Alice Is Missing vs Dread
Compare Alice Is Missing and Dread side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Alice Is Missing | Dread | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Modern | Horror |
| Tags | GM-Less, Diceless, Mystery, One-Shot Friendly, Experimental, Drama, Investigation | Atmospheric, CC-Licensed Rules, Character-Driven, Deadly, Diceless, Experimental, Fiction-First, Narrative, One-Shot Friendly, Rules-Light |
| 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. | The host calls for a pull when a character attempts something they could conceivably do but might fail, particularly outside their experience or under aggravated conditions. The player removes one block from a shared tower and places it on top, and the action succeeds if the tower remains standing. Refusing the pull means the action fails, though that failure cannot remove the character from the game. If the tower collapses, that player's character is removed from the game. |
| Dice | Diceless | Diceless |
| Complexity | Very Low | Very Low |
| Availability | Paid | Free quickstart |
| Runnability | 3 of 5 book tools | 3 of 5 book tools |
| License | Proprietary | Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 |
| Third-Party Publishing | Not yet researched | Noncommercial only — Open license |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Publisher | Hunters Entertainment / Renegade Game Studios | The Impossible Dream |
| Year | 2020 | 2005 |
| Languages | English, French | English, German, Italian, Hungarian |
| Best For | Groups looking for a unique, emotionally intense one-shot experience played in complete silence through real text messages on their phones. | Groups who want a single-session horror story where improvised character drama and irreversible risk matter more than tactical combat. |
| 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 | Successful pulls leave the shared tower increasingly precarious, so earlier success raises the risk for every later action. Questionnaire answers define each character's capabilities and vulnerabilities, giving the host concrete material for rulings and scenarios. Deliberately toppling the tower lets a player trade their character for one final dramatically appropriate success. |
| 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 game requires a physical block tower, a stable surface, and manual dexterity. A collapse removes a character from play, so a player can lose their character before the story ends. Running the game asks the host to prepare questionnaires and make frequent pull judgments, even when running a published scenario. |