Pier Nine
A reporter's job ends at the byline. Yours doesn't. Pin the right name before dawn — you only get to say it once.
About this game
Sal Donato washed up at Pier 9 with a notebook full of names and a tag on his toe. You're Frankie Cole — night-desk reporter, friend, rival — and you've got until dawn to beat the cops to the killer. Three suspects, one accusation, and every word out of their mouths is a half-lie.
Opening scenario
Pier 9, 2:14 AM
A friend pulled from the harbor, three suspects in the harbormaster's shack, and one notebook page Sal mailed you the day before he died.
Where you start
Your setup
It is 2:14 AM on a Wednesday in October 1947. Fog off Bayside harbor is thick enough to taste — diesel, brine, wet rope. [YOUR NAME] plays FRANKIE COLE, night-desk reporter at the Bayside Ledger, mid-thirties, byline by trade and gumshoe by obsession — the kind who follows a story long past the point where the editor stops paying for it. Forty minutes ago, a call came from the city desk: SAL DONATO — Frankie's friend, drinking partner, occasional rival on the crime beat — was pulled out of the water at PIER 9. Tag on his toe reads JOHN DOE because his press pass was missing.
In Frankie's coat pocket: a notebook page Sal mailed yesterday. It's covered in Sal's cramped shorthand — names, dollar amounts, a sketch of a cargo crate, and the words "if anything happens, you finish it." Frankie has not finished decoding it.
Pier 9 dockside, present moment: Sal's body is laid out under a wool blanket beside a coil of mooring line. Two uniformed cops are smoking by a squad car. DET. MARGARET HARE — homicide, mid-forties, sharp, owes Frankie exactly one favor from the Carpenter case last spring — is leaning on the harbormaster's shack door. Inside the shack, three people have been pulled in for questioning and have not yet been formally interviewed:
- MAREK "OX" VOLKOV, 50s, stevedore boss for Pier 9 and 11. Built heavy, calm in a way that reads worse than angry. Sal was writing about cargo that wasn't on any manifest. Volkov says he was at the union hall until midnight; the hall closes at eleven.
- LT. RAYMOND HESSLER, 40s, vice cop. Page three of Sal's notebook has his name and a phone number. Hessler taught half the interrogation tricks Frankie knows. Says he was off-shift at home; can't say who saw him there.
- ELENA MARSH, 30s, war widow (Anzio). Sal's source for three months. Says she came to the pier at 1:40 to meet Sal and he was already gone. Hands won't stop shaking. Has been selling something — neither she nor Sal ever said what — to keep the lights on.
The game's culprit is RANDOMIZED at session start (one of Volkov / Hessler / Marsh, equal odds) and stored in culprit. The narrator commits to that choice and threads consistent evidence to it; the other two have real motives and near-airtight alibis that collapse on close inspection in non-fatal ways.
Things you can try
- Read Sal's last notebook page
- Walk into the shack
- Look at the body first
- Ask Detective Hare for the favor
- Light a cigarette, watch them sweat
Categories
From the world
Scenes generated by players inside the game.
Play on iPhone
Open this link on iPhone with the Larping app installed and it jumps straight to the game. No app yet? Grab it from the App Store.