About This Game

Quench the thirst of 1920s Prohibition New York! Build a criminal organization to distill and peddle whiskey, and you could end up rich, famous, or dead.

Bootlegger: Moonshine Empire is an interactive historical novel by Drew Morrison. It’s entirely text-based, 210,000 words and hundreds of choices, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

The year is 1920. Prohibition has begun, and alcohol has become illegal overnight. As public bars, distilleries, and distributors have shut down, thirsty patrons now turn to the black market, as organized crime rises to meet insatiable demand.

You started running whiskey in rural Pennsylvania with a few friends in a barn, trying to make a better life for you and your sister, brewing bathtub gin and white lightning. Now, you’re building an illegal operation to distill and distribute liquor.

Your target: New York City. The teetotalers call it "Satan's Seat." The city is full of rich folks who want to drink booze while they dance the Charleston till dawn—and you’re going to sell it to them.

Use your business acumen and instincts to outwit your rivals; or ally with them to build your own empire even higher! Bargain with union leaders and mob bosses to get your booze to Manhattan’s ever-growing network of speakeasies—or ruthlessly eliminate every one of your rivals in bloodthirsty shootouts. Life back home in Pennsylvania is almost as dangerous, with the preacher who wants to keep your hometown dry, and the Feds moving in closer every day.

As you gather your power, there’s no telling how high you could climb. Will you become the mayor of your hometown? You won’t have to worry about the cops if they’re on your payroll. Will you just get rich, living in your palatial Manhattan penthouse? Or will you become a Broadway star with your name in lights?

But you know what they say: the higher they rise, the harder they fall. If you get on the wrong side of the wrong people, you could end up in prison, or worse.

• Play as male, female, or nonbinary; gay, straight, or bi.
  
• Manage the workers in your operation; will you be a generous leader, or a merciless profiteer?
  
• Drive on wild car chases to get your moonshine to the big city before your rivals can catch you!
  
• Launder your illegal earnings through a Broadway play—and maybe even become the star!
  
• Navigate the politics in your hometown: Communists, union organizers, temperance preachers, and more—or become the mayor and put them all at your command.
  
• Climb the ranks of New York City’s mob to inherit an empire—or get caught by the Feds, and see it all come crashing down.

Why be a cog in someone else's machine, when you can have your own moonshine empire?