Creator Terms

1.What these terms cover

These terms apply when you write a case brief, build a case from it, and publish or sell that case on Case Closed. They add to the Terms of Service; where the two differ about creator work, these win. “We” means Case Closed Inc..

You must be 16 or older to build or publish a case. You accept these terms the first time you start a build; we record the date.

2.Your brief, and who owns what

A brief is the form you fill in: a title, a premise, the era, the difficulty, the archetypes, the districts, the tone and up to four named (fictional) characters. You can hold up to three briefs at a time and regenerate each synopsis up to three times, all free.

• You own your brief text. Nothing here changes that.
• The generated case — the scenes, documents, puzzles, images, answer keys and everything the engine builds from the brief — is created by our engine inside our world of Port Merrow. We hold the rights in it, subject to the licence below, which lets you promote it and earn from it.
• The world itself (Port Merrow, its districts, addresses and people) is ours and is shared by every case. A brief cannot change the world, only borrow it.

3.The licence

By building a case you give us a licence to host and sell it on Case Closed:

• Exclusive for the generated case. The case built from your brief is sold only here; you may not rebuild or sell it elsewhere.
• Non-exclusive for the brief. Your brief text stays yours, and you may reuse the idea anywhere you like.
• You may promote it. Share the case's link, cover, title, tagline and synopsis wherever you like, and say it is yours. Do not share solutions or answer keys.
• The licence lasts as long as the case exists on Case Closed. If you delete your account, published cases may stay on sale under your alias unless you ask us to unpublish them first.

4.Building a case: the price and the margin floor

Turning a synopsis into a full case costs a one-time build price in credits, by difficulty: 50 credits for a 2-star case, 60 for 3 stars, 75 for 4 stars and 95 for 5 stars (≈ $50–$95 CAD). That pays for generation, quality checks at every team size and the rendering of every document. The credits are spent when the build starts and are not returned if the case simply is not to your taste.

Before a build starts, the engine estimates what the case will cost us to make. If that estimate leaves too small a margin, the build does not start and no credits are taken; we may adjust the brief with you or approve it by hand.

5.Quality checks and the free regeneration

Every case goes through the same checks as our own: the story is proofread, every puzzle is proven solvable, and automated “cold-solve” play-throughs at each team size set the par ride counts. A case that fails is regenerated once for free. If it fails again, the build price goes back to your wallet and the brief returns to you to edit.

We may fix small errors in a case (a typo, a broken reference) without asking. We will not change your story.

6.Publishing and pricing

• You choose the visibility: private (only your own teams), unlisted (anyone with the link) or public (listed in the Creator CaseClosed Games catalogue).
• You set the price inside the 5–20 credit band (≈ $5–$20 CAD) and may change it later. Official CaseClosed Games live in their own 20–40 band; a Creator CaseClosed Game is never priced or labelled like one.
• Creator CaseClosed Games are labelled “Creator CaseClosed Game” with your alias, and are kept apart from Official CaseClosed Games in the library, on leaderboards and in emails. Subscriptions never include them.
• You may play your own case; it will not count toward its leaderboard for you.

7.Earnings — credits only

Each copy of your case that is sold pays you 15 % of the sale price, in credits, at the moment of the sale. A 20-credit sale earns 3 credits; nothing is rounded up. If a sale is refunded, the credits it earned are reversed.

Credits are the whole reward. There is no cash withdrawal, ever: no cash-out rate, no payout, no bank transfer, no gift cards. Creator credits are spendable inside Case Closed like any other credit, they never expire, and they cannot be transferred to another account.

Because no money changes hands, we do not issue tax forms for creator earnings. If your local law treats in-game credits as income, reporting them is your responsibility.

8.The Community pick

Once a month we choose one public Creator CaseClosed Game as the Community pick. It is shown on the front door for the month, labelled as the pick, and its creator receives 25 credits. The choice is ours; there is no application and no appeal, but a well-made, well-rated case is how you get there.

9.Content rules

Everything in a case must be fiction. Do not use:

• the name of a real person — living or dead, famous or not — or a name close enough to point at one;
• a real business, brand, street or landmark; Port Merrow is fictional and so is everything in it;
• gore, sexual content, sexual violence, child victims, or any character who is not an adult (the game's own limits, which no brief can switch off);
• hate, harassment, or content that mocks a real group of people;
• anything you do not have the right to use (someone else's story, characters or text).

A real-name check runs when you submit a brief and again at quality control. A brief that fails is returned to you to edit.

10.When we may unpublish a case

We may take a case off sale at any time for quality or policy reasons: a failed re-check, a report from a player that turns out to be right, a real name that slipped through, a change in the law, or a breach of these terms. When we do:

• we tell you the reason, in the creator hub and by email;
• credits you have already earned stay yours;
• players who bought the case keep their remaining attempts, so the case may stay playable for them even while it is off sale;
• where the problem can be fixed, you can edit the brief and rebuild (a rebuild after an unpublish for a rule you broke is charged at the normal price).

You can unpublish your own case at any time by setting it to private. Refunds to players who already bought it are not owed.

11.Disputes

If you disagree with a decision about your case — a failed check, an unpublish, a missing credit — write to info@playcaseclosed.ca first, with the case title and what you think went wrong. A person reads every message and answers within a few business days. These terms are governed by the laws of Ontario, Canada and the federal laws of Canada, with the same note about your local mandatory rights as in the Terms of Service.

12.Changes

We may change these terms. A change to the build price, the price band or the creator share applies to builds and sales after the change, never to what has already happened. We give at least 14 days' notice by email for changes that matter; the change log at the bottom lists every version.

13.Contact

Creator questions: info@playcaseclosed.ca, subject “Creator”. Case Closed Inc., Ontario, Canada.