Bootlegger: Moonshine Empire

About This Game

As a new whiskey-runner in Satan’s Seat, how will you cement your reputation?

Run for office, join the mob, or produce a play while alternating between Prohibition-era New York City, and rural Pennsylvania! Bootlegger: Moonshine Empire is a 150,000-word interactive novel by Drew Morrison. It’s entirely text-based, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

Use your business acumen, political smarts, or vicious instincts to forge the path to glory. After landing in rural Pennsylvania, the onset of Prohibition means there’s a massive market for white lightning, rotgut whiskey, and bathtub gin. As you try to forge a life for you and your sister, you’ll build your bootlegging operation from a few friends in a barn to a massive distribution network, selling whiskey near and far in the hopes of securing either personal security, or national notoriety.

Prohibition won’t last, and the bootlegging market will dry up when the 18th Amendment is repealed. Where will you stand, when liquor again flows freely? Will you be a celebrity of New York nightlife, a notorious politician, or a legendary gangster?

• Play as male, female, or nonbinary; gay, straight, or bi.
• Run for Mayor of Heathsaw, to build the liquor empire of your dreams.
• Become a Broadway producer to cover your illegal earnings.
• Earn your way up the mob’s ranks for a legendary reputation.
• Manage the workers in your operation; will you be a generous leader, or a merciless profiteer?
• Navigate close friends, backstabbing associates, Prohibition agents, and family obligations to secure your empire.

Can you quench the thirst of Prohibition New York?