Silent RPG ‘Alice Is Missing’ Gets Film Adaptation
Paramount studios will be tackling a film adaptation of the immersive, text-based RPG Alice is Missing. The game’s creator will co-write.
Big news for both Paramount and tabletop roleplaying games this week. Paramount announced they were developing a film adaptation of a popular, if unusual, “tabletop” RPG, Alice is Missing.
Alice is Missing, if you’re unfamiliar, is an immersive, silent RPG meant to be played through text only. Typically players use Discord or a Roll20 Chat to play the game. It’s meant to be played live and in real time without verbal communication over the course of a 90 minute session.
Over the course of the game, characters are immersed in the disappearance of Alice Briarwood, a high school junior in the small town of Silent Falls.
How this will translate to film is anyone’s guess. But, here’s what we know so far.
Paramount’s Alice is Missing film Adaptation
Per reporting by The Hollywood Reporter, Paramount has optioned Alice is Missing, and tapped a new YA writer to helm the show:
Paramount has optioned the rights to immersive role playing game, Alice is Missing, with Becca Gleason, a writer and consulting producer on Amazon’s just released YA series, The Summer I Turned Pretty, attached to direct and co-write the adaptation.
Joining Gleason to co-write is Spenser Starke, the designer of the game published by Hunters Entertainment, the tabletop game studio behind popular RPGs such as The Altered Carbon RPG, Kids on Bikes, Icarus, Outbreak: Undead.
Temple Hill, the banner behind major YA movies ranging from the recent Emergency and The Fault In Our Stars to franchise plays such as The Maze Runner and Twilight, will produce along with Gleason.
It’s great to see the creator of the game joining the producer to create the adaptation. It’s a curious one, for sure. The formula is there: a bunch of characters in a small place come together around the disappearance of a high schooler. It’s worked for properties from Twin Peaks to Stranger Things.
But what will make Alice is Missing stand out? How can they capture the immersion of the game? Playing Alice is Missing, you’re immediately dropped into the world. Your only interaction is through your device. It isolates you. It creates this feeling of mounting dread as you learn more. Alice is Missing delivers helplessness too. Since you’re only able to interact through text as you uncover clues.
Which means it’ll be interesting to see what Paramount opts for. Will they find a way to capture the uniqueness of Alice is Missing? Or will this be another disappeared teen story? Either way, we’ll know soon enough!
