About this policy

Wordlock is made and operated by Counterspell Games LLC, which is the data controller for everything described here. This policy explains what the game sends, who receives it, why, how long it is kept, and how you can have it deleted. It covers the game only, not the app store you bought it from and not any other site or app you reach from it.

The same text is published at https://counterspell.dev/legal. The copy inside the game and the published copy are generated from one file and are identical.

What we collect

Almost everything the game knows about you stays on your device. Your run, your unlocks, your stats, your settings, your collection, your achievements, and the name you choose are saved in files on the device and are not sent anywhere on their own.

These are the things that do leave your device. Each one is described in its own section below.

• The Daily leaderboard: a score you choose to submit, and an anonymous player id

• Cloud backup: a copy of your saved profile, which the game can restore if it can still recognise your device

• Bug reports: only what you fill in and attach, and only when you press Send

• Achievements: earned achievement ids, mirrored to your platform game service

• Advertising: an advertising identifier held by your device, read by the ad network where the game shows ads

• Gameplay analytics and crash reports: off unless you turn them on

What we do not collect

• Your real name, email address, phone number, or contacts. The only email we ever hold is one you type into a bug report yourself

• Your location. The game asks for no location permission and reads no location API

• Payment details. Purchases are handled entirely by the app store, which never gives us a card number

• Your photo library. The game can attach one image you pick to a bug report; it never reads or uploads anything else

• Anything you type, other than the display name you choose and the text of a bug report you send

The game sends no push notifications and holds no push token. Daily reminders are scheduled by your own device and never reach us or anyone else.

Why we collect it

The leaderboard exists so a Daily score can be ranked against other players. Cloud backup exists so a reinstall does not have to mean starting over. Bug reports exist so a fault you hit can be reproduced and fixed. Achievements are mirrored so they appear on your platform profile alongside your other games. Advertising pays for the game where it is free. Gameplay statistics tell us where the difficulty is wrong and which content nobody uses, and crash reports tell us what is broken.

None of it is used to build a profile about you as a person, and none of it is sold.

The Daily leaderboard

When you finish a Daily and submit the score, the game sends that submission to Unity Gaming Services, which runs the boards. The submission holds your score, the date the board is for, the version of the game rules you played under, and the list of words you traced. The words ride along so a suspicious score can be checked against the board's own dictionary.

The row is filed under an anonymous player id that Unity Gaming Services creates for this installation of the game. That id is not your name, your email, or a device serial number, and we cannot use it to find out who you are. It is created the first time the game runs, so that it exists before you need it. If a board shows a name beside your score, that name is the handle you chose in the game; your real name is never attached.

Submitting is your choice. Playing a Daily without submitting sends nothing, and turning the optional data sharing setting off does not stop a submission you asked for, because the submission is the feature rather than a measurement of it.

Cloud backup

Where the game is signed in to Unity Gaming Services it keeps one backup copy of your saved profile there, under the anonymous player id described above, so that the game can offer it back to you later. The copy holds what your profile holds: your display name, your ink and letter bank, your unlocks, your books and bookmarks, your achievements and the dates you earned them, your stats, your settings, your Daily streaks and any Daily score still waiting to be sent, your friends list, your tutorial progress, your chosen language, and your chosen skins. It also records when the backup was made and a short tag naming the kind of device that made it, so a restore can tell you where the backup came from.

The backup is a copy, not a second account. There is no login, no password, and no way for anyone to fetch it with your name.

Because there is no account, the backup is filed under an id your device holds rather than under anything you could type in. The game can find it again for as long as your device keeps that id. If the id is gone, the backup cannot be matched to you and cannot be recovered, and that is a limit of having no accounts rather than a setting you can change. Uninstalling and reinstalling on the same device usually keeps the id, because your phone backs it up along with the rest of the game's data. Moving to a new phone, or reinstalling with device backup switched off, usually does not. Treat the cloud copy as a convenience, not as a guarantee.

Bug reports

Report a bug, in Options and in the in-run menu, sends a report so a fault can be fixed. You start it, and nothing is sent until you press Send.

A report holds what you type in the description box, your app version and game rules version, your device model and operating system, some technical details about the device such as its memory, processor, graphics chip, screen resolution and system language, and the display name you chose, so reports from the same player can be recognised. When a run is live it also holds that run's seed and how far you had got, which is what lets the fault be reproduced exactly. You can add an email if you would like a reply; leave it blank and none is sent. You can also attach recent game logs, a snapshot of the current run, and either a screenshot or an image you pick yourself. Each attachment is optional and each one can be switched off before you send. The description and the email are free text that you control, so please do not type anything into them you would not want us to hold.

Your lifetime stats and your settings are never attached and stay on your device.

Reports are delivered to a private developer channel hosted by Discord, so Discord processes the report on the way to us. They are kept until the fault is fixed and then deleted.

Achievements

Where your platform game service is available, the game signs in to it and reports achievements you have already earned so they show on your platform profile. On iOS that service is Apple Game Center and on Android it is Google Play Games. What is sent is the id of an achievement and, for the achievements that fill up gradually, how far along it is. The sign-in and the account behind it belong to your platform, not to us; we never see your platform account details, and the achievement is earned on your device before anything is reported.

Advertising

Wordlock may show ads, and where it does they are served by Google AdMob. Rewarded ads are optional and you choose when to watch one. Where an ad-free purchase is available and you own it, no ads are requested and the ad system is not started at all.

The game requests non personalised ads by default. That means the ads you see are chosen from the app and the general context rather than from a profile built about you across other apps and sites. AdMob reads the advertising identifier your device holds in order to cap how often you see the same ad and to detect fraudulent clicks, and that identifier is shared with Google in that role. We do not use it to track you across other companies' apps or websites.

If you are in the EEA, the UK, or Switzerland, a consent form is shown before the first ad request and your answer controls what AdMob may store and use.

If personalised ads are ever offered, they will be off unless you turn them on, and on iOS the system will ask your permission first through Apple's own tracking prompt.

Your phone's own privacy settings let you reset your advertising identifier or turn off ad personalisation at any time.

Gameplay analytics and crash reports

Options has a Share gameplay data setting. It is off when you install the game and nothing optional is measured until you turn it on.

With it on, the game may send anonymous gameplay events, such as that a Daily was started or finished and what it scored, along with the basic app and device information the provider attaches to any event, and it may send crash reports describing what the game was doing when it stopped working. Where these are used the provider is Google, through Firebase. Turning the setting off stops collection entirely, not just the reporting of it.

These events are not tied to your name and are read as totals across all players, to answer questions like whether a stage is too hard or an item is never chosen.

Notifications

If you turn on the Daily reminder, your device schedules a reminder locally and shows it at the time you chose. No token is registered, nothing is sent to us, and no third party is involved. Turning the reminder off cancels it on the device.

Sharing and links out

The share button composes a short result card, with your score and the shape of your best word but not the word itself and not your name, and hands it to your device's share sheet. You choose whether to share it and which app receives it. Nothing is sent anywhere unless you complete that step.

The links on the Altar open other companies' sites, such as our Discord server and our social pages, in your browser. Once you are there, that company's own privacy policy applies and it can see the usual things a website sees, including your network address.

Who we share it with

Your data is not sold, and it is not shared for advertising or for anyone else's own purposes. These are the only recipients:

• Unity Gaming Services, part of Unity Technologies, which stores Daily leaderboard rows and your cloud backup

• Discord, which carries a bug report you choose to send to our private developer channel

• Apple Game Center or Google Play Games, which record the achievements you have earned

• Google, through AdMob where the game shows ads, and through Firebase where you have turned gameplay data sharing on

• Your app store, which handles any purchase and tells us only whether you own it

We may also disclose data where the law requires it.

How long we keep it

Data on your device stays there until you delete it or uninstall the game. A cloud backup is kept until it is replaced by a newer one or you delete your data. A leaderboard row is kept for as long as that board and its archive are running. Bug reports are kept until the fault is fixed and then deleted. Analytics data is kept under the retention settings configured in the provider's console: event data for 2 months, and data linked to a user or advertising identifier for 14 months, counted from that device's last activity, so the 14 months restarts each time the game is used. Achievement records are held by your platform under its own policy.

Deleting your data

Options has a Privacy and data screen with a Delete my data button. It removes your progress, stats, settings and name from the device, removes your cloud backup, and removes your entries from the leaderboards. If you are offline when you use it, the data on your device is deleted immediately and the rest is removed the next time the game is online. The screen tells you which of those has actually happened rather than assuming it worked.

There is no account to delete, because the game has no accounts. Uninstalling also removes everything held on the device, though it does not by itself remove a cloud backup or a leaderboard row, so use Delete my data first if you want those gone.

To have a bug report deleted, or to ask any question about data we hold, write to info@counterspell.dev and describe the report. If you gave a reply email with the report, use that address so the report can be found.

Your rights

Depending on where you live you may have the right to ask what data we hold about you, to have it corrected or deleted, to object to how it is used, and to complain to your data protection authority. Because the game has no accounts, almost everything we hold is either on your device or filed under an anonymous id, and Delete my data is the fastest way to exercise a deletion right. For anything the in-game button cannot reach, write to info@counterspell.dev and we will answer within 30 days.

Children

The game is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect data from them. Ads are requested at a general audience rating and the game is not flagged as child directed. If you believe a child has given us data, write to info@counterspell.dev and we will remove it.

Your choices

You can leave Share gameplay data off, or turn it off later, and the game works exactly the same. You can play Dailies without ever submitting a score. You can decline the Daily reminder. You can decline the shake and tilt controls when the game offers them, and play with the on-screen buttons instead; the motion sensors are not read until you say yes. You can delete everything at any time.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes in a way that affects you, the version and effective date at the top change with it, the published copy is updated at the same time, and the game tells you the next time you open it.

Contact

Counterspell Games LLC 10920 Rose Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90034, USA info@counterspell.dev

We aim to answer within 30 days.