I've played this game... maybe 7 times now? I know that it makes me a psychopath, but I truly cannot express how much the game means to me. Almost every time I've played it, someone's left the table in tears which is usually not a great sell for a game but it really is for this one. A campaign of any other RPG takes an extraordinary amount of time to get this level of emotional investment, this game nails it in around 3 hours. I'm glad you got to have a similar experience!
@@Imperiused I think that what really makes the story is the people you play it with. More often than not, they'll have a fresh idea to bring during the planning phase which inevitably paints a different picture in the end. You will have to be pretty proactive about making your own character unique each time but I can definitely say I've gotten many different feelings from many different games. That being said, it's a bit of mental work and the format has to really 'click' with you.
Played this game with my friends some time back, and my god it was an experience. Tears welled up in those final moments. One of the best things I’ve ever played. If anyone hasn’t played it, please do.
I don’t know how to feel about this game, maybe it just hits to close to home. Sadly women disappearing in my home town is something that happens regularly, I think I couldn’t play a game with these theme
It's my favourite RPG. Not only for its emotional gut punch, but because its so tightly wound as a TTRPG experience. The designer has a great tutorial about how to run the pre-game prep, how to avoid it dragging out too long and keep the momentum going so you can pour your creative energy into the right places. You sit down with your friends, and two and a half hours later you've had the complete experience. It's a brilliant, conscientious piece of design.
Please keep doing rpg reviews. The passion you have for them is so infectious and I love to see reviews when someone has actually played a system. You’re a gem, Quinns
That was my initial thought too. That’s another RP that I’ll just never play again. Even with the fact that you can have any scenario you want. But knowing that your character is doomed really reacted weirdly with me. There was a hopelessness which I’m sure was intended and by design, but I did not have it in me to enjoy.
For another similar experience you may want to look into Love & Barbed Wire, which is a game about a soldier and lover writing letters back and forth during a war. It's only for 2 players, and while I it doesn't have as much of a presentation as this and it relies more heavily on the player's ability to "dig in" to the characters and write in the theme of the letters, the way the game randomizes the results is more straight forward (uses a deck of poker cards) and neatly avoids the replayability issue that you bring up. I've played six "sessions" of it and each one was wildly different and while some outcomes are filled with joy, there are other outcomes that are filled with genuine sadness and we cried as well.
My group had a very different experience. First, while I prepped them as this could be a really dark game, it never really got *too* dark because either we were struggling with the technology (80% of the group were late 30s and up so we weren't big "group chatters"), or we didn't let ourselves go that far. Eerily enough though, all of our story beats lined up beautifully, so there were none of the dangling plot threads that you describe. I died, and it was actually quite emotional for me. We played over Discord and it was a lot of fun. I would actually love to play with a different group sometime. I get what you say when you say it wouldn't be "your" Alice or "your" Charlie, but it's like watching a remake of a movie or TV show: you can still enjoy the new version, and still keep a fond little corner in your heart for the "original". I can't wait to get the Expansion and try this with another group.
this game is peak. my friends and i played it and then spent 3-4 hours afterwards decompressing and talking about the experience with all our little favorite character moments, such a beautiful game
Great review, glad to see this can work for groups. We played this and kinda fell flat. You really need everyone to take it seriously and understand what the game is trying to do. Personally I would have liked the game to provide more of the story. Having to make everything up was tricky for us, as people were looking for answers the game didn't provide. The game doesnt want you to fill in the blanks but also bring the paper and outline.
My brain immediately started filling the blanks from just seeing the box, the manual, and the basic description of it. Haven't played it myself, but damn, I can't begin to imagine how much of an emotional hit this is. Just this review was one and hit so close to home in certain places Also, the idea of having twins for a 6th player is _genius._ I can't overstate that, that's an amazing way of having players two-hand a character for a roleplaying game
This is one of my favorite games of all time. Even just hearing the soundtrack in this video makes me tear up. Getting to playtest some of the original materials and basically facilitating it as Charlie many times, I am so appreciative of its design and the way the story emerges so organically from the game's mechanisms. And yes, it made me cry, too.
Such an incredible game. The text only basis quickly immerses you so I've found that, even with friends who tend to get very silly when we're playing face-to-face roleplaying, playing entirely via text (or via Discord messages) really put you into the right headspace, and the tension really ramps up with specific prompts and the timer counting down. Really looking forward to seeing what the expansion brings to the game.
Played this with my friends a while back. One was tired, another skeptical. All were enraptured after a short while. It definitely is an experience i wholeheartedly recommend for everyone mildly interested in something magical and different.
Great review, loved the nuanced recommendations! I played Alice is Missing in person with four other friends around a table in person. As someone who’s “into” improv and the indie RPG scene, I was blown away by the density of roleplaying in the game. There’s the highest density of in-character “utterances” in any game I’ve played. It’s also good for players new to RPGs because it gives players characters and story skeletons so you don’t have to be “creative”, you can just jump into the fun roleplay. On the other hand, my group also felt that the structure of the game was too restricting. Some of the ways the game sets up the plot (like flipping over cards at random for plot elements) were irritating because they often went against our improv groupthink. We all kind of implicitly agreed what the plot was and what plot threads were interesting to follow, but when the game tells you that one of the least interesting threads is actually the most important, it felt jarring and immersion-breaking when we had to do narrative acrobatics to fit it in. We also kind of disliked the fact that there’s not a lot of ways for players to capitalize on good ideas they have or move the narrative away from what the game tells you - players have to wait for the timer to tick down and then figure out how to incorporate the new plot element into our story so far, rather than players driving the action themselves. Totally agree with it being a very passive story, IMO annoyingly so. I think Alice is Missing is a fun experience to play once, but it would probably be just as fun or more fun to create your own characters, come up with character secrets and relationships, and then freeform roleplay using group chats and DMs for 90 minutes while playing the soundtrack (or your own fixed length playlist) and try to tell a reasonable story with rising action, climax, and resolution in that time.
Got the game off the back of this video- absolutely adored the experience! Our story ended on a semi-positive note but the rollercoaster to get there was incredible!! Thanks for the review and keep up the excellent work!! ❤
I got to explore so many things in this game that I had never been able to before. Mostly improv. Those voice mails at the end that are revealed are so incredible to finish with. My voicemail made people in the group cry after everything we did and I had no idea what I was doing. I just tried to be my character and after the entire story played out, it was just the perfect ending. I felt anxious for other people to hear it because I had opened up my character so much and I felt that. This game is excellent. but make sure you play it with people you trust and respect. This game can go dark and you want to make sure the people you play with are respectful of boundaries and the fact that this experience, even if dark, is meant to be enjoyed.
if you like the voice mail mechanic you gotta try out 10 candles. It's also bleak but fun, highly evocative, plays fast (though longer than alice), light on rules and is just soooo good. I'd even say the voice recordijg works even better in 10c Alice is a better starting point however due to the even shorter playtime and the removal of acting. I love both :)
Some friends and I played this last year over Discord, and it was the first really good roleplaying session since pre-pandemic. But I agree, I don't know what I'd want to go back and play this again. It's excellent. But it's heavy and changes to characters in subsequent plays would feel like a needless Hollywood remake. Also, my phone keeps changing one of my friend's contact info back to their character periodically, which is both hilarious and kinda tragic.
Had a wild experience of this game, my partner and I introduced this to two friends who had never roll played. We were afraid they wouldn’t be able to lose themselves in the characters, boy were we wrong. They created the most over the top, absurd characters and then commuted completely and totally to playing them to the max. It basically turned the game into two people trying to find a missing girl, and two people so absorbed into their toxic, horrible characters that all they could do was shit post in a group chat. It definitely was not the intended style of the game, but we had a great time. We laughed so hard for 90 minutes straight
Hunted down a copy of this with my friend at SHUX and we had a great session. So much easier to role play over text. Hope to see other games do roleplaying in a similar way.
I bought this game on a whim, called my friends of varying RP experience (including one who had no RPG experience) to come over that same night. Sat down, set the game up and played the timer on the living room tv. None of us knew about the incredibly powerful and unforgettable experience we were about to have, and I'm glad I jumped into it completely blind. However, I am keen to run it again for another group just to get a completely different experience.
We've been gushing over this game for a year now! It's an amazing one-of-a-kind experience and I can't agree more with you about the emotions, it just makes you feel things like no other game does. On a side note, we've played it multiple times. Surely the first time was the best, but it didn't lose much when being replayed. It's like watching a really good movie the second time. After a while, you just are eager to try it again
We also had one too many people on our playthrough so my friend and I shared a character who was prone to tics and immediate mood swings. One moment our character responded to other characters arguing by simultaneously grabbing popcorn but also telling everyone to calm down and get along.
I know this comment isn't related to this game, but just wanted to say I purchased Monickers "Classic" with the SU&SD pack in it and it's now one of our gaming group's favorite party games. Thanks for helping make such a great game!
I just did something similar! I picked up monikers and The Crew based on SUSD recommendations because I was going to a large family reunion and I couldn't bear the idea of playing nothing but scrabble and Catan all week. I opened up monikers the first night and it was such a hit that it became a routine every night for the rest of my stay. Because of monikers, I only had to play ONE GAME of Catan for my whole stay, which for my family is absolutely unprecedented! (The Crew, or 'space euchre' as we affectionately called it, was also a lot of fun for passing time during the day) Thank you SUSD!
Immediately downloaded. Thank you Quinns for all the amazing RPG content. Because of you I now play regular dnd and blades in the dark and I bloody love it!
I played it when it first came out and had an amazingly emotional time. I would not have liked to play it again for quite a long time after, but now I think it's faded enough for a second go with new people. It just takes a little time.
Yes!! I longed for more RPG coverage and i got more RPG coverage! I hope that your RPG content gets at least the same amount of views as the board game ones. After playing and loving board games for years i got into roleplaying last year and i am totally hooked. Please keep the RPG content up! :-)
I work in live roleplaying games, and this was a fascinating review of an intriguing game. Probably not for me - I have the emotional range of one of those bricks they use for life-saving training at the swimming pool - but I know several folks who I think will find it equally interesting and are capable of human emotions. So cheers for that.
I have a lot of trouble with teen drama, I really hate that mostly because i cannot link with the story and because I have a lot of issue with how teenagers are represented so far from what I remember from my actual teen years. I was so afraid of Alice is missing when I played it the first time because of that. And playing it was an experience, like a really touching experience. Because of how the game work and how it give every people the possibility to manage their own limit, I had for the first time a story that feelt real about teenage struggle. I think this game is one of the best ever created. I don't think I'll recommand it, because it's so special. But if you have the curiosity to try and, and people you trust to play with, this is one of the most impactfull experience of this decade. No hesitation.
There's this weird mixture of both trying to distance yourself from and romanticise these times. Like none of what happened matters but also those were the most intense years. Everybody was so dumb but also everybody was so great. Wanting to reaffirm that you're now better or wiser than then, but also getting old sucks and being young is awesome. It's very conflicted because it's older adults projecting their current issues into the past.
The first time I played, I was essentially RPing as what I thought I was like as a teen. The second time, I played as Alice's brother and tried to act like I thought my brother felt about me - I think all of my characters have helped me revisit and in an odd way worth through the trauma that is growing up, even 30 years later.
I ran this twice at virtual conventions during the pandemic and it was equally powerful played with strangers AND the texting and discord voice mirroring the actual world made it particularly special. Had two people who were brand new to role playing who were incredibly moved
Quinns and SUSD: I greatly appreciate that you're reviewing games like these, and that you're leaving space for the art in games to shine. I couldn't watch this review. I've watched every single full-length SUSD review up until now but, living in Mexico, a country where young people are systematically kidnapped, and where women are always under threat of femicide, I couldn't stomach more than the first 2 minutes of the review. I still think it is a very beautiful game as a piece of art and I still think it is really cool that you would review it on SUSD. Keep on keeping on!
From thumbnail thought it was somehow a card game of the old Flash game Alice is Missing. Which I now remember is actually Alice is Dead. Alice is Dead are some classic Flash games, huge recommend.
14:45 Dear Esther suffers from that problem. It's a beautiful walking simulator and the script is artful and poignant, but it has random variations which means that things don't always come together in a way that feels like it was going somewhere in particular. It sometimes meanders in a way reminiscent of an ai chat bot that seems to be conversing nicely and then veers off into foreign territory and shows the cracks in the technology.
I played this game very recently and I don't think is an adequate game for new RPG players because it ask quite a lot of the players, creatively and involvement where the silence kind of isolates them with their insecurities about "is this how a rpg should be played?" "what I have to do now? did I miss something or I have to invent the answer?" Like we all know when we try to teach someone to play rpg, that one of the big blockers is not the actual specific rules but the more general concept of the activity - also I think the game should be a bit clearer about the fact that is not a detective story, and while the objective of the characters is to find Alice and figure out what happened, the objective of the players is not that at all. I think that can create a massive disappointment in a lot of players that may be approaching this game like a detective/investigation game
Just played my first game and had an interesting session. Game was amazingly tense and had a hilarious Tarantino style ending between the town police and our perpetrator. Highly recommend
This one is REALLY good. Bought it and was waiting for a chance to play it, then a friend suggest playing it on his birthday, and while some where more into it than others, it was such a tense and different experience... Also worth noting was how the one in charge screwed and read the final card wrong. We all agreed it might have been for the best, as we got a more satisfying ending than the one the card threw us!
FINALLY played this myself. Im glad i played it and an unholy number of details across every bit of the game lined up perfectly for our story. Its a really intetesting and chaotic experience. Definetly worth a try
Glad to see another one of my favourites got a review :) I played it a few weeks ago and found my self in tears and in a sad dark place during the game and a sad reflective mood after. I played a julia who only had 1 person she was close to, Alice and the events her going missing destroyed her. This was about my 7th game of it after a long break and it was fantastic. I admit I do feel the complaint that you have your dakota and evan but after a couple of games I was able to find a place where I really enjoyed the many differences. There will definitely be characters you remember better and runs that pull at your heart better than other games but playing a new character changes a lot. I would also say without the expansion... the game doesn't truly follow through on the random playthrough aspect. 3 different possibilities for each time slot means you get a lot of familiar moments mixed with some new things. I'm hoping the expansion fixes this because currently between 2 games in a row you are all but guaranteed atleast 1 event showing up in both. I wonder if the plot complaints would be lessened if you reduced the number of suspects to maybe 3 suspects?
I've played this game twice, in the same week. The first was with 4, and the second with the full five. Both, save for me, were completely new people to the game. The first sesh went really well, it was immersive, it was sad, it was wow. The second...seemed too full. Like there was too much happening to be able to follow a through line. I still love this game, and I can't wait to try it again.
You should also go and play 10 Candles if you love the mechanic of recording a message and revealing at the end. I think it probably is more replayable too. Friendly advice from a lover of the channel. Keep up the awesome work.
Hey Quinns. Never played an RPG before but I’d love for you to keep doing reviews of them (in addition to the board games) because my own game group needs to expand out into new territory.
I've run it 9 times. I've had people ugly cry at the end. I had one person so overwhelmed by the ending that she needed 5 minutes to respond. It deserves the accolades it won. Its FANTASTIC.
Man, I’m really hoping to see a Masks review (and bluebeards bride). Masks is such an interesting concept and execution such that I can’t tell if they nailed it or missed half the content needed to make it work.
I can tell you my review of playing Masks for about 20 sessions. It is not a superhero game at all, it is a teen angst game with the thinnest veneer of superhero stuff. I wanted a game about putting on capes and fighting crime like the Teen Titans, the game wants you to spend all your time working out what your high school guidance counsellor thinks and if your character agrees. Some people say it is their favourite game, my gaming group absolutely hated it. The shame was we really liked out teen hero characters but had to fight the game system infinitely more than fighting bad guys and in the process poisoned my group against trying any other PbtA games whereas I know a better match of theme and game mechanics (Monster Hearts, World Wide Wrestling for example) could be really fun.
life is generally down down down right now and I have an unfortunate lack of boardgame applicable friends, BUT it is amazing having the chance to show up and watch these videos! Just the unquestionable quality in your videos and beautifully curated selection of games, Thank you!
They don’t seem to be selling the physical version of this anymore, which makes me sad. The listing on Amazon indicates they don’t have any more and likely won’t, and the website has it listed as a pre-order despite it being out for more than 2 years
I liked Alice is Missing, but I didn't love it as much as many people I see talk about it. It was good, I don't regret kickstarting it, and I'm glad I played it, I'll probably play it again sometime; but it wasn't the transformative, emotional experience Quinns describes here. The art is beautiful, and the soundtrack incredible, but the game design just felt a little thin. There were points in the game where we all felt like we were sitting around waiting for the next thing to happen. Something happened to one of the player characters, and we were all stuck waiting for the next card - the game rules didn't allow us to go to that PC's location and do anything about it. For everything I liked about this system, it felt like the player characters lacked much agency to actually do anything or influence the story's direction. I've played other narrative rules lite RPGs where this wasn't an issue. I'd still recommend people play Alice is Missing for all the good reasons I mentioned, but I like having meaningful choices in my RPG, which I felt like this game didn't provide me. All roleplay, no game.
I'm glad I'm not alone in this: reading through the comments I'd think that this game was the best thing since sliced bread. Maybe different RNG very slightly tilts the scales into how much it *feels* like you're able to do, but in our campaign, we all role-played fairly well, but towards the end, it felt a whole lot like a very slow cart on some rails. Literally like 15 minutes between "omg I'm in danger" to anyone actually being able to do anything about it. It's all well and good that we could say "we're on the way!" But we just had to keep coming up with random nothings as to why we were taking so long. "Don't worry, still on the way! Just had to pick up [donuts!/weapons/etc.]" With no payoff (or lack thereof) for preparation. The story was nice, but it seems like the creator probably would've just been better telling the story than packaging it as a game. Maybe I just played with a bunch of cynical memers.
I love all this RPG content! I have a bad habit of buying exciting new RPGs and then not being able to find room to play them amongst my existing RPG campaigns. Being just a single evening experience this sounds much more likely for me to get it to the table. I am concerned about the mystery being incoherent because I think that's something that would really bother me and at least some of my friends. But given that the PDF is pretty cheap and it only takes an evening it sounds like it's worth trying regardless. And perhaps going in knowing not to expect it all to piece together might make it easier to just go along for the ride rather than trying to solve it.
I had to pause this video just now to say, you really did "Dog Eat Dog" dirty with that comment Quinns! Your review of that game is still one of the best pieces of games journalism I've ever read and the only game REVIEW I've ever read that made me cry. It inspired me to buy the game, teach it to the humanities department at the school I worked at, who then build their unit on colonialism around it. It's a phenomenal, if deeply uncomfortable game, and that throwaway line was just really unfortunate.
Man some of the soundtrack really reminds me of the old The World is a Beautiful Place and I am No Longer Afraid to Die/Deer Leap split LP, and that’l already make me extremely emotionally vulnerable
I love the idea of games like this, but the D&D roleplay group I'm with can't stop trying to be comedians even when I'm running some dark moments from Curse of Strahd. It's fun gaming with them don't get me wrong, but we couldn't do this haha
I've had that experience with some groups. So you could be entirely correct; but I've also been genuinely surprised by groups I never imagined were capable of genuine depth. Lots of people can't (or won't) drop the comedian act, but almost everybody does have an emotional life beyond their social defaults … and I think the vast majority of people are capable of evolving beyond pure snark if given the right (or perhaps a variety of) opportunities.
I do think that is a pitfall of this game -- it is meant to be taken mostly seriously, and if someone decides to be a goofy jackass about it, that one person can ruin the entire vibe. I think you want to play this with a group of people who are all on board with the premise. I would not recommend trying to cajole someone into joining if they think it sounds silly, etc.
Could you set up the 3 envelope idea prior to play? I wonder if I set up now and then play the game 6 months from now - maybe I would forget the setup or maybe still have some of the time cards still be random and have key parts/time in an envelope to create a better story? If anyone who played this and wants to put the setup in BGG? Maybe only mention the time and first few words of the card so the person setting up doesn't need to read everything for setting up in the envelope.
I’d really love to hear from you about this game again in a year if you try to play it again. This feels like the sort of thing you play once a year at most.
Everyone interested in this game or who has played this game should also play 10 Candles. This game borrows heavily from 10 candles which is a game that uses less resources and less rules to acquire a similar effect though more outright horror themed. I think 10 candles is where the recording mechanic originated. it is a magical experience. Cant wait to play Alice is missing!
I played this game yesterday and I was playing charlie barnes and played with 3 other friends, the experience was great. One played the brother, another the best friend and the last played the secret girlfriend. By the end of the game the culprit broke down my door and shot me. Then the brother found Alice lying dead and was chased by the culprit and ultimately died next to his sister. While the best friend killed himself because he blamed himself, so the only one left alive was the secret girlfriend. And I was in tears by the end.
Thank you for the content warning! The last few weeks of news stories have affected me and I’m going to skip this for now. 0:12
ปีที่แล้ว +1
I totally get this "one go and be finished with it". I had a similar reaction to the movie "Requiem for a dream". Had very strong emotions, I recommend it highly but I never want to see it again.
As someone who spent a significant part of my career working on issues related to missing and murdered women and girls, this hits a little too close to home to be something I could comfortably play. Nevertheless, it's beautiful to see the things that games can achieve. This seems like one I will appreciate from afar. Separately, it looks like a new tatt on Quinns' forearm? Nice ink.
I want to see your review of Bluebeard's Bride so much! It has been in my bookshelf for a while, I didn't find an occasion to try it yet. It's the only rpg book that sends me shivers just reading it, it seems such a disturbingly good horror game. About Alice is Missing, that game also made me cry. I've run it two times after playing, and it never came close to the same level of immersion, but what an amazing experience it was the first time. It' still one of the greatest RPG experience of my life.
Very good video. On minor error I have seen is that the 1 tile is minus one point. You could argue it is worth the maximum Minuspoints of your floor line, because if you would not have taken it this would be the points you have more.
Great video, this game kinda scares me with the feels that could happen but it does look great. I love the showcasing of all these different types of RPG. 5E was my entry point but the rabbit hole of TTRPG's is so vast and awe inspsiring, it's so worth it to explore. Also can we get your review of your campaign of Heart please and thank you!
From personal experience, this is a game you will not play regularly... or even a lot. But Quinns is reacting to a game he has recently played. It's still fresh in his memory, and those character's will stay with you. For a bit. I did my first playthrough almost a year ago (18 March 22) with a group of five and, honestly, I've been wanting to play it again for about 3-4 months. I get what Quinns says in this video about them stepping into dead man's shoes... but I also am really excited to what other people will do to flesh out these characters to make them their own. Last time, one character was played as an absolute arsehole, whereas I played my character in a very innocent and naive way. This could very easily be flipped, or transformed into a completely new narrative. The character of Alice can also change between playthroughs, and that is what makes this game so fascinating. It's like watching a 90 minute movie. You all know what the story is about, but you get to go with those twists and turns together along the way... and because each player has a relatively equal amount of control over the story, anything can happen at anytime. I really encourage you, if you are in anyway interested in Alice is Missing, to go out and buy a copy. The artwork is beautiful and it captures people's attention and interest. It's the one box that gets picked up more often than any other in my collection. This is more of an experience than a game. I hope you enjoy it.
You can make it a Twin Peaks sequel experience by a prestart card that says "You're driving down a lonely country road at night. Do nothing for twenty minutes."
I remember listening to a good number of the podcast episodes. I didn't know that they created a game. Wonder if there is or is going to be a Welcome to Nightvale game. I had recently offered to run for my RPG group a series of one-shots of various games so we could try out different systems. This one sounds like an interesting one to try out sometime.
No, you're thinking of the podcast "Alice Isn't Dead". I don't think they are related? That podcast was a kind of supernatural surreal thing, this seems more grounded.
I've played this game... maybe 7 times now? I know that it makes me a psychopath, but I truly cannot express how much the game means to me. Almost every time I've played it, someone's left the table in tears which is usually not a great sell for a game but it really is for this one. A campaign of any other RPG takes an extraordinary amount of time to get this level of emotional investment, this game nails it in around 3 hours. I'm glad you got to have a similar experience!
As someone who's played it multiple times, what is your take on the replayability?
@@Imperiused I think that what really makes the story is the people you play it with. More often than not, they'll have a fresh idea to bring during the planning phase which inevitably paints a different picture in the end. You will have to be pretty proactive about making your own character unique each time but I can definitely say I've gotten many different feelings from many different games. That being said, it's a bit of mental work and the format has to really 'click' with you.
This sounds rad. Great review.
Played this game with my friends some time back, and my god it was an experience. Tears welled up in those final moments. One of the best things I’ve ever played. If anyone hasn’t played it, please do.
thanks, biggie cheese
thanks, biggie cheese
Does this have a lot of replayability?
I'm a father of a 4yo delightful ladie... Also i'm super emotional, should i play it?
I don’t know how to feel about this game, maybe it just hits to close to home. Sadly women disappearing in my home town is something that happens regularly, I think I couldn’t play a game with these theme
It's my favourite RPG. Not only for its emotional gut punch, but because its so tightly wound as a TTRPG experience. The designer has a great tutorial about how to run the pre-game prep, how to avoid it dragging out too long and keep the momentum going so you can pour your creative energy into the right places. You sit down with your friends, and two and a half hours later you've had the complete experience. It's a brilliant, conscientious piece of design.
Please keep doing rpg reviews. The passion you have for them is so infectious and I love to see reviews when someone has actually played a system. You’re a gem, Quinns
Amen brother!
This comment aged well
The whole voicemail thing really sounds like 10 candles… another 1 session role playing game that genuinely really effected me.
They've done a written review on it
Exactly what I was thinking
YES! That's what I thought of too!
Would be cool to see SU&SD do a review of that (Halloween special maybe 👀)
100
That was my initial thought too. That’s another RP that I’ll just never play again. Even with the fact that you can have any scenario you want. But knowing that your character is doomed really reacted weirdly with me. There was a hopelessness which I’m sure was intended and by design, but I did not have it in me to enjoy.
For another similar experience you may want to look into Love & Barbed Wire, which is a game about a soldier and lover writing letters back and forth during a war. It's only for 2 players, and while I it doesn't have as much of a presentation as this and it relies more heavily on the player's ability to "dig in" to the characters and write in the theme of the letters, the way the game randomizes the results is more straight forward (uses a deck of poker cards) and neatly avoids the replayability issue that you bring up. I've played six "sessions" of it and each one was wildly different and while some outcomes are filled with joy, there are other outcomes that are filled with genuine sadness and we cried as well.
My group had a very different experience. First, while I prepped them as this could be a really dark game, it never really got *too* dark because either we were struggling with the technology (80% of the group were late 30s and up so we weren't big "group chatters"), or we didn't let ourselves go that far. Eerily enough though, all of our story beats lined up beautifully, so there were none of the dangling plot threads that you describe. I died, and it was actually quite emotional for me. We played over Discord and it was a lot of fun. I would actually love to play with a different group sometime. I get what you say when you say it wouldn't be "your" Alice or "your" Charlie, but it's like watching a remake of a movie or TV show: you can still enjoy the new version, and still keep a fond little corner in your heart for the "original". I can't wait to get the Expansion and try this with another group.
this game is peak. my friends and i played it and then spent 3-4 hours afterwards decompressing and talking about the experience with all our little favorite character moments, such a beautiful game
Great review, glad to see this can work for groups.
We played this and kinda fell flat. You really need everyone to take it seriously and understand what the game is trying to do.
Personally I would have liked the game to provide more of the story. Having to make everything up was tricky for us, as people were looking for answers the game didn't provide. The game doesnt want you to fill in the blanks but also bring the paper and outline.
My brain immediately started filling the blanks from just seeing the box, the manual, and the basic description of it. Haven't played it myself, but damn, I can't begin to imagine how much of an emotional hit this is. Just this review was one and hit so close to home in certain places
Also, the idea of having twins for a 6th player is _genius._ I can't overstate that, that's an amazing way of having players two-hand a character for a roleplaying game
Man, these hits so close to home. Sadly these has happen to people close to me. I can’t see myself playing a game with this theme
Yeah one of those "they've done what they set out to do really well, and that's also why I'll never play it"
This is one of my favorite games of all time. Even just hearing the soundtrack in this video makes me tear up. Getting to playtest some of the original materials and basically facilitating it as Charlie many times, I am so appreciative of its design and the way the story emerges so organically from the game's mechanisms. And yes, it made me cry, too.
Such an incredible game. The text only basis quickly immerses you so I've found that, even with friends who tend to get very silly when we're playing face-to-face roleplaying, playing entirely via text (or via Discord messages) really put you into the right headspace, and the tension really ramps up with specific prompts and the timer counting down.
Really looking forward to seeing what the expansion brings to the game.
Played this with my friends a while back. One was tired, another skeptical. All were enraptured after a short while. It definitely is an experience i wholeheartedly recommend for everyone mildly interested in something magical and different.
Great review, loved the nuanced recommendations!
I played Alice is Missing in person with four other friends around a table in person. As someone who’s “into” improv and the indie RPG scene, I was blown away by the density of roleplaying in the game. There’s the highest density of in-character “utterances” in any game I’ve played. It’s also good for players new to RPGs because it gives players characters and story skeletons so you don’t have to be “creative”, you can just jump into the fun roleplay.
On the other hand, my group also felt that the structure of the game was too restricting. Some of the ways the game sets up the plot (like flipping over cards at random for plot elements) were irritating because they often went against our improv groupthink. We all kind of implicitly agreed what the plot was and what plot threads were interesting to follow, but when the game tells you that one of the least interesting threads is actually the most important, it felt jarring and immersion-breaking when we had to do narrative acrobatics to fit it in. We also kind of disliked the fact that there’s not a lot of ways for players to capitalize on good ideas they have or move the narrative away from what the game tells you - players have to wait for the timer to tick down and then figure out how to incorporate the new plot element into our story so far, rather than players driving the action themselves. Totally agree with it being a very passive story, IMO annoyingly so.
I think Alice is Missing is a fun experience to play once, but it would probably be just as fun or more fun to create your own characters, come up with character secrets and relationships, and then freeform roleplay using group chats and DMs for 90 minutes while playing the soundtrack (or your own fixed length playlist) and try to tell a reasonable story with rising action, climax, and resolution in that time.
Got the game off the back of this video- absolutely adored the experience! Our story ended on a semi-positive note but the rollercoaster to get there was incredible!! Thanks for the review and keep up the excellent work!! ❤
I got to explore so many things in this game that I had never been able to before. Mostly improv. Those voice mails at the end that are revealed are so incredible to finish with. My voicemail made people in the group cry after everything we did and I had no idea what I was doing. I just tried to be my character and after the entire story played out, it was just the perfect ending. I felt anxious for other people to hear it because I had opened up my character so much and I felt that.
This game is excellent. but make sure you play it with people you trust and respect. This game can go dark and you want to make sure the people you play with are respectful of boundaries and the fact that this experience, even if dark, is meant to be enjoyed.
I just noticed you have an Outer Wilds tattoo on your arm at 10:54. Thats easily my favorite video game of all time
if you like the voice mail mechanic you gotta try out 10 candles. It's also bleak but fun, highly evocative, plays fast (though longer than alice), light on rules and is just soooo good. I'd even say the voice recordijg works even better in 10c
Alice is a better starting point however due to the even shorter playtime and the removal of acting. I love both :)
Spectacular game. We were 4 players, all with various levels of RP experience and everyone had such an emotional journey
Some friends and I played this last year over Discord, and it was the first really good roleplaying session since pre-pandemic. But I agree, I don't know what I'd want to go back and play this again. It's excellent. But it's heavy and changes to characters in subsequent plays would feel like a needless Hollywood remake. Also, my phone keeps changing one of my friend's contact info back to their character periodically, which is both hilarious and kinda tragic.
Nice touch with the traffic light: helped evoking that Twin Peaks feeling that the game has.
And big thumbs up for Masks, it's a very fun game
Had a wild experience of this game, my partner and I introduced this to two friends who had never roll played. We were afraid they wouldn’t be able to lose themselves in the characters, boy were we wrong. They created the most over the top, absurd characters and then commuted completely and totally to playing them to the max. It basically turned the game into two people trying to find a missing girl, and two people so absorbed into their toxic, horrible characters that all they could do was shit post in a group chat. It definitely was not the intended style of the game, but we had a great time. We laughed so hard for 90 minutes straight
Hunted down a copy of this with my friend at SHUX and we had a great session. So much easier to role play over text. Hope to see other games do roleplaying in a similar way.
The voice recording thing is also present in 10 Candles and one of my absolute favorite parts of that game.
I bought this game on a whim, called my friends of varying RP experience (including one who had no RPG experience) to come over that same night. Sat down, set the game up and played the timer on the living room tv. None of us knew about the incredibly powerful and unforgettable experience we were about to have, and I'm glad I jumped into it completely blind. However, I am keen to run it again for another group just to get a completely different experience.
Shout-out to all the people listening to this video like a podcast who now think Quinns has never once shed tears before this game.
We've been gushing over this game for a year now! It's an amazing one-of-a-kind experience and I can't agree more with you about the emotions, it just makes you feel things like no other game does. On a side note, we've played it multiple times. Surely the first time was the best, but it didn't lose much when being replayed. It's like watching a really good movie the second time. After a while, you just are eager to try it again
I ran this at SHUX 2022 and am so happy that you liked it and are showing it to others.
We also had one too many people on our playthrough so my friend and I shared a character who was prone to tics and immediate mood swings. One moment our character responded to other characters arguing by simultaneously grabbing popcorn but also telling everyone to calm down and get along.
"David's a b*tch" 🤣🤣 I love this game for moments like this.
I know this comment isn't related to this game, but just wanted to say I purchased Monickers "Classic" with the SU&SD pack in it and it's now one of our gaming group's favorite party games. Thanks for helping make such a great game!
I just did something similar! I picked up monikers and The Crew based on SUSD recommendations because I was going to a large family reunion and I couldn't bear the idea of playing nothing but scrabble and Catan all week. I opened up monikers the first night and it was such a hit that it became a routine every night for the rest of my stay. Because of monikers, I only had to play ONE GAME of Catan for my whole stay, which for my family is absolutely unprecedented! (The Crew, or 'space euchre' as we affectionately called it, was also a lot of fun for passing time during the day) Thank you SUSD!
Immediately downloaded.
Thank you Quinns for all the amazing RPG content. Because of you I now play regular dnd and blades in the dark and I bloody love it!
Always love seeing your mug when you're genuinely excited to tell us about something dude.
I played it when it first came out and had an amazingly emotional time. I would not have liked to play it again for quite a long time after, but now I think it's faded enough for a second go with new people. It just takes a little time.
Yes!! I longed for more RPG coverage and i got more RPG coverage!
I hope that your RPG content gets at least the same amount of views as the board game ones. After playing and loving board games for years i got into roleplaying last year and i am totally hooked.
Please keep the RPG content up! :-)
I work in live roleplaying games, and this was a fascinating review of an intriguing game. Probably not for me - I have the emotional range of one of those bricks they use for life-saving training at the swimming pool - but I know several folks who I think will find it equally interesting and are capable of human emotions. So cheers for that.
I have a lot of trouble with teen drama, I really hate that mostly because i cannot link with the story and because I have a lot of issue with how teenagers are represented so far from what I remember from my actual teen years.
I was so afraid of Alice is missing when I played it the first time because of that. And playing it was an experience, like a really touching experience. Because of how the game work and how it give every people the possibility to manage their own limit, I had for the first time a story that feelt real about teenage struggle.
I think this game is one of the best ever created. I don't think I'll recommand it, because it's so special. But if you have the curiosity to try and, and people you trust to play with, this is one of the most impactfull experience of this decade. No hesitation.
There's this weird mixture of both trying to distance yourself from and romanticise these times. Like none of what happened matters but also those were the most intense years. Everybody was so dumb but also everybody was so great. Wanting to reaffirm that you're now better or wiser than then, but also getting old sucks and being young is awesome.
It's very conflicted because it's older adults projecting their current issues into the past.
The first time I played, I was essentially RPing as what I thought I was like as a teen. The second time, I played as Alice's brother and tried to act like I thought my brother felt about me - I think all of my characters have helped me revisit and in an odd way worth through the trauma that is growing up, even 30 years later.
I ran this twice at virtual conventions during the pandemic and it was equally powerful played with strangers AND the texting and discord voice mirroring the actual world made it particularly special.
Had two people who were brand new to role playing who were incredibly moved
Quinns and SUSD: I greatly appreciate that you're reviewing games like these, and that you're leaving space for the art in games to shine. I couldn't watch this review. I've watched every single full-length SUSD review up until now but, living in Mexico, a country where young people are systematically kidnapped, and where women are always under threat of femicide, I couldn't stomach more than the first 2 minutes of the review. I still think it is a very beautiful game as a piece of art and I still think it is really cool that you would review it on SUSD. Keep on keeping on!
From thumbnail thought it was somehow a card game of the old Flash game Alice is Missing. Which I now remember is actually Alice is Dead.
Alice is Dead are some classic Flash games, huge recommend.
14:45 Dear Esther suffers from that problem. It's a beautiful walking simulator and the script is artful and poignant, but it has random variations which means that things don't always come together in a way that feels like it was going somewhere in particular. It sometimes meanders in a way reminiscent of an ai chat bot that seems to be conversing nicely and then veers off into foreign territory and shows the cracks in the technology.
Played this twice and on one occasion some were close to tears, both excellent experiences
Did you fell what Quins said about the tour guide experience the second time playing?
This video is a hit simply because Quinns dresses up as all the teenagers.
I haven’t seen one of your videos in ages! I’m so happy this came through my feed!
Have had this on my shelf for a while now, this is very motivating to get it to the table sooner
I played this game very recently and I don't think is an adequate game for new RPG players because it ask quite a lot of the players, creatively and involvement where the silence kind of isolates them with their insecurities about "is this how a rpg should be played?" "what I have to do now? did I miss something or I have to invent the answer?"
Like we all know when we try to teach someone to play rpg, that one of the big blockers is not the actual specific rules but the more general concept of the activity
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also I think the game should be a bit clearer about the fact that is not a detective story, and while the objective of the characters is to find Alice and figure out what happened, the objective of the players is not that at all. I think that can create a massive disappointment in a lot of players that may be approaching this game like a detective/investigation game
What would you recommend as a good beginner RPG?
Just played my first game and had an interesting session. Game was amazingly tense and had a hilarious Tarantino style ending between the town police and our perpetrator. Highly recommend
"It's hard being a TH-camr. I do the best I can." If I wasn't already a LONG time fan of your channel, I would watch on the back of that pitch alone.
This one is REALLY good. Bought it and was waiting for a chance to play it, then a friend suggest playing it on his birthday, and while some where more into it than others, it was such a tense and different experience...
Also worth noting was how the one in charge screwed and read the final card wrong. We all agreed it might have been for the best, as we got a more satisfying ending than the one the card threw us!
FINALLY played this myself. Im glad i played it and an unholy number of details across every bit of the game lined up perfectly for our story. Its a really intetesting and chaotic experience. Definetly worth a try
We played this, and it was unbelievable. Everything you said it would be.
Quinns trying to make his new year predictions come true.
Glad to see another one of my favourites got a review :)
I played it a few weeks ago and found my self in tears and in a sad dark place during the game and a sad reflective mood after. I played a julia who only had 1 person she was close to, Alice and the events her going missing destroyed her.
This was about my 7th game of it after a long break and it was fantastic. I admit I do feel the complaint that you have your dakota and evan but after a couple of games I was able to find a place where I really enjoyed the many differences. There will definitely be characters you remember better and runs that pull at your heart better than other games but playing a new character changes a lot.
I would also say without the expansion... the game doesn't truly follow through on the random playthrough aspect. 3 different possibilities for each time slot means you get a lot of familiar moments mixed with some new things. I'm hoping the expansion fixes this because currently between 2 games in a row you are all but guaranteed atleast 1 event showing up in both.
I wonder if the plot complaints would be lessened if you reduced the number of suspects to maybe 3 suspects?
I've played this game twice, in the same week. The first was with 4, and the second with the full five. Both, save for me, were completely new people to the game. The first sesh went really well, it was immersive, it was sad, it was wow. The second...seemed too full. Like there was too much happening to be able to follow a through line. I still love this game, and I can't wait to try it again.
You should also go and play 10 Candles if you love the mechanic of recording a message and revealing at the end. I think it probably is more replayable too. Friendly advice from a lover of the channel. Keep up the awesome work.
This is my favorite game full stop. I have played it 3 times and each expereince was dreadfully beautiful!
This was great! I'd love to see more TTRPG reviews.
Hey Quinns. Never played an RPG before but I’d love for you to keep doing reviews of them (in addition to the board games) because my own game group needs to expand out into new territory.
I just got done with SUSDs boardgame predictions for 2023. Think Qunnis doing a RPG review is one prediction proven correct.
I've run it 9 times. I've had people ugly cry at the end. I had one person so overwhelmed by the ending that she needed 5 minutes to respond.
It deserves the accolades it won. Its FANTASTIC.
Then Quinns didn't play enough This War of Mine.
I love the voicemails! reminds me of Ten Candles.
I'd love to hear about Bluebeard's Bride if you feel like covering that after you've played it!
Seconded.
Man, I’m really hoping to see a Masks review (and bluebeards bride). Masks is such an interesting concept and execution such that I can’t tell if they nailed it or missed half the content needed to make it work.
I can tell you my review of playing Masks for about 20 sessions.
It is not a superhero game at all, it is a teen angst game with the thinnest veneer of superhero stuff. I wanted a game about putting on capes and fighting crime like the Teen Titans, the game wants you to spend all your time working out what your high school guidance counsellor thinks and if your character agrees. Some people say it is their favourite game, my gaming group absolutely hated it. The shame was we really liked out teen hero characters but had to fight the game system infinitely more than fighting bad guys and in the process poisoned my group against trying any other PbtA games whereas I know a better match of theme and game mechanics (Monster Hearts, World Wide Wrestling for example) could be really fun.
life is generally down down down right now and I have an unfortunate lack of boardgame applicable friends, BUT it is amazing having the chance to show up and watch these videos! Just the unquestionable quality in your videos and beautifully curated selection of games, Thank you!
I get really strong ''Life is strange'' vibe from this game. And I love that. I can't wait to play it.
Great review. Appreciate, no spoilers ❤
When Quinn talked about "we used to go to the lighthouse when we wanted to enjoy being miserable", I was like "hey wait a minute..."
@Laszlo Vincze Exactly!! Same here. Since I've played LIS, lighthouse hits hard
Same 😭then I found out that the game is actually inspired by life is strange!!!
They don’t seem to be selling the physical version of this anymore, which makes me sad. The listing on Amazon indicates they don’t have any more and likely won’t, and the website has it listed as a pre-order despite it being out for more than 2 years
I liked Alice is Missing, but I didn't love it as much as many people I see talk about it.
It was good, I don't regret kickstarting it, and I'm glad I played it, I'll probably play it again sometime; but it wasn't the transformative, emotional experience Quinns describes here.
The art is beautiful, and the soundtrack incredible, but the game design just felt a little thin. There were points in the game where we all felt like we were sitting around waiting for the next thing to happen. Something happened to one of the player characters, and we were all stuck waiting for the next card - the game rules didn't allow us to go to that PC's location and do anything about it. For everything I liked about this system, it felt like the player characters lacked much agency to actually do anything or influence the story's direction.
I've played other narrative rules lite RPGs where this wasn't an issue. I'd still recommend people play Alice is Missing for all the good reasons I mentioned, but I like having meaningful choices in my RPG, which I felt like this game didn't provide me. All roleplay, no game.
I'm glad I'm not alone in this: reading through the comments I'd think that this game was the best thing since sliced bread. Maybe different RNG very slightly tilts the scales into how much it *feels* like you're able to do, but in our campaign, we all role-played fairly well, but towards the end, it felt a whole lot like a very slow cart on some rails. Literally like 15 minutes between "omg I'm in danger" to anyone actually being able to do anything about it. It's all well and good that we could say "we're on the way!" But we just had to keep coming up with random nothings as to why we were taking so long. "Don't worry, still on the way! Just had to pick up [donuts!/weapons/etc.]" With no payoff (or lack thereof) for preparation.
The story was nice, but it seems like the creator probably would've just been better telling the story than packaging it as a game. Maybe I just played with a bunch of cynical memers.
I love all this RPG content! I have a bad habit of buying exciting new RPGs and then not being able to find room to play them amongst my existing RPG campaigns. Being just a single evening experience this sounds much more likely for me to get it to the table.
I am concerned about the mystery being incoherent because I think that's something that would really bother me and at least some of my friends. But given that the PDF is pretty cheap and it only takes an evening it sounds like it's worth trying regardless. And perhaps going in knowing not to expect it all to piece together might make it easier to just go along for the ride rather than trying to solve it.
I regret not backing this all in during the first campaign, and now that the second campaing is out there i'm fixing that mistake
Nobody does RPG reviews quite like y’all. I’d really love to see more.
I had to pause this video just now to say, you really did "Dog Eat Dog" dirty with that comment Quinns! Your review of that game is still one of the best pieces of games journalism I've ever read and the only game REVIEW I've ever read that made me cry. It inspired me to buy the game, teach it to the humanities department at the school I worked at, who then build their unit on colonialism around it. It's a phenomenal, if deeply uncomfortable game, and that throwaway line was just really unfortunate.
Man some of the soundtrack really reminds me of the old The World is a Beautiful Place and I am No Longer Afraid to Die/Deer Leap split LP, and that’l already make me extremely emotionally vulnerable
7:30 Dude this is my actual text message ringtone. Bought the game from your link immediately upon hearing it.
Thanks for covering more awesome RPGs, Quinns! Would love to hear about your post-Spire campaign. Was it Heart? I bet it was Heart.
You made me buy it 😂 I love these types of experiences!
I love the idea of games like this, but the D&D roleplay group I'm with can't stop trying to be comedians even when I'm running some dark moments from Curse of Strahd. It's fun gaming with them don't get me wrong, but we couldn't do this haha
Exactly. Can’t do serious stuff with some people. Can’t play this either
I've had that experience with some groups. So you could be entirely correct; but I've also been genuinely surprised by groups I never imagined were capable of genuine depth. Lots of people can't (or won't) drop the comedian act, but almost everybody does have an emotional life beyond their social defaults … and I think the vast majority of people are capable of evolving beyond pure snark if given the right (or perhaps a variety of) opportunities.
I do think that is a pitfall of this game -- it is meant to be taken mostly seriously, and if someone decides to be a goofy jackass about it, that one person can ruin the entire vibe. I think you want to play this with a group of people who are all on board with the premise. I would not recommend trying to cajole someone into joining if they think it sounds silly, etc.
Find new people to play this with. Join your local board gaming group
The voice mail mechanism already works wonders when playing Ten Candles.
Just picked this game up. Watched this video a while back and am looking forward to trying it out.
Could you set up the 3 envelope idea prior to play? I wonder if I set up now and then play the game 6 months from now - maybe I would forget the setup or maybe still have some of the time cards still be random and have key parts/time in an envelope to create a better story? If anyone who played this and wants to put the setup in BGG? Maybe only mention the time and first few words of the card so the person setting up doesn't need to read everything for setting up in the envelope.
Picked this up at Black Friday last year and hoping to finally get it played during October for Halloween-ish times!
I’d really love to hear from you about this game again in a year if you try to play it again. This feels like the sort of thing you play once a year at most.
I’ve been wanting this game for a while! I’ll take this video as a sign.
Everyone interested in this game or who has played this game should also play 10 Candles. This game borrows heavily from 10 candles which is a game that uses less resources and less rules to acquire a similar effect though more outright horror themed.
I think 10 candles is where the recording mechanic originated. it is a magical experience. Cant wait to play Alice is missing!
Heart the city beneath review would BE SOOOOO GOOOOOD
I really would love to see it ♥
keep up the awesome work
I played this game yesterday and I was playing charlie barnes and played with 3 other friends, the experience was great. One played the brother, another the best friend and the last played the secret girlfriend. By the end of the game the culprit broke down my door and shot me. Then the brother found Alice lying dead and was chased by the culprit and ultimately died next to his sister. While the best friend killed himself because he blamed himself, so the only one left alive was the secret girlfriend. And I was in tears by the end.
Thank you for the content warning! The last few weeks of news stories have affected me and I’m going to skip this for now. 0:12
I totally get this "one go and be finished with it". I had a similar reaction to the movie "Requiem for a dream". Had very strong emotions, I recommend it highly but I never want to see it again.
Super cool premise, and the review makes me wanna give it ago so bad!
As someone who spent a significant part of my career working on issues related to missing and murdered women and girls, this hits a little too close to home to be something I could comfortably play. Nevertheless, it's beautiful to see the things that games can achieve. This seems like one I will appreciate from afar.
Separately, it looks like a new tatt on Quinns' forearm? Nice ink.
I want to see your review of Bluebeard's Bride so much! It has been in my bookshelf for a while, I didn't find an occasion to try it yet. It's the only rpg book that sends me shivers just reading it, it seems such a disturbingly good horror game.
About Alice is Missing, that game also made me cry. I've run it two times after playing, and it never came close to the same level of immersion, but what an amazing experience it was the first time. It' still one of the greatest RPG experience of my life.
It's a very very good game indeed. And I also agree with your take on the game and experiences/criticisms 100%
Very good video. On minor error I have seen is that the 1 tile is minus one point. You could argue it is worth the maximum Minuspoints of your floor line, because if you would not have taken it this would be the points you have more.
Great video, this game kinda scares me with the feels that could happen but it does look great. I love the showcasing of all these different types of RPG. 5E was my entry point but the rabbit hole of TTRPG's is so vast and awe inspsiring, it's so worth it to explore.
Also can we get your review of your campaign of Heart please and thank you!
From personal experience, this is a game you will not play regularly... or even a lot. But Quinns is reacting to a game he has recently played. It's still fresh in his memory, and those character's will stay with you. For a bit. I did my first playthrough almost a year ago (18 March 22) with a group of five and, honestly, I've been wanting to play it again for about 3-4 months.
I get what Quinns says in this video about them stepping into dead man's shoes... but I also am really excited to what other people will do to flesh out these characters to make them their own. Last time, one character was played as an absolute arsehole, whereas I played my character in a very innocent and naive way. This could very easily be flipped, or transformed into a completely new narrative.
The character of Alice can also change between playthroughs, and that is what makes this game so fascinating. It's like watching a 90 minute movie. You all know what the story is about, but you get to go with those twists and turns together along the way... and because each player has a relatively equal amount of control over the story, anything can happen at anytime.
I really encourage you, if you are in anyway interested in Alice is Missing, to go out and buy a copy. The artwork is beautiful and it captures people's attention and interest. It's the one box that gets picked up more often than any other in my collection. This is more of an experience than a game. I hope you enjoy it.
You can make it a Twin Peaks sequel experience by a prestart card that says "You're driving down a lonely country road at night. Do nothing for twenty minutes."
I remember listening to a good number of the podcast episodes. I didn't know that they created a game. Wonder if there is or is going to be a Welcome to Nightvale game. I had recently offered to run for my RPG group a series of one-shots of various games so we could try out different systems. This one sounds like an interesting one to try out sometime.
No, you're thinking of the podcast "Alice Isn't Dead". I don't think they are related? That podcast was a kind of supernatural surreal thing, this seems more grounded.
We played this yesterday… was awesome can you guys give me some recs for similar games??
This game is incredible, fully agreed.
This was a fantastic video! I’m not sure I can handle this game, but I loved watching you talk about it.
Excellent review Quinns, one of your best.