Things to Note & OOC

Alice Is Missing is a silent role-playing game, intended to be played in-person, though on the phone with your group. It’s intended to be played over the course of 2-3 hours, with 90 minutes of that being in-character play.

We can’t do that. So we’ll try for the next best thing.

I intend for this game to be played over the course of 30 days. 90 minutes divided by 3. With the timed prompts (90, 80, 70, 60, 50, 45, 40, 35, 30, 20, 10) also being divided by 3 and posted on a corresponding day.

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We are here to find Alice. Feel free to make things up on the fly, lean into your drives, and a look for ways to make the game more fun for you and others!

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Tuesday, December 19th: The day Alice was last seen.

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Thursday, December 21st: Two days since Alice has been seen.

Silent Falls is a small coastal forest town in the heart of Northern California. It's quiet here, and since the recession a few years ago, people are not as friendly as they used to be. It's been a rough few years for everyone.

The major high school in town, Franklin Academy, lies nestled in the wooded hills on the east side. It's the last day before winter break, and students shuffle down the hallways, dusting off a light powder of snow from their jackets. It's cold today.

Down the main corridor, past the barren trophy case and peeling Franklin Academy decal plastered on the wall, hangs a bulletin board. A cluster of students are gathered at it, and around the edges we see old posters for student body elections, sign ups for football next year, and reminders about the upcoming senior ball littered about like mousetraps. But as the students part, you see the flyer they were all huddling around.

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Today, Friday, December 22nd: Three days since Alice has been seen. And Morgan Bridges is back in town.

There is a lot going on in the game to get stuff started.

Is there any way we can get a check list of what we need to do?
I feel like I am forgetting something already.

Good question.

Each player needs:

• A character sheet, with a picture. (For posting in game.) - Done.
• To answer their background prompt about Alice. - Done.
• To answer their secret prompt. Done. (Maybe!)
• To write a voicemail. - Done.
• To write a quick bio detailing one of the suspects. - Done.

• To assign relationships to two other characters.

• To assign relationships to two other characters.

Yeaaaaah, I'm dragging my feet there. Probably tomorrow I'll knuckle down and slap my phone screen till teenage angst says things!

Relationships between characters have no mechanical function in this game (like 99% of the stuff in this game.)

It’s purely for flavor or to give you something to work with. It people are really drawing blanks with it, then let it emerge in play!

I believe I am fully submitted and ready. Anyone having struggles? I'm sure we can help if so.

I won't be able to get to the relationship stuff until layer today.
I have an out of town funeral for my uncle today.

It’s Saturday, and everyone except for Morgan (me) knows that Alice was last seen three days ago and is considered missing.

The rules sorta say we wont find the phone without a card that says we do. So I just made up why we cant just go find it. Honestly I have no real clue about the "Find Phone" feature.

Yeah, it also came up in the last game. One of the players said they found her phone but the card didn’t come up. We can just roll with it. I’ll guide us through the prompt cards as we go, and make sure everything is straightened out!

Lol again the rules say we wont find the car without a card for it. Guess I see why they mention those two things specifically.

Fortunately, iirc LoJack is a service. We can just say they couldn't afford to LoJack the cars. Easy peasy. Lol

They should have set the game in the 2010s when less of those services where a thing (I think)

The original LoJack system was invented in like 1979. It's been a thing for decades.

I grew up broke, and legit never heard of this service. Maybe it's more a regional thing? Definitely they won't have it on any of their vehicles. Come to think of it, none of mine have OnStar either.

I added a little to the end of the post. Hopefully that addresses it well enough. I have no clue about that service really lol.

I really don't have much to add..

How do the Clue Cards work?

Clue Cards are set to trigger at regular intervals. The first one will be sent out today. I’ll send the prompt to someone, and they’ll inject it into the story in a way that seems natural to them!

Hopefully that spurs roleplay on for another while, until the next prompt drives us forward again.

If things start to slow down, then I’ll simply push up the next prompt so we don’t lose interest. That, or people can announce ‘I’m going to go look for her at XYZ’ (one of the five locations we have for the game!).

If someone does that, I’ll draw out a card that tells them what they find, which will hopefully drive roleplay forward too. In the last game, I think only one person did this one time, and they found a gun!

Steven has elected to check the Boardwalk I think. Other than that, I know we are sorta waiting on the first new info.

I’ve sent a prompt out to @Gearspark and a searching card out to @MaJunior. Introduce them over the next few messages. They can build off of each other, if that’s how it goes.

Lol it's bedtime for me sadly, but I'll be up early-ish and see what ideas hit my early mind.

I was going to come up with a reason to go to another one but I wasn't sure how much you wanted us to split the party.

Good question. You can split as much as you like!

In fact, I think the game suggests not letting any of the characters actually meet.

There will be more opportunities later and throughout the game too, of course! Let’s see what info turns up now, and that might inspire you to search another location later!

"Oh, [suspect] did [suspicious thing]. Don’t they always hang out at [location]? I’m going to check it out!"

Couldn't sleep. Decided to make something for the first reveal. Hope you like it!

Very swish, indeed!

Besides visiting places, is it pssible to visit NPCs?
Dakota would probanly go check out someone soon.

@Shorty, good question! Let me check my game when I’m back in tonight!

I’ve been a bit swamped with work this week! Today is day four of the game. The next card is supposed to drop on day six. It’s a weekend, so maybe I’ll hold off until the actual day six.

But if things feel stale for you guys, I’ll push it up! Will check the thread later!

It's sorta slowed to a crawl, or pause. But I have a concert tomorrow, and if people wanna take it easy this weekend, I'm cool with that. Otherwise I'll post when there's activity. (Or pester if yall want)

Weekends are slow on GP! The game reminds us that quiet time is okay too!

I’ve just sent a prompt to @Dmbrainiac that will maybe push us forward in a big way!

@Gearspark also turns up something! Thematically appropriate, but… considering the location, is it really anything?

It feels indeed a bit like we ran out of clues. I think it's the problem of converting 90 minutes to 30 days. I hope the new prompts bring new energy.
Also @kcc back to my previous question, Dakota would sure go visit an NPC. But how does that work in general?

Hey, I might add music to a few posts here and there. If that's killing immersion, I can keep that out. Just know music is intended in the game, so decided to add my own.

Yep! Go right ahead! I did click the note box and found that there wasn’t anything inside though!

Always happy to have music. It featured heavily in my Tales from the Loop game too!

Lol its there now, mobile is weird sometimes. The post button popped up where I was trying to navigate to get the video info. So it posted without the video, but I quickly added it.

Sorry, I was away all weekend. I'll catch up and post in a few hours.

I think the best way to play this is similar to how the game sets things up with these suspects. They could be acting suspicious. They could be out of town. Unusual, for them, right?

They could get angry and threaten to beat you up if you don’t shove off. You can take it whichever direction you want. The NPC will be just guilty enough to cause suspicion, while also being innocent for now!

Have at it! :)

And while the game does have suspects, don’t be afraid to pull whatever you can imagine into the game. A camera crew asking questions? An unnamed NPC also being weird and unhelpful? Sure!

The cards will cut all the fat away in the end!

Sorry.
I have had the last 4 days off and using it for family time.
Been distracted and not focused on stuff at all.

Not a problem, Smiley! Family comes first!

Refresh my memory... is this a particular city/state?

Silent Falls is a small coastal forest town in the heart of Northern California.

Oohh... California state laws at play. Thanks!

I think I’ll throw the next prompt in today, to keep us trucking. These next two have the most space between them, and so I think I’ll alter that!

Prompt pushed out to @MaJunior!

Hey Shorty, are you intentionally mispelling stuff? I'm asking cause I thought to react to it, but if it's just accidental, I'll ignore it.

She’s drinking to deal with her guilt!! Pounce on her!!

Right? I had that thought. I'll try to be more subtle about it.

Haha would be fun.

But no.

1. English is not my first language
2. When posting from my phone with big fingers and small letters I often mess up :(

Usually I post from my PC for bigger posts. But the dynamic of this game is faster so I also post from phone.

We can’t meet up, purely for the fact that we would have no reason to text each other if we were in the same room. As far as I know, that’s really the only problem.

Though my students text each other while sitting together at break. So maybe the game is already outdated! :D

I understand Shorty, as a mobile user AND fat finger-er, I often have to stop and double check for errors. If English isn't your main language, then wow, you handle it well! English is all I know, and I still mess it up lol

Taking my kids to the pool today. It’s Liberation Day here, so it promises to be busy. Away from my cards!

I can rustle things up from memory if needs be, or draw something when I’m home this evening. I’m guessing you guys will be sleeping soon, so maybe the latter!

No rush. I had terrible service at work today. So just doing a few catch up posts before bed.

Holding from posting for a while. Dakota is probably upset. Plus I don't think this is going to help the story any further. So a little radio silence on the IC is actually in character.


In the OOC questions before game, I had to describe the night before Alice disappeared and thereby for canon how Dakota behaved and what happened up to a certain point in time.

So, yes, I am intrigued to see how this plays out and I am very curious about Steven's motivations about sharing information on this video that might or might not exist.

Prompt pushed out to @Shorty! Prompts will come thick and fast for the next few days.

Rumors are going to start to fly! Feel free to get caught in the cross-fire, or bring in things that might not have consequences on your actual stories. Camera crews, police calling up asking questions, etc!

Don’t feel like you need to leave one prompt behind when the next is introduced either. CJ is still a creeper. Maybe the police find more shoes or discarded clothing!

Next card will be out sometime tonight (my time!), and will be going to @Smiley! If we get some crossover with Shorty’s prompt, we can reverse the order!

The cards start to come in 5 minute intervals around now!

Was kinda waiting on posts, maybe its another busy day for people. Headed to bed, guess we shall see what drama there is tomorrow!

@Smiley just heard a breaking news story on his ride over to the next location! Share the news!

Please remind me if you need a searching card! I had a busy few days so some things might slip by me!

Steven was heading to the motel to look for CJ.

I’ll release another card tonight. Seems like Steven and Jack are most active right now, so I’ll throw it to one of them!

From now on, if I remember right, we are going to start getting some facts! We’ll learn who did whatever they did, where and maybe why!

Woo, I wondered when we'd start narrowing down more.

My memory let me down! Next card, we will 100% know the suspect. And the one after we will 100% know the location!

I’m thinking to rapid fire the remaining clue cards off. We are only operating with half a crew in this game, and it really does need buy in from everyone to really work.

I’ll parcel the cards out among Steven, Jack and myself on a daily basis, I think!

Sounds good! I'll write in something about why others aren't replying. It can be just false speculation, or totally true.

Dammit. Rolled a 1.

I'm not sure yet if that nailed down location or not, so I'm keeping vague what actions Jack takes. I also jumped time a bit. Dang though, that was a good (well.. bad) reveal.

We're wrapping up, figured it was time to get a bit theatric.

Yeah man, that was great. My card had some stuff about danger, but given it was a vague MAYBE card, I didn't make it obvious as to a specific thing. Pretty crazy the clues actually lined up with this CJ guy. I was worried itd end up random and everything would just be red herring.

I heard a review of this game that said the cards would contradict established stories, so I have kinda been holding back on just making up definitive things. Anyway, I'm sure we can have a post game discussion on how well this works in general, personally, and translated into pbp. Definitely have opinions on it.

Sorry for my lack of activity. I ended up being busier than I had expected to be, and I found it challenging to RP as a texting teenager. I guess I’m getting too old, lol.

Also, the themes were kind of heavy, especially working in the news and constantly hearing real life stories of kids going missing. Hits too close to home, I fear.

Yeah, I will say that the game -- while the premise is solid -- has that potential to be a bad fit for some people.

Most people will never deal with something like this outside of an episode of Law & Order or Criminal Minds. At worst, it's the main story on the evening news. But once you as a person lose that layer of seperation, I can see it being a bad time.

I can relate some to the premise. When I was around 11. I was walking home from hanging out with a friend and some guy dressed in all black (yeah, ski mask too) scooped me up and darted towards a nearby alleyway to a waiting car. Obviously I survived that, but it's definitely some of the scariest stuff to experience.

Funny enough, my sister didn't believe me when I finally got home. (Absolutely terrified)

But yeah, I don't know if the bulk of this game truly captures that experience, but it's certainly cool that a game tries it.

We have a choice to make, folks!

There is one card left. This card will determine the fate of Alice.

You know the suspect. You (will soon) know the location.

Someone has to go there and get her back…

Who?

Honestly? Any of us. Assign us all a number, and roll for it.

That said... I feel like either Gearspark or myself. He plays her damn brother! I play an ex still carrying a torch for her. (Plus the other three have sort of dropped off for various reasons.) Either of us can justify going in-game.

Jack got the card to reveal her location and could head directly there, but we could easily say the cops finally let Steven in to talk to Bria who then tipped him off.

From a story perspective, I think either would be a satisfying resolution.

ALSO:

Jesus, Gearspark!! I'm glad everything turned out ok! That had to be traumatizing.

It was. Didn't leave my house for years, and then struggled socially.

Anyway, we aren't here to do group therapy lol. We all have our traumas and struggles. Just saying I know first hand how scary that stuff is.

I'm slowly catching up with whats going on, but I'm at work, so give me time to see whats gone on.

I’m open to two people going, and keeping Morgan in the loop by text! If both really feel like they might team up.

I'm down with however we want to do it.

I like us both going. I'll work out something.

Hey, as a heads up, work is busy today. I wanna make this reveal a little higher effort, so I'm gonna work on it when I get home. I already have a few things typed up, but I'll be putting it all together later today. Sorry for the delay.

No hassle, and no rush! There’s loads of time and we’ve hit another weekend anyway! Take it easy!

True. Plus we are nearly done. I got a few posts out to start and I'll likely be busy playing Elden Ring with a friend rest of the day. Just something to get us started off on this last stretch.

I may disappear this week. My grandmother seems to be on her death bed, and I might have to fly from South Korea back to Ireland to attend the funeral. It’s been 9 years since I’ve been home, too. Not a great situation to be in, to be honest. I’ll try stay going anyway, but just in case!

Flying to Ireland tomorrow morning. My wife tells me I’ll have a wifi egg with me! So I should be able to see the game goes out with a bang!

Geez man, I am really sorry to hear this. I know "best wishes" don't do much but it's all I can offer.

I went ahead and did my final post. I decided to go ahead with my initial plan even if he doesn't make it.

The game was an interesting concept, but I think it sorta fell flat for various reasons.

• I'm not always quick with ideas, and heck sometimes prompts don't inspire me. Even with a 90 minute version I think id have struggled to make up answers that were compelling.

• We didn't have music going or a timer. The urgency just wasn't there. I added a few songs here and there, but overall it felt silent compared to likely what the intended way of play is.

• The activity fizzled. Which happens in so many games. Life reasons or whatever, our group was dwindling down. With less input, and less activity, things were trending down.

• Also, I think I prefer my fantasy. I wanted to give the whole teenager irl game a go, and I think it just doesn't grab me enough.

• I liked the idea of playing the game via texts, but the immersion factor just didn't carry as well for me.

Hopefully we had some fun and learned lessons on games like this. I think I'm pretty against prompt games now. Just doesn't work as well with my sporadic creativity. Still, thanks for the game!

I liked the concept I just found it hard to post.
The main reason for this was (Not Blaming Anyone) I felt like from the relationship Evan had with the other players he would not really communicate much. I just felt that since I was just her Crush and others felt like me having a crush on her that I was a creepy or being silly. Evan wouldn't want to speak much to people who thought that.
Same idea with her brother. I have a crush on your missing sister... That sort of feels weird...
Or I have a Crush on your Ex... Why would we be friendly?

Coming up with strange ideas to push stuff was also hard for me. I am used to a game where the DM tells me everything that is going on and I just follow their plans; I keep a small idea and need to make up something huge to go along with or change the story.

Sorry about how this one shook out, all! There’s never a good time to die, I suppose! The last two weeks have been a bit of a whirl as I travelled over and back to Ireland then South Korea.

I kind of fell out of the world! Thanks for playing, all! I hope the experience didn’t sour you on Alice is Missing. It’s a really great game. It’s just a hard sell in the format!

I appreciate the efforts. I’ll close this up now, and catch you on the next one!