Alice is Missing - Starter guide
What is Alice is Missing?
Alice is Missing is a silent role-playing game about the disappearance of a high school student named Alice Briarwood. For 90 minutes, nobody at the table speaks. Every word your characters exchange is sent as a real text message from your own phone, while a timer counts down and the mystery slowly unravels.
You play Alice's friends and family in the sleepy Northern California town of Silent Falls: her older brother, her best friend, her secret girlfriend, the one who moved away. As clues surface, suspects emerge and locations come into play, the group pieces together what happened, right up to the moment Alice is found. Whether that ending is a relief or a heartbreak depends on the cards.
The game was designed by Spenser Starke and published in 2020 by Hunters Entertainment and Renegade Game Studios, after a Kickstarter campaign that raised well over 100,000 dollars. It went on to win three ENnie Awards in 2021, including Best Game and Product of the Year. Netherbook carries the boxed Renegade edition.
How does the system work?
The heart of the game is the 90-minute timer. Each player holds a set of clue cards keyed to specific moments on the clock. When the timer hits your card's mark, you flip it and follow its instruction, which usually means revealing a new suspect or location and reacting to it in the group chat. The story escalates on a fixed rhythm: the prime suspect surfaces late in the game, then Alice's location, and in the final minutes one character actually finds her.
There are no dice and no game master. One player takes the role of Charlie Barnes, the character returning to town, and acts as facilitator: they guide the setup, start the timer, then play along like everyone else. Character cards define who you are and what connects you to Alice, and during setup you quietly establish your relationships with the other players.
Two rules give the game its unusual emotional weight. The first is the silence itself: from the moment the timer starts, all communication happens through text messages, one-on-one or in the group chat. The second is the voicemail. Before play begins, each player records a short voice message to Alice. When the timer runs out, you play them back, one by one. It is a simple mechanic, and it lands hard every single time.
An official 90-minute soundtrack video doubles as the timer, so the whole table shares the same clock and the same mood.
What do you need to start?
The box contains everything the game itself requires: a rulebook and 72 cards, including character, relationship, location and clue cards. Beyond the box, each player needs a smartphone with a messaging app you all share, and a way to record a short voice memo.
Setup takes about 45 minutes, the game itself exactly 90. That makes it a comfortable single evening, around 2 to 3 hours in total, for 3 to 5 players aged 16 and up. Nobody needs to prepare anything in advance, and nobody needs any roleplaying experience.
Because everything runs through phones, the game also works remarkably well online. A video call for the shared timer and a group chat are all you need.
Who is this game for?
Alice is Missing is for players who want story and atmosphere over mechanics. If your group loves character drama, quiet tension and endings that stay with you for days, this is one of the strongest one-shots ever made. It is also a genuinely great first RPG: no rules mastery, no improv pressure, no talking in funny voices. Shy players often thrive here, because typing feels safer than speaking.
Be honest with yourself about the tone, though. This is a game about a missing teenager, and sessions can touch on grief, fear and loss. The game asks for emotional investment and rewards it. If your group prefers tactical combat, jokes at the table or light party energy, this is the wrong pick for the evening. And since everyone needs to read and type for 90 minutes, it is not ideal for players who dislike phones at the table.
How does it compare to other systems?
Compared to Dungeons & Dragons, almost everything is inverted. No dice, no stats, no game master, no campaign: one self-contained story in one sitting, and the drama comes from what players choose to reveal rather than from what they roll.
Within our own shelves, Kids on Bikes is a natural neighbour: also a small-town mystery starring ordinary people, but played out loud, with dice and across multiple sessions. If the silence is what intrigues you, The Quiet Year restricts talking in a similar way, though it zooms out to a whole community instead of zooming in on five phones glowing in a dark room.
Where do you start?
Have the facilitator read the rulebook once before the session, set up the group chat, and pick character cards together. Dim the lights, start the soundtrack, and commit to the silence: the game only works if everyone protects it.
One practical tip: agree beforehand on safety tools like the ability to pause or skip content. The rulebook covers this, and it matters more here than in most games because of the subject matter.
After that, trust the timer. The structure does the heavy lifting, and no two games of Alice is Missing end the same way.
Recommended products at Netherbook
The Alice is Missing core box is all you need for your first sessions, and it stays replayable because the suspects, locations and outcomes shuffle into a different story every time. When your group wants more, the Silent Falls expansion adds new playable characters and new cards that deepen the mystery. And if this style of play clicks with your table, Kids on Bikes and The Quiet Year are the next doors worth opening.