Play Crime and Punishment Online

Crime and Punishment is a text adventure from the MS-DOS Classic Games collection, originally developed by Incentive Software and published by Firebird in 1984. It belongs to that era of PC gaming when dense, parser-driven experiences tested your patience as much as your wits, relying on typed commands and your own imagination to build its world.

You control a detective investigating a murder, typing actions like "examine body" or "ask suspect about alibi" to gather evidence and question characters. Your main objective is to identify the killer and build a case strong enough for an arrest, but the game tracks your confidence rating; if it drops too low, your superior pulls you from the investigation. Signature mechanics include managing a limited number of questions per interview (choose poorly and witnesses clams up) and dealing with a real-time clock that pushes the narrative forward whether you're ready or not. The pacing is deliberate, and the difficulty is high, with wrong accusations or missed details leading to failure. It feels like balancing on a tightrope, where every decision carries weight and a single misstep can unravel everything.

Each game uses different controls, most DOS games use the keyboard arrows. Some will use the mouse , "Alt" ,"Enter" and "Space bar".