"Alice is Missing" is a powerful lesson in emergent storytelling

It's unique presentation and thoughtful mechanics allow the players to create their own story quickly

When we talk about TTRPGs, we often think about how the stories emerge from the gameplay; try as we might, there is no accounting for a well-timed dice roll that makes or break the chosen course of action. Indeed, in games that include this element of chance, that is much of the appeal. We play to discover the story, and to be shocked and amazed as our characters may be.

Alice is Missing by Spenser Starke & Hunters Entertainment takes this to the next level. It is a silent role-playing game played through text message and decks of cards where you take on the role of teenagers looking for their friend Alice, who has been missing for three days. It takes place over the course of a single session, and in that time you achieve a level of suspense & sorrow rarely accomplished in other games.

I recently played my first session of the game, and thought I would share my thoughts on the experience. There were laughs, tears, memes, and suspense throughout, and it will go down as one of my favorite experiences in TTRPGs.

And so it begins…

Friends ‘til the End

Character creation is fairly streamlined in Alice is Missing. You choose from one of several pre-existing characters, each with some connection to Alice. You could play as her older brother, her best friend, or even her secret girlfriend. Each character has an associated card with three elements: a Background question about your relationship to Alice, a Secret that it asks you to fully develop, and a Voicemail prompt that you’ll either record or write down. You will also be given a second, random card, that contains your Motive and two Relationships. The Motive is a guide on how to play your character; are you going to be inquisitive, pushing people for details, or cracking jokes to try and ease the tension? Relationships help define your connections to the other characters at the table; do you get along, or do you know how someone really feels about Alice?

In the session we played, I was Dakota Travis, Alice’s best friend. I was the cool, punk, rebel teen with a secret love of history. I decided that Alice was fond of doing really bad impressions that she thought were spot on, and while others were annoyed by it, I always encouraged her and appreciated it. The night before she went missing, she came to me stressed, so I decided to take her our to an abandoned house, tag the place up, and introduce her to the wonderful world of weed for the first time. I feared the worst for Alice, jumping to conspiracies, and since I got her high, I blamed myself for her disappearance.

The other players consisted of Charlie Barnes, the one who moved away (played by Sarah); Evan Holwell, the one with the crush (played by Humble); and Julia North, the secret girlfriend (played by Bridette). I never thought Evan liked me; he was a nerdy, lanky teenage boy, and I was the loud, rebellious show-off. I always wanted to be friends with Julia, but she started to be more standoff-ish as she became friends with Alice (we were playing that they kept the relationship secret from everyone, including me).

Right from the get-go, this character creation process had us hooked. We all immediately had a sense of who our characters were, what the dynamics were like, and a sense of how the night would play out. An important part of the character creation process is that the game tells you that not everything is set in stone; you’ll talk to the other players, get their opinion, and over the course of play, certain elements may emerge that you can use to enhance your own character’s story. Right away, we were off to a good start.

Locations & Suspects

Once you’ve completed character creation, you have to go through a list of locations and suspects that are connected to Alice in some way. While the locations & suspects are preset, you decide the backgrounds and connections regarding them. For example, one of the locations is the old lighthouse on the Howling Sea Cliffs. We decided that this was a place we had all been, as it was rumored to be haunted, so folks tended to go out here and try to spend the night (I had of course brought a Ouija board). We had decided that Alice, Julia, and the suspect David Nelson were all theater kids, so the Old Barn was where the unofficial cast afterparties happened. I was a frequent flyer at the Dripping Dagger Nightclub for punk shows, and had brought Alice with me once or twice.

Again, this process really helped everyone be fully engaged and have a sense of what the town was like. There was now story and connection to each of the locations, suspects, and each other, and this really allowed us to fully understand and appreciate any developments that happened. As will be discussed below, this foundation is crucial, as prompts from cards on the future will need to be interpreted quickly and brought into the fold as soon as possible, so this collaborative worldbuilding process really enabled us to quickly develop what we needed.

Final Preparations

Finally, before play begins, the players will distribute the Clue cards. Each Clue card has a number on the back, determining when each card will be played. You give the 90 minute card to the player playing Charlie, and place a 10 minute card in the center of the table. You then choose one of each card between 80 and 20 minutes, shuffle them, then deal them out to each player face-down. Players should not look at these cards yet.

The Clock Starts Ticking

Once the characters, locations, and suspects are laid out, it’s time to begin the game proper. As mentioned above, the game is played silently; the only way to communicate with the other players is via text message. In our game, we used a Discord template provided by the creators to facilitate play. You create a group chat with all the player characters, and then as needed you can message other characters individually. The game starts when the player playing Charlie “creates” the group chat and sends the first message.¹

At this point, you will start a 90-minute timer (everyone from my playgroup will recommend using the Animated Timer, because the music is incredible). When the timer shows a time left that corresponds to a Clue card you have, you flip it over and do as it says; most of them ask you to draw and reveal a card from the Location or Suspect deck. The Clue cards tell you about something that happens or what you find somewhere that will eventually help you determine where Alice is. It is up to you to organically work this information into the ongoing discussion.

At the 30 minute mark, the person with the 30 minute card will shuffle all revealed suspect cards and then draw one: the Culprit is revealed. At 20 minutes, the same thing will happen: this is where Alice will be found. This person will also give the 10 minute card to whoever will be the one to go find Alice. At 10 minutes, that player will flip their Clue card, and find Alice.

This process, overall, was electrifying. The music from the animated timer really set the mood, and was properly paced to ramp up as the game began to approach it’s conclusion. We all immediately got into character, and started talking as though we had all been these characters for ages. Each new reveal was something interesting and intense, drawing suspicion to various characters (each time my character immediately going to “where do they live I’m going to kick their ass and get the info out of them”). By the end, we were on the edge of our seats, and couldn’t wait to see what happened next.

Our Alice

Charlie set up the group; she said she hadn’t heard from Alice in a few days, and was worried about her. We informed her that Alice had been missing, and sent her a photo of the missing person poster. We decided we were going to look for her; the cops were taking too long, after all.

We get a couple leads: Julia finds out that our teacher, Mr. Halvert, who had been hard on Alice all year, once bullied a student so much that they eventually took their own life; Alice asked Evan to meet her behind the Dripping Dagger the night she disappeared, and seemed distraught. Eventually, I received a message from CJ Wallace, the local town creep: he had seen Julia and Alice making out in her room through an open window. I told Julia about this directly, and was quite furious in the moment; my best friend and other friend were fucking behind my back and didn’t bother to tell me.

As the night went on, Julia saw something on the news: Ryan Goggins, Alice’s abusive ex, had also gone missing. I jumped to the worst; he had to have been the one who took Alice. We started thinking of places we could go, but were coming up short. I decided to head to the state park. While exploring, I found Alice’s car, stripped for parts and dumped by a hidden river. I searched it for clues, and almost threw up: Alice’s flannel from the night before, drenched in blood.

We immediately set out looking, but while this was happening, Julia was attacked by CJ in a store restroom, screaming about how he took Alice and various homophobic bits of information. As I rushed to the store to try and save Julia, it was discovered that Alice was at the State Park; Charlie decided to head there herself. There, she found Alice, dead. She then texted us “ITS RYAN / HES HERE / HELP”. Those were the last texts we got from Charlie… by the time we got there, she was dead too, Ryan nowhere to be found. The cops got CJ and Julia was checked on by paramedics; she put up a hell of a fight.

I still can’t believe she’s dead…

Life Goes On

By the end of the session, I had tears in my eyes. The fact that the game is played entirely through text means that moments of silence from other characters could mean anything, and by the end, we had (correctly) assumed the worst. Every moment was full of suspense, of trying to draw the connections from one person to another, understanding how it happened as the story emerged. Some clues were a red herring; the bully, Bria, spreading rumors about Alice, I at one point found blood at the Old Barn. We found the clues that lead to a connected story over the course of play, taking elements of each character & background and knowing exactly how to put it all together.

The game was really effective at ensuring all players were engaged, connected, and interacting with the story. We become frantic messes, with different characters needing to choose different, conflicting things in the moment and hoping it was the right call. We all came out of it having had a fun time, and in the end it was an incredible storytelling experience.

Emergent storytelling can be incredible impactful; we were all riffing on prompts we had started with, and each new Clue required us to think of something that connected to the story that was happening around us. It was a tragic story, in the end, but it was still heartfelt and meaningful.

If you haven’t had a chance, please play Alice is Missing. It’s an experience unlike others in TTRPGs, and you will love every moment of it. Even when it all goes wrong.

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This was different than my usual reviews; it’s doubled as an Actual Play report as well, but I think a game like this needs this level of detail to really understand what is happening. Let me know if you like this style, and I might try and do more like this as things go on! Be sure to subscribe and share this with your friends, and huge shoutout to Sarah, Humble, and Bridette for playing, and especially Sarah for suggesting we play. What a wild ride.

1. Charlie is a required character in the game, and is always played by the “Facilitator” who helps guide the pre-game set up. Once play starts though, they just become another player.