A text-based heist game that remembers the plan.
A four-person crew, a private vault, an inside man who is starting to sweat, and the only schematics folded into your coat. Scout the camera, buy the guard, cut the driver out, or call it off. The Game Master writes the city and everyone in it around what you do, and it keeps track of every promise, every slip and who knows what the job is.
Or start from a first line, no setup:
Free to play in your browser and on Android. The full memory system is on every plan, including free.
A real session, recorded
This is what the job sounds like
Rain slicks the cobblestones of the street, reflecting the flickering neon of the bank sign as you sit in the idling van, the weight of the schematics pressed against your ribs. Your crew is tense, waiting for the signal from the inside man, but the back door of the bank remains dark and silent.
> I meet the night guard at the diner and ask him, without saying why, whether the camera over the loading dock has been fixed yet.
The air in the diner smells of burnt coffee and floor wax. The night guard sits in a corner booth, nursing a mug that has long since gone cold; he looks up as you slide into the seat opposite him, his eyes flicking nervously toward the door. "The camera?" he murmurs, his voice barely audible over the hum of the refrigerator.
> Back at the safe house I check the lining of my coat to make sure the schematics are still there.
The safe house is quiet, lit only by the low hum of a streetlamp filtering through the blinds. You slip inside, the lock clicking shut behind you, and retreat to the shadows of the hallway to verify your prize. Running your fingers along the seam of your coat, you feel the familiar, crisp edges of the paper tucked securely within the lining.
Recorded on 2026-10-16 on the free-tier model: a fresh account, the first line "a text-based heist game: I am the planner of a four-person crew hitting a private bank vault on Saturday night, our inside man is the night guard, and I keep the only copy of the vault schematics folded inside the lining of my coat", then the two actions above typed in. The AI named the story "Heist Under Neon Lights". The crew, the guard and the schematics in the coat lining all come from the first line; two turns later the schematics are where they were, and the Game Master had already given the guard a hesitation that carries forward. The Game Master's lines are cut to a few sentences each here; the whole exchange, every word, is published as a JSON file.
A text-based heist game is a story you play by typing, turn by turn, with an AI writing the vault, the guards, the fence and whoever on your crew is about to break. You set the situation in a sentence: the planner with the schematics, the driver whose sister works the counter, the night guard who already gave up the code. The Game Master writes the job around you. Then you decide what to do in your own words: "ask the guard about the loading-dock camera," "cut the driver out tonight," "move the job to Friday." The city answers with what it costs.
There is no list of commands to learn and no menu of choices. You can run the job or walk, trust the inside man or test him, keep the schematics or sell them. A heist only feels real if the game remembers who promised what, which camera was never fixed and who saw you at the diner, which is why memory decides whether a text-based heist game is worth playing.
What you can do
How a text-based heist game plays
Work the plan
The diner, the loading dock, the safe house, the fence's back room. Who you met and what you asked carry into the night of the job.
People, not pieces
The driver, the inside man, the fence, the detective, the partner who wants out. Every one of them is played by the Game Master in their own voice, with their own nerves.
Slips that keep
Auferet keeps characters, places and events in structured libraries, so the guard's hesitation on Tuesday is the thing that goes wrong on Saturday.
Your kind of crew
The planner, the driver, the inside man, the fence, the one coming out of retirement. Your first line decides who you are and what you are holding.
Any kind of job
A bank vault, a jewellery wholesaler, a train, a museum, a casino. Quiet tradecraft or a shootout. The opening sets the tone and the Game Master keeps to it.
Free to start
Play whole jobs before you pay anything. Auferet's free tier includes the full memory system and 10 free daily credits, in your browser.
Why memory decides it
A plan means nothing if the AI forgets it
Most AI games feed the model one fixed window of recent text each turn. In a heist that breaks the game. The guard forgets he agreed, the camera you scouted is fixed again, the schematics are back in the planner's hand. When nothing you did lasts, there is no job to run.
That is measurable, so we measured it. Five facts were planted in the first turns of a story on the free model and asked about at turn 20, 40 and 60: once with only recent conversation to read, the way most AI games work, and once with persistent memory, the way Auferet works.
| Asked at | Recent conversation only | Persistent memory |
|---|---|---|
| Turn 20 | 3 of 5 facts | 5 of 5 facts |
| Turn 40 | 1 of 5 facts | 5 of 5 facts |
| Turn 60 | 1 of 5 facts | 5 of 5 facts |
Run on 2026-08-22 and again on 2026-08-27: both runs fell to 1 of 5 by turn 40 on recent conversation and held 5 of 5 with memory. Every question and raw answer is in the result file; the method is on the benchmark page, and how the memory works explains what it stores.
How it compares
Text-based heist game with an AI vs a choice-based heist story vs a parser heist adventure vs a character chat
| Text-based heist game with an AI (Auferet) | Choice-based heist story | Parser heist adventure | AI character chat | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who writes the story | The Game Master, around what you do | Writers, in advance | One author, one puzzle at a time | The AI, as one character |
| What you can do | Anything you can put into words | The choices on the page | The verbs the parser knows | Talk |
| The crew | Characters with their own motives | Scripted characters | Scripted responses | One character |
| Consequences | Carried across the whole story | The branches the writers planned | The puzzle state | Rarely tracked |
| Memory | Persistent across the whole story | Flags the writers set | Room and inventory state | Varies, often a short window |
Rather do the time than the job? Play the text-based prison game. The same engine runs every text-based game and every AI story game.
FAQ
Text-based heist games, answered
Is there a free text-based heist game?
Yes. Auferet is free, with 10 daily credits to claim, and the free tier includes the full memory system. It runs in your browser; unlimited actions start at $10/mo.
How does a text-based heist game work?
You describe the crew, the target and what you are holding in a sentence, or pick one above, and the Game Master builds the vault, the guards, the fence and whoever is already nervous. You decide what to do in your own words, and the story answers with what it costs.
Does the AI keep track of the plan, the crew and what I hid?
That is what Auferet is built for. It keeps characters, places and events in dedicated libraries and can search the whole story, so the guard's hesitation, the camera that was never fixed and the schematics in your coat are still there on the night.
Can I play the planner, the driver, the inside man or the detective?
Yes. Your first line sets the game. Plan the job, drive the van, hold the keys from the inside, or hunt the crew, and the Game Master writes the job around that choice.
Can I run a crew with friends?
Yes. Auferet has multiplayer: one player hosts, friends join, and everyone plays their own character in the same story, each with their own Game Master.
Can I play online without downloading anything?
Yes. Auferet runs in the browser on desktop and phone, and there is an Android app if you want it on your home screen.
The guard hesitated. The job is Saturday. What do you do?
Start a text-based heist game free in your browser and see whether the city remembers the plan.
Plan the job free