Privacy Policy
Last updated: [DATE]
Boulder Bash is made by Pixelfox Design. This policy explains what the game does with data, and it is written to be checked against the app rather than to sound reassuring - every claim below is something you can verify by playing it offline or by reading the source.
The short version. Boulder Bash has no accounts, no sign-in and no server of ours. Your progress is saved on your phone and nowhere else. It is playable start to finish with no internet connection at all. Three third-party services - Google AdMob, Firebase Analytics and RevenueCat - do send limited data off the device, and they are described in full below.
We never ask you for your name, your email address, your phone number, your date of birth, your location or your contacts. The game has no text field anywhere in it.
Contact: support [at] pixelfoxdesign [dot] com
1. What the game itself stores
Everything Boulder Bash saves about you is stored locally on your device, using Android's standard app storage. It is not uploaded, backed up to us, or shared with anyone.
That local save contains:
- Which levels you have completed, and how many stars you earned
- Your coin balance
- Your lives, and the timestamp used to work out when the next one is due
- How many attempts you have made at each level
- Which tutorial hints you have already read
- How many levels you have played since the last ad, and when that ad was - the two numbers that space the ads out
- Whether you have purchased Remove Ads
- Your sound, music, hints and reduced-effects settings
None of that identifies you. It is deleted when you uninstall the app, and you can clear the progress part of it at any time from Settings → Reset progress inside the game.
We run no server of our own. There is nothing for us to look up, and no account for us to look you up by.
2. Advertising - Google AdMob
Boulder Bash shows ads: full-screen ads between levels, and optional rewarded videos you choose to watch in exchange for a life, coins or extra moves. These are served by Google AdMob.
To do that, the ads SDK collects and sends to Google:
- Your device's advertising ID - a resettable identifier Android provides for exactly this purpose
- Approximate location, worked out from your IP address. The app requests no location permission and no part of the game reads your location; this is Google inferring a region from the network you are on
- Information about how you interacted with the ad - that it was shown, and whether you tapped it
- Basic device and app information, such as your device model and operating system version
Google acts as an advertising partner here, not merely as a supplier processing data for us. That means the data above is genuinely shared with Google and used by them under their own policies.
- Google Privacy Policy: policies.google.com/privacy
- How Google uses information from sites or apps that use Google's services: policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites
Your choice about personalised ads
If you are in the UK, the EEA or another region where consent is required, a consent form appears the first time you open the game, and your answer is remembered. You can change it at any time from Settings → Privacy options inside the game.
If you decline, or if the option is not shown in your region, you will still see ads - they will be non-personalised ones, chosen without using your advertising ID for profiling.
Resetting or deleting your advertising ID
This is controlled by Android, not by us, and it applies to every app on the device:
Settings → Privacy → Ads (the exact path varies by manufacturer and Android version). From there you can reset the advertising ID, which breaks the link to everything previously associated with it, or delete it entirely, which stops apps receiving one at all.
3. Analytics - Firebase Analytics
We use Firebase Analytics, a Google service, to understand how the game is actually played - chiefly which levels are too hard, which are being abandoned, and how long a session lasts. This is what tells us a level needs rebalancing rather than us guessing.
The game sends exactly four events, and this is the complete list:
| Event | Sent when | What it carries |
|---|---|---|
level_start | You begin an attempt at a level | Level number, theme number, which attempt this is, which boosters you brought |
level_end | A level finishes on its own - won or out of moves | Level number, theme number, won or lost, stars, score, moves remaining, how many seconds it took |
level_quit | You leave a level after playing at least one move | Level number, theme number, moves used, how many seconds it took |
lives_exhausted | You run out of lives | Level number, theme number |
Every value in there is a level number, a count, or a duration in seconds. There is no free text, nothing you have typed, and nothing that describes you rather than the game. The full list is kept in a single source file in the app (analytics_event.dart), deliberately short enough to read in one go.
Underneath our events, the Firebase SDK itself adds a standard set of information to each one: a randomly generated app instance ID, your device model, operating system version, app version, language, and a coarse region derived from your IP address. The app instance ID is specific to this installation, is not your advertising ID, and is discarded when you uninstall the app or clear its data.
We do not use Firebase Crashlytics or Firebase Performance Monitoring, and we do not link analytics data to advertising data.
Event data is retained by Google for the period set on our Firebase project, after which it is deleted automatically.
Google's privacy policy applies: policies.google.com/privacy
4. Purchases - RevenueCat and Google Play
Boulder Bash has one optional purchase: Remove Ads, a one-off payment. It is not a subscription, and it is the only thing in the game that costs real money.
The payment itself is taken by Google Play. We never see and never receive your card details, your billing address, or your Google account.
We use RevenueCat to check that a purchase is genuine and to restore it if you reinstall the game. RevenueCat receives:
- The purchase receipt issued by Google Play
- A randomly generated anonymous user ID, created by RevenueCat for this installation. We do not supply it with any ID of our own, and it is not linked to any account, because there is no account
- Basic device and app information, such as platform, app version and country
RevenueCat processes this on our behalf as a service provider. They do not use it for their own advertising.
- RevenueCat Privacy Policy: revenuecat.com/privacy
- Google Play's handling of the payment is covered by Google's privacy policy: policies.google.com/privacy
5. What we never collect
To be explicit, because an absence is easier to trust when it is written down. Boulder Bash does not collect, and has no way to collect:
- Your name, email address, phone number or postal address
- Your date of birth or age
- Photos, files, contacts, calendar or call logs
- Precise (GPS) location - the app requests no location permission
- Microphone or camera access - neither permission is requested
- Anything you type, because there is nowhere in the game to type
The app also has no chat, no leaderboards, no friends list, no social media integration and no user-generated content of any kind.
6. Children
Boulder Bash is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect any information from children under 13.
The game's target audience is 13 and over. If you believe a child under 13 has been using the game, resetting the device's advertising ID as described in section 2 removes the identifier involved, and uninstalling the app removes everything stored locally. You may also contact us at the address at the top of this page.
7. Where data goes
The third-party services described above are operated by companies based in the United States, and data sent to them is processed there and in other countries where they operate. Both Google and RevenueCat publish the safeguards they use for these transfers in their own privacy policies, linked above.
Data sent from the app travels over encrypted connections.
8. Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete or object to the processing of personal data relating to you, to withdraw consent, and to complain to a data protection authority.
The practical position for this app is worth stating plainly: we hold nothing keyed to you. There is no account and no server of ours, so there is no record here for us to retrieve or erase on request. What exists is held by the three services above, under identifiers that are not linked to your name.
What you can do directly:
- Stop personalised advertising - Settings → Privacy options in the game
- Break the link to advertising data - reset or delete your advertising ID in Android settings (section 2)
- Erase everything stored locally - Settings → Reset progress in the game, or uninstall it
- Ask Google or RevenueCat directly - as the parties actually holding the data, their own policies set out how to make a request
If you are in the UK or the EEA, our legal bases are consent for personalised advertising (collected through the form described in section 2) and legitimate interests for analytics and for non-personalised advertising - specifically, understanding whether the game is well balanced, and funding its development. You can object to processing based on legitimate interests by contacting us.
UK residents may complain to the Information Commissioner's Office: ico.org.uk. Residents of an EEA country may complain to their national supervisory authority.
If you are a California resident: we do not sell personal information for money. However, allowing personalised advertising involves sharing your advertising ID with Google for cross-context behavioural advertising, which California law may treat as a "sale" or "share". Declining the consent form, or enabling Opt out of Ads Personalisation in your Android settings, is how you opt out of that.
9. Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the revised version will be posted at this address and the "Last updated" date at the top will change. Material changes affecting what leaves the device will also be noted in the app's release notes on Google Play.
10. Contact
Pixelfox Design
support [at] pixelfoxdesign [dot] com
For anything about this policy, or about the game, that address is the right one and it is read by a person.