A browser crime game you can play from anywhere
My Criminal Life is a browser crime game. Open a tab, sign up with your email, and you’re in Noob City with $100, a cardboard box to sleep in and a ladder of 16 ranks above you. There’s nothing to download or install.
Sign-ups are open.
What a browser crime game is
A browser crime game lives in a web page instead of an app. You open it the way you open any website, sign in, and play in short turns: spend a bar, see what happened, come back later. The world is stored on the server, so it’s still there when you return, and everyone else is playing in the same city.
That shared city is the point. When you pull a crime, work a job or save for a better place to live, you’re doing it in the same world as every other player. They can attack you, ask you into a gang, or end up next to you on the Hall of Fame. Games built this way are often called PBBGs, short for persistent browser-based games, and a short guide explains the term.
It is a crime game in the plain sense. You start as a nobody. Money comes from crimes and a day job, experience comes from crimes and from the fights you win and walk away from, and the law is a timer you sit out in the County Lockup when a crime goes wrong.
Your first hour
Sign up with an email address and a password, then confirm the address from the link we send. You have to be 18 or older, and it’s one account per person. You arrive with $100, which is what a pocket watch fetched at Corner Pawn on your way into town. Vera, who runs the shop, keeps a ledger of small jobs for your first week, and each one pays when you bring the ticket back. A sensible first hour follows it:
- Read Vera’s letter in your mailbox.
- Buy a gym pass. The standard one costs $100, which is your whole starting stake, so it’s the first job in the ledger.
- Spend your energy on gym reps. Each one costs 1 energy and builds your fighting stats.
- Pull your first crime. The list starts with Search For Cash: the streets, the water fountains, the mall. Brave is spent whether the crime works or not.
- Sign up for a course at the Local School and take the job at McDaniels.
- Come back after 5:00 PM New York time. Jobs pay once a day at that hour.
The ledger ends with moving out of the cardboard box. After that the city is yours to work out.
Why it suits a browser
Four bars sit at the top of every page, and nearly everything you do spends one of them. Energy pays for the gym and for fights. Brave pays for crimes. Will multiplies what each gym rep gives you, and health is what a fight takes away.
The bars refill on a timer, including while you’re logged out. Energy comes back 4 points every five minutes, so a ten-minute visit between other things is a real session, and a longer break means the bars are waiting when you return. Nothing here needs you at your screen at a set time.
There’s no update to wait for and nothing on your device to keep running. The pages fit a phone screen, and the game works in a current browser on a phone, a tablet or a computer. Sign in from whichever one is in your hand.
What’s in the city
The first hour is the narrow end. Past it, Noob City opens up: a painted map with 36 buildings in seven districts, a casino whose real odds are published, a daily newspaper called The Criminal Times, a Most Wanted board of bosses sitting on stashes, gangs with vaults and wars, a church where you can confess, light a candle or get married, and a city dump to dig through. The guides cover the city map, the casino and gangs and turf in detail.
Your rank is the short answer to how far up you are. There are 16 rungs, from Nobody to Untouchable, worked out from your level, your stats and the value of your home.
Who it suits
It suits people who like to plan a run, make a few choices and come back to see what changed: short visits, steady progress, and other real players as the part nobody controls. It’s free to play, and the Rules and the casino odds are public before you sign up.
It doesn’t suit you if you want real-time action, a 3D world or an avatar to steer around. The game is illustrated and runs on menus, numbers and a newspaper. The text-based page explains what that means in practice.
Quick answers
Do I need to download anything to play?
No. My Criminal Life runs in your browser on a computer, a phone or a tablet. There is no app to install and nothing to keep up to date.
Is it free?
Yes. Every part of the game is open to players who never spend anything. Optional packs exist, and nothing you buy puts you above the Rules: paying players get jailed and banned like anyone else.
The Store is closed right now while payments move to a new provider. You won’t be charged while it is closed. More under Money.
Is it multiplayer?
Yes. Everyone plays in the same city. You can attack other players, join a gang or start your own, and write to people through the mailbox and the forums. Fights have limits: a new account gets a few nights of protection first, and an attack costs half your energy bar.
How much time does it take?
As much or as little as you like. Energy, brave, will and health refill on a timer, including while you are logged out, so a ten-minute visit is a real session. Energy comes back 4 points every five minutes, up to your maximum.
Who can play?
You need to be 18 or older. The sign-up form asks you to confirm that and to agree to the Terms, the Game Rules and the Privacy Policy. It is one account per person.
More answers are in the full FAQ.
More about the game
Free crime MMORPG
A shared city, a level and a rank ladder, gangs and fights. What is free, and what the label does and doesn’t cover.
What is a PBBG?
Persistent browser-based games in plain English, with the bars and timers of this one as the example.
How to play
Your first day in Noob City: the bars, crimes, the gym, jobs, jail and levelling up.
The city map
Noob City's seven districts, what is in each, and how to get around.
The front page
What the game is, in one screen, and how to start.
About the game
The city, the ranks and the people who run it.
Ready to try it?
Make an account with your email. It’s free, it works on your phone, and you have to be 18 or older.
Sign-ups are open.