Demo makes a case for Crime or Punishment

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Antihero noir adventure starring a dirty cop covering mob hits coming later this year to Steam

Other than a few kleptomaniacal tendencies, adventure game protagonists tend to be well-meaning, law-abiding citizens looking out for the greater good – even beaten-down gumshoes, who typically represent the last honest man in a corrupt world of lies and deception. Well, forget about all that, because Scale Issue's upcoming Crime or Punishment is all about covering for criminals rather than catching them. 

You are Detective Faulkner, recently promoted but secretly dirty and working for the mob. Of course, being mobsters, they'll be keeping you busy with a steady stream of murders. It's your "job" to cover their tracks by scouring case files and police reports, inspecting crime scenes and tampering with evidence, then shifting the blame "from the real murderer onto an innocent bystander, who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time." You'll need to think like a cop but act like a criminal, but succeed and the money's good. Who says crime doesn't pay? But the stakes are high, because if you fail and the real criminal is arrested after all, you'll find out first-hand that "the mob does not tolerate failure!"

Originally conceived for the Game Maker’s Toolkit 2023 Game Jam and its theme of "roles reversed," Crime or Punishment has since been significantly refined, enhanced and expanded with new content to better represent a "love letter to the era of 90s adventure games and 30s noir atmosphere." Presented from an overhead perspective and controlled via keyboard, the game features a simple but intriguing pixel art style, with characters depicted solely in white with black borders, leaving the rest to player imagination. The dialogue will be fully voiced and filled with "witty one-liners," while your corrupt misdeeds will be accompanied by a distinctive, often brooding jazz noir backdrop. As you progress through the game's increasingly complex cases to one of multiple possible endings to the overarching narrative, you'll encounter a choice of mobs to support and a variety of potential patsies to frame. It soon becomes clear that "every dame and fella has a story to tell; the question is, how are you gonna use that against them?"

There is no firm target release date for Crime or Punishment, but the game's indie Italian developer plans to launch it later this year on Steam for Windows PC. In the meantime, you can begin your descent into a life of organized crime through the playable demo, available now to download. 

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