Privacy policy

1. What we collect

• An account ID. Every player, including a guest, gets a random account ID so the game can save progress.
• Sign-in details. If you sign in with Google, Google tells us your email address, your name and your profile picture. Guests don’t give us either.
• Your game save. Your progress, team, currencies, purchases, settings and focus sessions, including any note you type about what you are working on.
• Puzzle and fight results. Which puzzles you solved, hints you used and fight outcomes. We check these on our server to keep rewards and leagues fair.
• What other players can see. Your display name, profile card, chat border, status line, league standing and the chat messages you send. These are public to everyone in the game.
• Purchase records. When you buy crowns, our payment provider handles your card or wallet. We never see your card number. We receive a record of the purchase: which pack, the amount, the checkout ID and your account ID. The payment provider may collect your email, billing country and payment details under its own privacy policy.
• Visit counts. A privacy-friendly analytics service counts which pages are visited, the site that sent you, your browser and operating system, device type and screen size, your language, and your rough location (country, region and city, worked out from your IP address, which isn’t stored). It also counts a few game events: starting or finishing a focus session, its length, opening the pop-out timer and finishing the prologue. It uses no cookies, never sees your account, your name or what you type, and can’t follow you to other sites.
• Technical logs. Our hosting and database providers log requests (IP address, browser type, time and the page or action) to run and secure the service.

2. What stays in your browser

The game keeps your sign-in session, a copy of your save and your settings (music, sound, timer state) in your browser’s local storage. We use no cookies for advertising or analytics and no tracking pixels. The visit counter above stores nothing in your browser.

If you add a video stream to the pop-out timer, that video provider’s player loads in your browser and its own privacy policy and cookies apply. The suggested videos load their thumbnails from YouTube. The stream link you choose stays in your browser.

3. How we use it

• to run the game, save your progress and let you play on more than one device;
• to show your name, card and messages to other players in chat and leagues;
• to deliver what you buy and keep the records that tax law requires;
• to stop cheating, spam and abuse;
• to answer you when you write to us.

We don’t sell personal information, we don’t use it for advertising, and we don’t build profiles of you for anyone else.

4. Google sign-in

Signing in with Google asks only for the basic profile scopes (your name, email address and profile picture). We use them only to create and identify your account and to let you sign in again. We don’t share them with anyone except the providers below that run the service, we don’t use them for ads, and we don’t use them to train AI models. Our use of information received from Google APIs follows the Google API Services User Data Policy, including its Limited Use requirements.

5. Who helps us run it

These kinds of service providers process data on our behalf, only to provide their part of the service:

• a database and accounts provider;
• a website hosting provider;
• a cookie-free analytics provider, for the visit counts in part 1;
• a payment provider, for crown purchases;
• Google: “Sign in with Google”, if you use it.

These providers may store and process data outside Australia, including in the United States. If you want to know which companies they are, write to us at support@zugkai.com. We may also disclose information if the law requires it, or to protect players and the service from fraud or abuse.

6. How long we keep it

We keep your account, save and chat messages while your account exists. When you delete your account, its save, profile, chat messages and puzzle records are deleted with it. We keep purchase records for as long as tax law requires (in Australia, five years). Guest accounts that haven’t been used for a long time may be deleted. Providers’ technical logs are kept for their own short periods.

7. Your choices and rights

• See or correct your data. Most of it is on your profile. For a copy of everything, write to us.
• Delete your account. Email support@zugkai.com from the address you sign in with (or tell us your display name and account ID if you play as a guest), and we’ll delete it within 30 days.
• Clear your browser. Clearing site data removes what the game keeps on your device. A guest who hasn’t signed in loses their progress this way.

Depending on where you live (for example the EU, the UK or California), you may have further rights, such as to object to processing or to data portability. Write to us and we will help. If you are in Australia and unhappy with how we handled a privacy concern, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (oaic.gov.au). In the EU or UK you can contact your local data protection authority.

8. Children

Zugkai is not for children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect information from them. If you are a parent and think your child under 13 has an account, write to us and we’ll delete it. Players under 18 need a parent or guardian’s permission to buy anything.

9. Security

Data travels over encrypted connections, and the server checks game actions before saving them. No system is perfectly secure, so if we learn of a breach that affects you, we will tell you and the authorities where the law requires.

10. Changes

If we change this policy, we’ll update the date at the top. If a change matters, for example if we start collecting something new, we’ll say so in the game first. See also our terms.