Alice Is Missing vs Night's Black Agents
Compare Alice Is Missing and Night's Black Agents side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Alice Is Missing | Night's Black Agents | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Modern | Horror, Modern |
| Play Style | GM-Less, Diceless, Mystery, One-Shot Friendly, Experimental, Drama, Investigation | Investigation, Espionage, Character-Driven, Gritty |
| 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. | GUMSHOE engine. Investigative abilities auto-succeed: if you have the skill and there's a clue, you find it. General abilities (combat, athletics) roll 1d6 + spent points vs. difficulty 4. Point pools refresh between sessions, creating resource-management tension. Four play modes (Burn, Dust, Mirror, Stakes) tune mechanics to your preferred espionage tone. |
| Dice | Diceless | d6 |
| Complexity | Very Low | Medium |
| Accessibility | Medium | Medium |
| Runnability | Low | High |
| License | Proprietary | GUMSHOE SRD (CC BY 3.0 / OGL) |
| Cost | $ | $$ |
| Publisher | Hunters Entertainment / Renegade Game Studios | Pelgrane Press |
| Year | 2020 | 2012 |
| 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 spy-thriller action fused with supernatural horror: burned agents unraveling a vampire conspiracy through investigation, chases, and tradecraft. |
| 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 | Investigation never stalls: clues flow automatically, Conspyramid campaign structure is a well-designed GM tool, four tonal modes let you dial in the spy genre you want, highly modular vampire creation system, works stripped of vampires for pure espionage |
| 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 | NPC combat math can feel unbalanced against PCs, multiple point pools to track can bottleneck play, narrow genre focus limits reuse, requires significant GM prep for conspiracy networks |