep playing it. Oh,

19:53

she? Yeah, there's someone in particular.

19:57

Yes. Yes. Someone in particular.

20:00

Anyone I should know, I really need

20:02

to learn more about this whole livestream thing.

20:04

Look, look, look, I know. Mostly

20:07

I watch- The only one I know is Nicole Vergsen.

20:09

Well, well, actually same person. Oh,

20:12

okay, okay. Oh, wow, I didn't catch any

20:14

of this. Well, she knows a good game. She

20:16

said my game was fantastic. Okay. But her

20:18

audience didn't get it. Hmm. So

20:21

look, at least I know that people who are smart

20:24

know good games when they play them. Even

20:26

if they go and play dumb games just for the money

20:28

of it. You're talking about Shattered Worlds,

20:30

I assume. Yes, I'm talking about

20:33

Shattered Worlds. So what's wrong with that?

20:35

I mean, it's- Look,

20:38

I would say obviously has a good

20:40

framework, but it's just so flashy

20:42

and so- I mean, what is that title? Shattered

20:45

Worlds. Doesn't mean

20:47

anything. Doesn't tell you anything about what's going

20:50

on in the game. Any world could be shattered. It

20:52

could be about geopolitics for all you know. Was

20:56

it not? Oh my god. Exactly. I

20:58

misunderstood. Now imagine you playing the

21:00

same sort of a game, but it was called a gun fired

21:02

by the soul is precious to me. You'd understand. You'd

21:04

know what's going on. There are guns, there's firing,

21:07

there's teamwork. That's the preciousness

21:09

of friendship.

21:11

You know, a real title that people

21:13

understand.

21:15

Shattered World. Stupid.

21:18

All right. All right. So let's engage

21:21

in the Randian. We have to

21:23

dumb things down for the masses occasionally,

21:26

and they can't understand your genius. I'm

21:27

trying to decide whether this character is going to be pro

21:30

or anti-An Rand. I think I'll just let her ignore

21:32

the question, but sure. Go on.

21:37

A gun fired by John Galt is precious

21:39

to me. You

21:42

are right. Everybody's just dumbing stuff

21:44

down. They take something nice and they smooth

21:46

it out for easy consumption.

21:49

It's not how it should be. And then you go

21:51

and you try and do something good. You try and utilise

21:54

the resources of a studio that can see your

21:56

talent. And then they stab

21:58

you in the back. Oh, really? Really? Um,

22:01

I'm speaking in generalities

22:04

of course. I never got specifically

22:06

stabbed in the back. No, no, no, but if you can tell

22:08

me anything about your experience, like if you've

22:10

dealt with negative people, then great.

22:13

Those negative people probably attract more negative

22:15

people around them and that will give me more leads. Oh

22:17

yes, look. Negative

22:20

people come in swarms and they come under

22:22

the guise of good people. Like my father the

22:24

minister said, the devil will come

22:26

to you in the guise of an angel.

22:28

Uh-huh. Alright,

22:30

who's this angel devil? Who are you talking about now? Oh,

22:33

Luke Holloman. I don't know if

22:35

you've been to me. Look

22:37

he worked with Dave. I should have known that was enough

22:39

of a red flag not to deal

22:41

with someone like that. He

22:44

took me out, tried

22:46

to pitch an idea to me. A game

22:48

idea? Well, he wanted me to pitch an idea

22:50

to him I suppose. And

22:53

of course the whole thing was just

22:56

a ruse. Oh, really?

22:58

Oh, they just wanted me out of the house. What?

23:03

Look, I shouldn't be going into that. What I

23:06

should say, you're investigating

23:08

a murder.

23:10

Was it a murder? Was

23:12

it a robbery or a murder or something? Was something taken?

23:16

That's a very good question that

23:18

we're still trying to work out

23:20

because you know, not much. There's

23:22

a lot of money and things left around and none

23:24

of that was taken. Feels

23:27

like it was just an angry, angry murder.

23:29

Okay, and you're sure there was nothing that was taken

23:31

from the scene? I don't know. Look,

23:34

that's not my job. My job is to look

23:36

at stuff. I don't catalog these things. Someone

23:39

else's business. And you've asked around.

23:41

No one saw anybody like fleeing

23:43

the scene or anything like that?

23:46

Just for a friend, just asking. There were like eight

23:48

people fleeing the scene. It's quite something we're very

23:50

slowly investigating all of them. Oh.

23:53

She keeps talking to me. I'm just going to keep saying stuff.

23:56

Okay, that's a lot of people fleeing this. I

23:58

hate everything. What, you don't think eight

24:00

people hated Dave enough? Oh, I'm sure

24:02

everybody hated Dave. You should hear what they say to him

24:04

at conventions. Oh,

24:07

really? We all get together and laugh about him behind

24:09

his back. Has he ever invited

24:11

you to one of his weird parties? No,

24:14

and I wouldn't say yes. He didn't used

24:16

to have these parties like back at gunpoint

24:18

games or whatever. Oh. That's a new

24:20

thing. You've done your research. Yes,

24:23

yes, we did work together at gunpoint. I

24:25

suppose he didn't really have a place

24:27

to have, didn't have much money when he was living

24:30

at gunpoint, when he was working at gunpoint and

24:32

living in gunpoint. He had to live in the office sometimes.

24:34

He didn't have any money to pay for rent.

24:36

I'd look, we used to hang out a little bit there,

24:38

I suppose. Not

24:41

anymore. Were you ever

24:43

designing the same sort of projects? Did you have

24:45

to actually actively work together on

24:47

things?

24:49

Or was it more competitive?

24:51

You each went your separate ways to come up with things

24:53

and then the company would decide what to pick.

24:56

No, no, we worked together. When we worked at

24:58

gunpoint, everything was very much prescribed

25:00

by the higher ups. Anything

25:03

else that you worked on on the side?

25:06

Well, as long as you didn't tell anybody.

25:08

Oh, it's one of the situations where they would then own it. Yes,

25:11

but as long as you never tell anybody that that's when you

25:13

were working on it, you can get away

25:15

with these things. Hmm. I

25:18

suppose that's what Dave says he did with Shattered Worlds.

25:21

Says he did. Or did. Or

25:25

did. The far

25:27

away resentment in her eye is

25:30

not subtle. Look,

25:32

maybe you should be going. I

25:34

have things to

25:37

do by myself, I guess.

25:40

If you could... I'd like to call an end

25:42

to this discussion. Makes sense. Well,

25:46

goodbye. She stands up.

25:49

Yeah, yeah, that's cool. That's interesting. I don't

25:51

think I need to do any more investigating inside

25:53

her place. I can do all my investigating from the doorstep.

25:56

You allow

25:58

her to usher you out the door.

26:00

to the step. I sit there

26:02

looking just as sad as before, but this time I say, da

26:04

da, the car's coming round. It's

26:07

not, I parked it somewhere, but...

26:09

Wonderful. Well, she says... I don't have time to think. Alright,

26:12

bye, and she closes her door.

26:14

Great. I can still hear through the

26:16

door, right? You can still hear through the door. Yeah, great. I want to

26:18

know what she's going to livestream. Ha ha! You

26:21

don't hear anything incredibly noteworthy

26:24

from her. She scurries back inside. You try and

26:26

listen in to see if she starts to say anything

26:28

specific and incriminating, but nothing really.

26:30

Didn't occur to me that much.

26:32

Are you investigating all the way outside the house? Anything

26:35

you want to look at or for? There's nothing

26:37

particular that I want to investigate about the

26:39

house itself, although I suppose it

26:41

would behoove me to check out some

26:44

of the things that she implied, which

26:46

is... well, not even implied. She outright said it,

26:48

didn't she? She went to this meeting with

26:50

Luke Holloman a couple of weeks ago and

26:53

at that point she thinks it was a ruse to have

26:56

her out of her house, which

26:58

feels like it's definitely going into the... Ah,

27:00

so the reason Dave was okay with it is because

27:02

he took it as an opportunity

27:05

to go skulking around, stealing some

27:07

things. I don't know if after

27:09

two weeks there would still be any signs

27:11

of that, but I guess I can do a quick circle

27:14

of the perimeter to check out the

27:16

windows.

27:17

A very good thought. You go around

27:20

and you check out the windows. Not a single

27:22

one looks like it is currently, you know, damaged or pried open.

27:25

Does she have a giant chimney? No,

27:27

but you do see one of them is kind of the opposite. There's

27:30

a window that looks

27:32

very, very new. Like the whole

27:34

wooden... like it's one of those wooden windows that sort of the

27:36

bottom slides up and looks like that whole

27:38

piece of wood has been replaced. So

27:41

you do find one strange window.

27:43

I wonder if the giant window

27:45

at his place wasn't used for any practical

27:47

purpose. It was just a, break my

27:49

window, will ya?

27:50

And you do notice that

27:53

the room on the other side of that window looks like a

27:55

home office. Hmmm. Excellent,

27:57

good information. And explains

27:59

a lot of that. about the weird

28:02

sudden about face that Luke's

28:05

mystery client had if she came

28:07

home from the meeting feeling quite pleasant and then

28:10

thought that he'd just been trying to set

28:12

her up for robbery. Yeah, she would send some angry

28:14

emails and then probably not respond to any subsequent

28:16

communication saying, what

28:19

just happened? That

28:20

sounds about right. That all tracks.

28:23

I wonder how much I can get out of this

28:25

Maria person, if anything, because

28:27

I gotta check this out

28:30

by 8.30 to 9.30 is extremely

28:33

convenient. Probably

28:35

worth a wander down the street to check it out. Yeah,

28:38

you wander down the street. You see Maria's hairdressing.

28:41

Is that what I called it? Yep. You

28:44

walk in, the little bell goes ding

28:46

ding ding and the woman says,

28:48

hello, it's Maria's hairdressing. I'm

28:50

Maria. How are you? Do you need your hair done?

28:53

Oh, it's gorgeous, but do you need it done?

28:56

Listen, I could take it so short

28:58

that you look like a boy, but you look like a cute

29:01

boy.

29:03

Please sit down in the chair. I'll start doing your

29:05

hair. It's all I want to do. Just a quick

29:07

book check. She write down all her appointments,

29:10

even the after hours ones.

29:12

She doesn't have as many written down.

29:14

She doesn't have an appointment written down for that time.

29:17

And she says, oh, why are you looking at my

29:19

appointments? Did you have a specific

29:22

question at all? I wanted

29:24

to know about your clients from two

29:26

evenings ago. See what sort

29:28

of schedule you're running then. Oh,

29:31

well, I stayed open late and I did the

29:33

hair of Emily shade. She

29:36

lives just down the street and I did her hair at 8 30 p.m.

29:39

Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. You regularly,

29:41

you know, oh, well, oh, yes. You

29:44

see, my father was friends with the minister.

29:49

Oh, perfect. Perfect. I love this town. Yeah.

29:52

She's an old friend. And

29:54

I do her hair all the time and I was doing it two nights

29:57

ago at 8 30 p.m. all the way through

29:59

to 9 30.

29:59

is when I was doing Emily

30:01

Shades hair.

30:03

I am clad. All right, thank you for your time. Okay,

30:05

bye. And you

30:07

later. Yeah, yeah, that's it. I'm done with that. Right.

30:10

All perfect.

30:11

Hard to argue.

30:13

There is one other

30:16

question that I would like to ask. This might be

30:18

coming out of nowhere, but I need it to

30:20

satisfy my curiosity. And

30:23

I want to call Nicole for

30:25

this one. Oh, okay, cool. All the way back.

30:27

Bring, bring, bring, bring. Yeah. Nicole,

30:30

can I just ask you some technical questions? Okay,

30:32

yeah. About the whole VR thing? Yeah, I can view whatever

30:34

you need. Shattered Worlds, first of all, is it just VR?

30:37

Yes, it's all VR. You can only play it that

30:39

way. You can only play it VR. How do you control

30:41

it? Well, you have the headset

30:43

on. Yeah, yeah. So you are

30:46

looking around. Yeah. The fact that the headset

30:48

moves around is how it tracks your body. And

30:50

then you have your hands on the two little controllers.

30:53

Holding two little controllers is no alternative to that or

30:55

anything. I don't think so. I know sometimes

30:57

you can rig them up so they check your hands,

31:00

but usually you would just have the controllers

31:02

in your hands and you'd move with it and you'd use them

31:04

to fire the guns.

31:05

Yeah, yeah, no problem. I was just

31:07

wondering because, you know, there are some games where

31:10

there are different controller setups and that can

31:12

often make you

31:13

annoyingly better or worse at the game, just

31:15

depending on what the controls are like. Yeah, yeah, that's

31:17

true. One thing that is interesting about the

31:19

way Shattered Worlds works is really

31:22

other than moving your head around and the

31:24

fire button, I don't

31:27

think I use any of the other buttons. Even the

31:30

control sticks, like I

31:31

don't know if you play games, but I

31:33

can look around by moving my actual head

31:36

and because our movements all link to each other, I

31:38

don't get left behind. I don't need to use any movement

31:40

on a control stick to teleport myself because when

31:42

the group moves,

31:44

I'll move with them. Yeah, yeah.

31:46

So as long as my head's moving and my button

31:48

is clicking, I could

31:50

pretty much get through with just that.

31:52

That's very fair. It's a very elegant system. Something's

31:54

different. We have too many buttons. If

31:56

you've ever played a gun fired by the soul, it's precious

31:58

to me, too many buttons.

32:00

Yeah, I get that. Alright, thanks. That's all

32:02

I wanted to know at this point. Alright,

32:04

goodbye. Cool. Boop, boop, boop. That's

32:07

just the one thing that... That's the sound of a phone. Yep.

32:10

Just the one thing that's been sitting in the back of my

32:12

mind from the whole thing was this

32:14

idea that during this particular stream, Josh

32:17

off-camera playing a little bit surprisingly

32:19

bad. And there were three

32:22

possible options. One is, yeah, off-night.

32:24

Yep, bad night. Bad happens. Two

32:27

is it wasn't him.

32:28

Sure. Three, which I wanted

32:31

to rule out in some way or confirm,

32:33

is there are some games where you can play on different

32:36

consoles and what if he'd been like on

32:38

the move while playing

32:40

through one. Feels like we've ruled that out. That's

32:42

not a thing. Yes, but

32:43

he'd be on the move and playing. Yeah, for instance,

32:45

like what if he'd swapped to playing it on mobile

32:47

or something and he was just trying to walk around pressing buttons

32:50

on a phone. That would make you a lot worse at a shooter,

32:52

I would assume.

32:52

A fair thought. So,

32:55

I suppose it's okay to rule that out. But

32:58

the anyone else could have been doing

33:00

it. Going back to the stream, I thought

33:02

I recalled that when they gave him some light ribbing

33:04

for playing badly, we heard him respond.

33:07

Yes, you did hear him respond.

33:10

But there is something slightly odd if

33:12

you go back to the stream. Or more specifically,

33:16

if you go back to old streams. Ah. Josh

33:19

never has a camera. Yep. He does, however,

33:21

have a microphone, obviously. You can hear it talking

33:23

on the video call.

33:25

Yeah. You do note the

33:27

call seems to be separate from

33:29

in-game audio. They're on a Discord

33:31

call. Sure. The entire time. Yeah,

33:33

that makes sense. And you also notice that in most

33:36

streams, he has okay mic

33:38

quality. Not brilliant, but

33:40

fine. Like he has a cheap, maybe he's got a secondhand

33:44

snowball yeti that's not quite set up right.

33:47

You notice on the stream of the day, he does

33:50

sound a little worse. Mm.

33:52

It sounds a bit tinier. He

33:55

was using zoom instead of discord. Oh,

33:57

he's definitely on discord, but he's obviously using a different.

34:00

microphone than he usually

34:02

would use on a stream. Lae

34:04

So that's really odd because that still doesn't feel-

34:07

that feels like it's sort of partway between my

34:09

two options, where that does make it

34:11

feel like it is him, it would be weird

34:13

for you to

34:15

be able to mimic his voice, that said,

34:17

when weird tech things are involved, who knows.

34:20

And like, probably between that

34:23

and yeah, he was doing this, he

34:25

just was physically somewhere else that

34:27

he isn't usually.

34:28

So that is a little bit weird. But

34:31

I gotta do my due diligence

34:34

on this.

34:38

Through this current stream, the most recent one, does

34:41

he have any particularly notable

34:43

things? Anything that stands out more than

34:45

just, uh, yeah, hi. Uh,

34:48

yeah. Do you say anything a bit

34:50

more of notable? You go- you try and really

34:52

hammer down on this stream- Just a single

34:55

phrase. On what's going on with Josh. I'm

34:58

not quite exactly sure what you're looking for with that

35:01

idea, but- Ah. What I am looking

35:03

for with that idea is the idea that

35:05

if he said something notable in any way,

35:08

that if I watch previous streams, I might be

35:10

able to hear him say the same thing.

35:12

No. I mean, there are maybe a few

35:14

of those just because he's a person who talks. And

35:16

that's why I said particularly notable things. But nothing

35:19

particularly notable. There is one moment,

35:21

however, that you notice- well, there's two little things that

35:23

you notice. One is that as

35:25

the stream ends,

35:27

Verd mentioned that Josh wasn't really talking much.

35:29

He seemed like he was in shock.

35:31

And you notice that he actually doesn't talk

35:35

at all on the video

35:37

call from about 8.50ish? Really?

35:42

About a few, maybe

35:44

a few seconds before the

35:46

trip happens.

35:47

Oh, well that's my bad. Because

35:49

I was totally on the assumption that he

35:51

had kept talking throughout. Oh, he seems

35:54

like he was on mute

35:56

around then? Oh, okay. You

35:58

also notice- a strange sound

36:01

at one point, a few minutes before

36:03

that. And you take

36:06

the sound and it's something in the back that you notice

36:08

and you call your boffins

36:10

and you say, isolate in hands. You

36:12

try and get a feeling of what that sound is. And

36:15

it's sort of a, wooooo.

36:18

Weird car

36:21

doppler. It does, when you put it that

36:23

way, it does. It sounds a little bit like when a car

36:25

or a truck goes past you quite

36:27

close. All right, so

36:30

I'm now into my very...

36:33

Nope. So

36:36

it's still feeling very much like I wasn't

36:38

necessarily

36:41

on the wrong track. This

36:44

is a curious one. That was what you noticed

36:46

about his sound. Wait, how much does he

36:48

shoot from A-50 onwards? You try and look at

36:51

his firing, how

36:53

he shoots the gun and how he moves. And

36:55

as much as he tries to talk through

36:57

what's going on and

37:00

talk about, like, oh, I'm just playing badly. He

37:02

really is playing badly. In

37:05

terms of his movement, he's going in

37:07

one direction. Suddenly he stops

37:10

and he'll turn on the spot and

37:12

start going in another direction. And

37:14

then he'll stop and he'll back

37:16

up a little bit and turn on the spot and go in another direction.

37:19

It's kind of weird. And you also

37:22

see that he's firing at a fairly

37:24

regular pace. The button is, he'll fire instead of

37:26

shooting, then stopping for a while

37:28

and then stopping and then. You

37:31

see, he sort of goes, done, done, done.

37:33

And

37:38

a fairly regular pattern of

37:40

firing. So what I'm getting from this

37:43

is at about A-50, he

37:47

hurriedly left his

37:49

place in a car that zoomed off, but he's

37:51

still in the car. In a car

37:53

that zoomed off, but to keep his

37:56

character going, he put

37:59

the headset on.

37:59

on a Roomba and

38:02

then gave the controller to a sippy bird.

38:05

That's the image I've got

38:07

so far and because I refuse to visit his

38:09

place, you'll actually see

38:12

what sort of setup and appliances

38:14

he's got. That's the image I'm sticking

38:17

with right now.

38:19

I'm gonna write that down. Roomba

38:21

plus bird.

38:24

And quite frankly, I think we're getting towards Case

38:27

Closed with that one. A little bit.

38:30

Alright, we're in a good way, but let's

38:33

hammer this home. I have two questions

38:35

left that I still need to know about

38:37

this mystery ghost Josh figure.

38:40

Sure.

38:40

And I... you know what, let's

38:43

call Nicole again. Sorry

38:45

to bother you in the middle of the day. Okay,

38:48

not sorry at all. I just woke up. Sorry,

38:51

I forgot how these things work, but I called you like 10 minutes ago. Sorry.

38:54

I was asleep there. Sorry. Okay,

38:56

I got two questions. You mentioned before

38:58

that Josh and Dave weren't

39:00

crazy about each other. I think you mentioned like maybe

39:03

some jealousy was going on there, just

39:05

like financial jealousy, whatever.

39:08

Like I need to know a little bit more about this. Gotta

39:10

know the relationships.

39:10

I'm friends with Dave. Dave's a great guy.

39:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no time

39:15

for diplomacy. Come on. They

39:17

really didn't like each other. Why

39:19

did you stream together? They were my

39:21

friends. Okay, okay. But look, they

39:24

didn't hate

39:24

each other. It's just, you know, we would

39:26

talk before the stream started and just

39:29

talking about life and things like that.

39:31

And, you know, it's that from now they're from

39:33

two completely different worlds. It's

39:35

like they live in two different shattered worlds.

39:38

You know, Josh struggles a lot.

39:40

He looks after his father's business

39:42

now that he's sort of in charge of that. And,

39:44

you know, when Dave would talk about the

39:47

money he had, when Dave would talk about

39:50

the investments he's made, when he talked about,

39:52

you know, like Dave used to say, he used

39:54

to talk about he got very lucky with crypto early

39:56

on. He had,

39:57

you know, he'd talk about...

40:00

you know, having

40:01

millions of dollars of Bitcoin sitting on

40:03

a hard drive at his desk, you

40:05

know, and every time he'd mention these things to him,

40:07

it was a fun little idea,

40:10

the idea that like right there in front of him, oh, there's millions

40:12

of dollars.

40:13

But for someone like Josh, that's hard to hear.

40:15

Sure. You know, when he's sitting there kind

40:18

of struggling with the mortgage, I think, look,

40:20

I give him gifts, I like to send him nice sort of gadgets

40:22

and gizmos and things like that. Something fun

40:25

to do. And I, you

40:27

know,

40:28

I convinced Dave to try and get some,

40:30

throw some work his way at one point, you know,

40:33

try and support him a little bit. But, you know,

40:35

Josh is, he's one

40:37

of those hard people to please. He's

40:39

bothered when people have the money,

40:41

but he also doesn't like taking charity from people.

40:43

So it just became

40:45

a bit of resentment. I don't know. They did they

40:49

work together at some point. Did that actually end up happening?

40:52

I think so. Yeah, I think he hired him to cater

40:54

something at some point or... Oh, right, through

40:56

the catering side

40:58

of things. I could have said just give him a job

41:00

and give him money. Dave probably would have done that. He's a nice

41:02

guy, but Josh wouldn't like that kind of charity.

41:05

Yeah. What was Josh doing before the

41:07

catering thing? Catering.

41:09

Oh, it's all he's ever done.

41:10

Worked for his father, now he's

41:12

taken over the company.

41:13

So the like playing games

41:15

is just a hobby that's never gone any further

41:17

for him. Just a hobby. He's never done

41:19

any of the designing stuff himself or anything. No,

41:21

it doesn't have much interest in making a game

41:23

or

41:24

designing a game. He doesn't even know any game designers

41:26

other than Dave.

41:28

All right, fine. That's question two,

41:30

I guess. I think that

41:32

covers both of them, because the other one that I was

41:34

going to go for was does

41:37

he know Emily at all? I

41:41

don't know why Nicole would definitely know that,

41:43

but yeah, Kay. Nicole,

41:46

do you know Emily Shade? Well, I mean, via

41:48

email. Yeah, that game we talked

41:50

about. She was, I mean,

41:53

she's been emailing me at some point recently as well

41:55

trying to get me to play another one. But

41:58

I don't know. I'm going

42:00

to be playing any more games for a little while having

42:02

a lot of grief streams coming up

42:05

So she sends me things occasionally

42:07

to play There

42:08

was gunfire by solvers precious to me. I

42:11

haven't played a new one yet Maybe I would have

42:13

got Josh to play that with me and they maybe they could have met that

42:15

way But if there's anything like the last time I

42:17

don't think the stream would go very well

42:19

I've done how to let her down gently people don't like watching.

42:21

I love the games people don't like watching them

42:24

Also, she is doing a new game. What's this

42:26

one called? Oh, I mean

42:30

You probably need to hold on find it written down

42:32

somewhere. Yeah, I've got it here

42:35

Vampire communications towards full

42:38

unity.

42:39

I see that sounds like a game. All

42:41

right, not even an acronym BAM Yeah,

42:43

I know isn't that depressing? All right

42:46

vampire so always good always

42:48

good to hear funny how the

42:50

zeitgeist works I thought vampires died

42:52

out 10 15 years ago and yet multiple

42:55

vampire games coming back

43:00

I

43:03

Solved this murder is created by Bill Sunderland

43:05

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