Privacy notice

The Arclight team operates the game and is the controller of the data described here. Contact nodeboundgame@gmail.com for privacy, support, and account-deletion requests.

Last updated 5 October 2026.

Playing without an age form

The game opens to its main menu without asking your age, birth date or country. Practice and local matches do not need an online account and send nothing to us. When you choose online play, the game creates or restores a game account to save results and help keep matches fair. Online play is available to all ages. Profiles are private, and advertising and optional analytics are disabled for everyone.

What we process and why

Online accounts. An online account holds a random account identifier, your player name, avatar choice, region, privacy choices, match results and rating. We process this data to run online matches, show the ladder and protect the service. Legal basis: performance of the game service you asked for.

Security records. The account service and our game server process the network information needed to deliver a match and to prevent abuse, such as your IP address, connection timestamps, rate-limit counters and short-lived session tokens. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in keeping the service secure and fair.

Saving to Google Play Games. On Android you can choose SAVE TO PLAY GAMES. Google then sends our account service your Google account identifier, the email address, name and profile picture link of that Google account, and your Play Games gamer tag. We use the identifier to restore your account on a new phone and to verify account-management requests, including web deletion, and we show the gamer tag as your player name. The email address, name and picture link are stored with the account because the sign-in service records them; we do not use them to contact you or show them to other players. Saving is optional, and the game works without it. Apple sign-in is unavailable. That sign-in is subject to Google's own policies.

Gameplay statistics. Optional analytics and advertising are disabled for all players. Any statistics event that the game does record is tied to your account only, is never shared with advertisers, and is deleted after 30 days.

Support. When you email support we keep your message and address for as long as needed to resolve the request and to keep a record of it.

Friends

You can add friends by name, by a friend link, or by playing a match through a friend's challenge link. We store each friendship and each pending request, and a challenge you send lives for five minutes. While the game is open on a menu it tells our server so every few seconds; your accepted friends see a green dot for about a minute after that. Nobody else sees it. Removing a friend, or blocking a player, deletes the friendship and any open challenge between you. Legal basis: performance of the game service you asked for.

Player safety

We store blocks and reports to help protect players. The ladder shows the player name, avatar and rating of every player with a match. No other profile detail is published. Your player name and account identifier are shared with an online opponent. Do not use your real name or contact details as your player name.

Who processes your data

We use Supabase to host accounts and match records, Firebase Hosting to serve this website, and our own game server to relay matches. These providers act on our instructions. Data may be stored and processed in the European Union and the United States; where data leaves your region, our providers rely on standard contractual clauses or an equivalent safeguard. We do not sell personal or sensitive player information and we do not share it with advertisers.

Storage and deletion

Session credentials on supported phones use operating-system secure storage. You can request account deletion in the app or on this website. Deletion removes your account, profile, settings, friends, friend requests, challenges, blocks, sessions and entitlements. Match results and safety reports lose their link to you and remain as anonymous records. Store providers handle their own purchase records and refunds under their policies.

Retention

• Accounts that never played an online match or bought anything are deleted after 30 days of inactivity.
• Match results and rating history are kept while your account exists, then anonymised on deletion.
• Safety reports and blocks are kept while the accounts involved exist; reports are anonymised on deletion.
• Gameplay statistics events are deleted after 30 days.
• Match join tickets and online session records are deleted within one day of expiry.
• Friendships and requests are kept until either player removes them or deletes their account; only the last time your game was open is kept for the online dot.
• Database backups held by our hosting provider expire within 30 days.

Your choices and rights

Settings lets you turn online play on or off and request deletion. You can ask us to access, correct, export or delete your data, or to restrict or object to our processing, by contacting support. We answer within 30 days. If you live in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, you can also complain to your data protection authority. If you live in California or another US state with a privacy law, the same rights apply and we do not sell or share your data.

Changes

We post any change to this notice on this page and update the date at the top.