Homicide - Motives

Last session our detectives had pretty well wrapped up the two murders they were faced with, with all evidence pointing to Gabe Babbett, our parole-violating ex-con. Based on Kevin Woods's interrogation, we think the following is a reasonable scenario:

• Michelle Allen, our second victim, steals something from her place of employment, a religious organization associated with the college campus.
• Scott Marin, our first victim, either discovers or was involved in the theft, leading to some sort of confrontation or conflict with Allen.
• Gabe Babbett, our main suspect, becomes involved, either as a way to fence the item, as protection against Marin, or in some other capacity.
• Babbett steals the item from Allen, involving Kevin Woods in the theft. Babbett also steals Allen's handgun, the murder weapon.
• Things go south and Allen, Marin, and Babbett are involved in some sort of confrontation in Allen's car.
• Babbett shoots them both, then dumps Marin's body in his old apartment and Allen's body in hers.
• For reasons unknown Babbett gets Woods to steal rental records from the apartment office, perhaps to slow the identification of Marin and his roommates?
• Babbett takes off for Delaware to arrange the sale of the stolen item and to put some distance between the crime scene and himself, violating his parole in the process.

Minecraft - Daylight!

I've finally gotten around to snapping a day time screen shot of this arch so you can actually see it. Without further ado...

Path of Exile - Beta Weekend Thoughts

Path of Exile is an online action RPG for Windows, being developed by Grinding Gear Games. They recently held an open beta weekend, and since my friends have been playing, I decided to check it out. I didn't have a huge amount of time to play, so this is really a quick look, not a detailed review.

Minecraft - The Arch

A quick screenshot of the next phase of construction. I really need to stop taking night pictures, but usually I snap these after completing a day's work. This is the arch framework and part of a tower build out that's going to be the structure surrounding the giant tower in the center of this build.

Click to embiggen

Ground Rules - Live

Ground Rules is a web-based implementation of the hex map generation tables I've been writing about here. After running the beta version for a while, it's now live on the PBE Games site. Using Ground Rules is straight-forward, and there's a full set of directions on the page. You'll need to provide your own mapping medium, be it hex paper or something like Hexographer.

Minecraft - New Construction

Been a quiet stretch here, but I'm not dead yet. Here's a new screenshot of my mega-tower Minecraft. I had to clip the top off to get everything in view, but that's OK, the top hasn't changed much. I've been focused on clearing around the base and starting the new, smaller towers that are going up around the main spire. Here you go!

I still have quite a bit of clearing to do -- there's also a cave to explore and clear that's been exposed by this excavation. One of the problems with clearing ground like this is... it just isn't all that interesting to post about. This progress has taken a few days of off and on play to accomplish, and I've filled about 4 chests with stacks of dirt from the destroyed hills. Yawn.

Ah well, so goes the mining.

Ground Rules - Hex Map Generator Beta

If you read this blog, you've probably seen the articles I've been posting about hex maps. I've just finished off the beta release of Ground Rules, a web-based hex map generator based on the tables I've been talking about. It's a bit rough around the edges, and not fully tested yet (thus the beta designation), but if you're interested, it's available here:

• Ground Rules

There's a fairly complete set of instructions on the page. The system isn't particularly complex, but it probably won't make sense without at least a quick read of these.

I'd greatly appreciate hearing from anyone who tries out the system. Feedback here as comments, or via the web comment form on the PBE Games site.