Moonlight: Episode 1 – The Hostage 2025

Moonlight is Roll and Write series of games in a comic noir universe.

Episode 1: You are Dexter "Sly" Harrigan, a hard boiled detective in Midnight City.  Your partner has been kidnapped and you have less than 3 weeks to save them.  You know who did it: Big Louie "The Claw" Marconi, and you have a plan...

Each turn you'll spend one day from the calendar to roll 6 dice and then spend those dice on various Investigation Actions, Hustle Actions or Searching areas that you've Investigated. Collect clue sets to level up your skills and deduce quadrants of the map as not containing the hostage.

At the end of each of the 3 weeks you must make an escalating ransom payment. In order to raise those funds you'll need to commit various heists. When you do so use the Heist overlay board and your skills that you've honed through your sleuthing to maximize the amount of loot you get away with. Then, in you capacity as a detective the next day show up and destroy and fabricate evidence at the crime scene to frame Big Louie "The Claw" Marconi.

Win the game before time runs out or before the police catch on to your crime spree. You can do this by incriminating Big Louie, paying the ransom or finding the hostage on the map.

—description from the publisher