Alice Is Missing vs Call of Cthulhu
Compare Alice Is Missing and Call of Cthulhu side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Alice Is Missing | Call of Cthulhu | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Modern | Horror, Modern |
| Play Style | GM-Less, Diceless, Mystery, One-Shot Friendly, Experimental, Drama, Investigation | Investigation, Deadly, One-Shot Friendly, Atmospheric, Roleplay-Heavy, Mystery, Horror, Corruption, Skill-Based |
| Core Mechanic | No dice, no GM. One player facilitates setup, then all communication happens via text messages on players' phones for 90 minutes. A timed playlist sets pacing: when the timer hits the number on the back of a face-down Clue Card, that player flips it and follows the prompt, drawing a Suspect or Location Card and weaving the new information into the group text conversation. Characters exchange messages in a group chat and in private, building the story of what happened to Alice Briarwood. The 10-minute card determines the ending. | Roll d100 equal to or under your skill percentage. Success tiers at half (Hard) and one-fifth (Extreme) of the skill value. Bonus and penalty dice adjust the tens digit. Failed rolls can be pushed for a second attempt at greater risk. |
| Dice | Diceless | d100 |
| Complexity | Very Low | Medium |
| Accessibility | Medium | High |
| Runnability | Low | Very High |
| License | Proprietary | Chaosium Fan Material Policy |
| Cost | $ | $$ |
| Publisher | Hunters Entertainment / Renegade Game Studios | Chaosium |
| Year | 2020 | 2014 |
| Best For | Groups looking for a unique, emotionally intense one-shot experience played in complete silence through real text messages on their phones. | Investigation-driven horror where combat is deadly and sanity is fragile. Great for one-shots. |
| Highlights | Played entirely in silence through real phone text messages: no speaking after the game begins, timed playlist structures 90 minutes of play with Clue Cards triggered at specific intervals, voicemails recorded during setup are played at the end as a group debrief, won three Gold ENnie Awards in 2021 including Product of the Year | Tracking Sanity as a depletable score ties mental erosion to the fiction, so confronting cosmic horror mechanically wears characters down. The percentile skills resolve on a d100 roll-under, with Hard and Extreme bands at half and one-fifth of the rating. Bouts of Madness convert failed Sanity checks into temporary phobias, manias, or loss of character control. |
| Considerations | Requires all players to have phones and each other's numbers, designed as a single-session experience with no continuation: replaying with the same group revisits familiar territory, emotionally heavy content including themes of loss and violence requires safety tools and player buy-in, facilitator must thoroughly understand the rules beforehand even though the role is lighter than a traditional GM | The chase rules add a detailed positioning subsystem whose complexity outweighs how often it sees use. Character creation allocates points across a long list of skills, a slow first step for new players. In long campaigns the sanity spiral can strip a character of player control as madness accumulates. |