In short: we can see where players get stuck and what crashed. We cannot see who you are.
About this game
Serpent of Hours is an offline, single-player game. There is no user account, no login, and no sign-in of any kind. You can play the entire game without connecting to the internet.
Information we collect
We do not collect information that identifies you personally. We do collect a small amount of anonymous technical and gameplay information, so that we can find and fix what is broken. Specifically:
- No personal data. Serpent of Hours does not collect your name, email address, contacts, photos, or any other personal information. There is no account to sign in to.
- No advertising identifier. We do not collect or access your device’s advertising ID — permission to read it is removed from the app, and collection is switched off in the game’s own configuration — and we do not track you across other apps or websites. We have no advertising partners.
- Anonymous gameplay reports. The game reports a short, fixed list of anonymous events — for example, that a run started, that a run ended and on which floor, or that a chest was opened. The complete list is below. They tell us where players get stuck. They are not tied to your name, your email, or any advertising identifier.
- Basic technical information. Alongside those events, the reporting tool automatically records things like your device model, operating system version, app version, language, and the country your connection appears to come from. This is how a crash report becomes useful; it is not used to identify you.
- Crash and performance reports. If the game crashes or stops responding, an automatic report is sent so that we can fix it. It contains technical information about the failure and your device — not your personal information.
- A random app ID. So that reports from one installation can be grouped together, the reporting tools use a randomly generated identifier. It is not your device’s advertising ID, it is not linked to you or to anything else you use, and it is reset if you reinstall the game.
- Local notifications only. Serpent of Hours may send you optional reminder notifications (for example, about your Daily Well). These notifications are scheduled entirely on your own device. They are not sent by us, by any server, or by any push-notification service. No information about you or your device is sent anywhere to create, schedule, or deliver these notifications, and they do not contain any personal data.
- You can turn this off. Open Settings inside the game and switch Diagnostics off. Nothing is sent after that, and the game plays exactly the same.
The complete list of gameplay events
We would rather show you the whole list than describe it vaguely. Today the game sends these, and nothing else:
| Event | Sent when | What it carries |
|---|---|---|
ftue_step | You pass a step of the opening tutorial | Which step |
run_start | A run begins | Which campaign, and which kind of run it is |
run_end | A run ends | How it ended, which floor, which campaign, whether it ended on a boss, how many nodes you cleared |
run_resume | You return to a run already in progress | Which floor, how many actions you had taken |
daily_well | A Daily Well run is started or cleared | Which campaign, which difficulty tier, which curse was active |
vault_award | You are awarded a sealed chest | Its tier, its quality, its level |
vault_open | You open a sealed chest | Its tier, its quality, how many chests are still waiting, whether it was earned in this session |
meta_screen | You arrive at a screen between runs | Which screen |
notif_prompt | You are asked about reminder notifications | Whether you were shown the request, and what you chose |
Every value in that table is a number or one of a fixed set of words chosen by us. None of these events can carry text that you wrote, a file from your device, or anything that identifies you or your device beyond the technical information described above.
Turning it off
Open Settings inside the game and switch Diagnostics off. It is on by default. One switch governs both channels: with it off, the game sends neither the gameplay events nor crash reports. Your choice is stored on your device and is remembered the next time you open the game.
Two honest notes. Turning Diagnostics off stops anything further being sent; it does not reach back and delete reports that were already sent, because nothing is attached to those reports that would let us find yours. And switching it off means we lose your crash reports too. That is a real cost, and it is your call to make, not ours.
Who processes this data
The anonymous reports described above are processed on our behalf by Google, using Firebase Analytics and Firebase Crashlytics. Those two are the only third-party services in the game that receive anything.
There is no advertising SDK in the app, no push-notification service, and no social or sign-in SDK. We do not sell your data, we do not share it for advertising, and there are no advertising partners receiving information from this game.
One thing we will not leave out: Firebase Analytics is permitted to ask Google Play how an install arrived — for example, which store link led to it. That is a built-in part of the analytics tool rather than a separate tracker, it says nothing about who you are, and it belongs to the same Analytics collection that the Diagnostics switch turns off.
Where your progress is kept
On your device. We do not upload your saves, your settings or your collection, there is no account and no cloud save of ours — we cannot see your progress.
One thing we will not leave out, because it is the one way your progress does leave the phone: Android has its own backup feature, and this game takes part in it. If you have device backup switched on, Android may copy the game’s data — your progress, your collection and your settings — into the backup your phone makes to your Google account. That copy sits in your Google account, not ours; we have no access to it and cannot read it. The practical effect is worth stating plainly: if you set up a new phone from that backup, your progress can come back with it. The switch that controls this is in your own Android settings, not in the game.
There is one deliberate exception. The record of a run that is still in progress is kept out of that backup on purpose, because restoring an old copy of it would wind the game back on itself mid-run. Everything else is included.
If we ever add a cloud save of our own — a way to carry progress that runs through us rather than through Android — it will be optional, and this page will be updated before it ships.
Children’s privacy
Serpent of Hours is not directed to children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone, including children. The anonymous reports described above are not tied to a person and are never used to build a profile of any player.
Your choices
- Diagnostics. You can switch the anonymous gameplay and crash reports off at any time: open Settings inside the game and turn Diagnostics off. They are on by default. Turning them off changes nothing about how the game plays.
- Notifications. Local notifications are entirely optional (opt-in). If you enable them and later change your mind, you can turn them off in the game’s Settings, or in your device’s system settings (Settings > Apps > Serpent of Hours > Notifications, or the equivalent on your device).
Because the reports carry no name and no account, we cannot look up or delete the reports of one particular player — there is nothing attached to them that would let us find you. If you have a question about this, please write to us at the address below.
This website
This site sets no cookies, runs no analytics, and loads nothing from any third party — no fonts, no scripts, no trackers. It is plain text and one stylesheet, served by our host. Reading this page tells us nothing about you beyond what any web server necessarily sees to deliver a page.
Changes to this policy
We will publish any change to this policy on this page before that change takes effect, and every update carries a new effective date at the top. We encourage you to check back here periodically.
(This is the first published version of this policy. There is no earlier one you missed.)
Contact
If you have questions about this policy or the game, contact us at: