Legal · Casebound

The Detective's Code

Terms of Service

The short version: play fair, one accusation per case, a story you pay for is yours to play and print for as long as you have an account, if we can't finish one you get its story credit back, and every story is fiction.

Effective: 26 October 2026 · Last updated: 27 October 2026

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01Who we are, and what you're agreeing to

Casebound is an interactive murder-mystery investigation game made by Malleus Tech, based in Sweden, and played in your browser at casebound.app. By creating an account or using Casebound you agree to these terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you don't agree, don't use the service.

02The game

Each case is a self-contained mystery: openly listed evidence (some of it deliberately misleading), pre-written police-interrogation transcripts, and one buried truth. The rules below are part of the game, not small print to argue with later:

• One accusation per case. Once a case has been active for at least 15 minutes, you get exactly one chance to name the killer. The verdict — solved or failed — is final and is not reset, refunded or re-rolled.
• Cases are fixed content. Transcripts and evidence are static and authored in one language per case; cases are never translated.
• We may add, revise or retire cases and features over time.

03Your account

You need an account (email and password, via Firebase Authentication) to investigate. Keep your credentials to yourself; you are responsible for what happens under your account. Give us a working email address — it's how purchases and support find you. You must be at least 13 to create an account.

04Buying a story

• One product. You write a premise, Casebound writes the case around it — suspects, interrogation transcripts, evidence, photographs, narration and the solution. One story costs $24.99, one time, and that story is yours to play and to download as a printable case file for as long as you have an account. No subscription, nothing to renew, nothing expires. One Casebound-written story is free for everyone, so you can see exactly what you'd be buying before you pay.
• Immediate delivery. Paying puts your story in the queue to be written straight away. By buying you expressly ask for that immediate delivery and acknowledge that you thereby lose the EU/EEA 14-day right of withdrawal once writing has begun. Statutory rights that cannot be waived are unaffected.
• Your premise is checked first. Before anything is charged, the writer reads your premise against the limits in §07. If it can't be written you're told why, straight away, and can change it — nothing is taken.
• If we can't finish your story. Writing is automated and sometimes fails — a premise the writer can't make play fairly, or a fault on our side. When that happens the story credit you used is put back on your account, so you can write another at no extra cost, with the same premise or a different one. A story credit is returned as a story credit; purchases are not refunded as money.
• What isn't a fault. A finished story you simply didn't enjoy, and an accusation that turned out wrong, are not faults — see §02. Stories already written stay on your account.
• Prices. Shown in US dollars; the price shown at checkout is what you pay, and any tax is added or included as the checkout states. We may change prices, but never for a story you have already paid for.
• Who charges you. Payment is processed by Stripe — your card details go to Stripe and never touch our servers. We use RevenueCat to validate the receipt and credit your account. Keep the receipt email; it's the fastest way for us to find a purchase.

05Your premise, our stories

• Your premise stays yours. The few lines you write to start a story remain yours. You give us the permission we need to run the game with them: to store them, to send them to our writing provider so the case can be authored, and to show them back to you on the story's page and in its case file.
• The story we write is ours. Cases, characters, artwork, photographs, audio narration and text are the property of Malleus Tech or its licensors, including the stories written from your premise. We grant you a personal, non-commercial licence to play, print and keep the ones on your account. Don't resell, republish or scrape case files or bulk content; discussing your cases and writing about your investigations is of course fine (be kind about spoilers).
• Every case is fiction. Suspects, victims, places and events are invented and any resemblance to real people is coincidental. Stories are written by an automated system from your premise, so we can't promise a particular shape, length or quality, and no case is a statement of fact about anyone.

06Your case notes

Notes you write in a case file are yours and private to your account. We store them only to show them back to you and never publish them or feed them to analytics.

07Fair play

Don't abuse the service: no unauthorised automated access, no attempts to break, overload or reverse-engineer the game or its API beyond what the law allows, no circumventing purchase or accusation limits, and no using Casebound for anything unlawful.

Premises have limits too, and the writer will refuse one that crosses them:

• No named real people as victims, suspects or killers. A real role is fine as long as it stays unnamed — "the King", "the President", "a prime minister" — but not the name of the person who holds it. Nothing aimed at harassing or defaming anyone.
• No crimes against children, and no sexual content involving minors.
• Nothing that reads as instructions for real-world harm, and no hateful content targeting people for who they are.

Every premise is checked against these limits before you pay. When one crosses them you're told why and can rewrite it on the spot; nothing is charged for a premise the writer refuses.

08Ending things

You can stop using Casebound anytime and ask us to delete your account (see the Privacy Policy). We may suspend or close accounts that break these terms; where reasonable we'll warn you first. Sections that by their nature should survive (content licence, disclaimers, liability, law) survive.

09Disclaimers & liability

Casebound is provided "as is". We don't promise uninterrupted or error-free service, and — the nature of the genre — we don't promise you'll catch the killer. To the extent permitted by law, our total liability for claims arising out of the service is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law or your mandatory consumer rights.

10Changes to these terms

These pages are working documents and may be updated as Casebound evolves. We'll post the new version here and update the date at the top; for material changes we'll give reasonable notice in the app or by email. Continuing to play after a change means you accept it.

11Law & disputes

These terms are governed by Swedish law. If you are a consumer, you keep the mandatory protections of the country you live in, and you can always turn to your local consumer dispute body — in Sweden, ARN (Allmänna reklamationsnämnden) — or the courts of your home country. Talk to us first though; most things are fixable by email.

See also: Privacy Policy