Star Pulse Privacy Policy

You do not need to create an account to play Star Pulse. On first launch the game signs in anonymously to our own server, which keeps a copy of your progress and receives gameplay statistics. No e-mail address or advertising identifier is needed to play, and the name you enter can be any nickname. Other players see your player name, level and rank on the leaderboard, along with your selected planet, supporter badge, stars and wins. Star Pulse contains no third-party analytics, crash-reporting or advertising SDK, and we do not sell or share your data.

• The player name you type in and the planet you select.
• Your coins and energy cells, the sectors you have cleared and the stars you earned in each, your Star Pass progress, the signal capsules on your route, the planets you own, your daily reward streak, your quest progress, and what you have bought, such as No Ads, the Starter pack or a Supporter level.
• An install id, gameplay events that have not been sent yet, and whether an Apple account is linked.
• Your settings: language, sound and vibration.

This data lives in the app's private storage on your device. A copy of your progress is also kept on our server, as described in the next section; it is not sent to any third party. Deleting the app deletes the data on your device, but not the copy on our server. On iOS the install id is also kept in the Keychain, which survives uninstalling the app; once your game account is deleted, that id is no longer linked to any data.

• Sign-in: on first launch the game signs in anonymously to our server (api.krykftn.dev) with an install id. On iOS this is a random id created on your device and kept in the Keychain, so it survives a reinstall on the same device. On Android it is the device's Android ID, an identifier Android gives each app on the device (not the advertising ID), which also survives a reinstall. The platform (iOS or Android), the app version and the app language are sent with it. No name, e-mail address or advertising identifier is used.
• Gameplay events: sectors started, cleared and failed, with their time, stars, the reason for a failure and the planet used; coins earned and spent, for example on continues and planets; capsules, quests and daily rewards; and session length, with a heartbeat every 30 seconds while you play.
• How the game is used: which screens and lobby pages you open, which planet you select, how far you get in the tutorial and whether the rating prompt was shown, so we can see where players get stuck.
• For purchases: the product, whether it went through or why it failed, and the price and currency the store showed. Also whether you allowed notifications and whether linking an Apple account succeeded.
• A copy of your game save: player name, selected planet, level, stars, coins, Star Pass progress, capsules, owned planets, what you have bought, daily progress and how far you got in the tutorial.

Events contain no name or contact details. Like your save, they are stored under your anonymous player id, and each event carries a timestamp and a random session id.

We use this data to keep your progress when you reinstall the game or move to another device, to detect cheating, to see how the game is played so it can be balanced, and to find and fix problems. It is stored on our own server, hosted by Hetzner in the EU (Finland). No third-party analytics or advertising service receives it, and we do not sell or share it.

Gameplay events are deleted after 400 days and daily reward records after 40 days. Your account, the last ten versions of your save, your purchase records and your statistics are kept until you delete your account. The server keeps database backups for two days, and the developer may keep the two most recent backup copies on their own computer. Server logs are deleted after one month.

Coin packs, the Star Pass, the Starter pack and the Supporter packs are sold through the Apple App Store or Google Play; No Ads is offered only while the game shows ads. The store handles your payment, and we never see your payment details. The game receives only the confirmation it needs to deliver what you bought.

To verify a purchase, the game sends our server the store's transaction id together with Apple's signed transaction record (iOS) or Google Play's purchase token (Android). Our server checks iOS purchases itself and asks Google Play to confirm Android purchases, then credits them to your game account. Restoring purchases uses the same store mechanism and works only for non-consumable items, as the stores define them.

On iPhone and iPad you can link Sign in with Apple to your game account to restore your progress on another Apple device. We store only the stable user id Apple gives for your account; your e-mail address is not stored. Account linking is not available on Android, where your progress stays tied to the device. The game works fully without linking.

If you link an Apple account that already has progress and choose to switch this device to it, the anonymous progress you leave behind is deleted from our server.

When you delete a game account that is linked to Sign in with Apple, the game may ask you to confirm with Apple once more, so that the game's access to your Apple ID is revoked as well.

The leaderboard shows other players your player name, level and rank. With each listed player the game also receives the planet they selected, their supporter badge, and their stars and wins. Players who have not chosen a name are listed as “Player” followed by four characters of their anonymous id.

If you allow notifications, the game schedules its reminders on your device itself, for example when a daily reward is ready or a Star Pass season is about to end. No push token or other identifier is sent to us or to anyone else for this. You can turn notifications off at any time in your device settings.

• The game connects to our server (api.krykftn.dev) for sign-in, gameplay data, the save copy and the leaderboard, as described above. As with any web request, the server sees the connection's IP address; our web server records it with each request in an access log that is deleted after 30 days.
• Store purchases go through Apple or Google, and our server asks Google Play to confirm Android purchases, as described above.
• Sign in with Apple is used only when you choose to link an account.
• To keep seasonal content and daily rewards honest, the game asks a public web server (Google, or Apple or Cloudflare if Google cannot be reached) for the current date and time when it starts, when you return to it and every ten minutes while it is online. The request carries no personal data. As with any web request, the server sees the connection's IP address.

Apart from the leaderboard and account linking, the game can be played offline. Gameplay data waits on the device and is sent the next time you are connected.

Star Pulse currently shows no advertisements and contains no advertising SDK. If this changes, this policy will be updated before the change reaches the game.

Star Pulse is a general-audience game. It does not ask anyone, including children, for contact details, and linking an Apple account is optional. The name you enter is shown to other players on the leaderboard, so we recommend a nickname rather than your real name.

• Change your player name at any time from inside the game.
• Link an Apple account only if you want to.
• Turn notifications off in your device settings.
• Delete the game data on your device by uninstalling the app.
• Delete your game account and everything stored about it on our server from inside the game, under Settings → Account → Delete account. The deletion happens at once and cannot be undone; the game then starts over on your device. Backups and logs that still contain the account are replaced within the periods described above. You can also ask us through the contact form at krykftn.dev/contact.
• Manage purchases through your Apple or Google account.

If this policy changes, the new version will be published at this same address with a new date.