Privacy Policy: Tideward on Android

Who we are

This policy describes how Manu Games LLC ("Manu Games", "we", "us") handles personal data in Tideward on Android phones, tablets, foldables, and Chromebooks (the "App").

For privacy questions, write to privacy@manugames.com. We aim to respond within 30 days, faster where statute requires.

Scope of this policy

• The App is offered only through Google Play, in the countries and regions listed on its Google Play listing, which is the authoritative list. As of the Last Updated date above that list spans parts of the Americas and Asia-Pacific, Australia and New Zealand, and Israel, and does not include the EU, the EEA, the UK, or Indonesia. Before we open the App in a place that needs its own disclosures, this policy is updated first.
• Tideward on Apple devices is a separate product with its own policy at tideward.app/privacy. The two versions share nothing: a purchase on one does not unlock the other, and no save moves between them.
• The tideward.app website is covered by tideward.app/privacy.

What we collect, and don't

The App does not embed any third-party SDK. No analytics, no advertising, no attribution, no crash reporting, no fingerprinting library, no anything that could phone home about you. The App opens no network connection of its own except the report form described below; on its own it talks only to Google Play, through the Google Play app on your device, to read and confirm your purchase and to show Google Play's rating card.

Things that happen only when you start them:

• If you choose to subscribe to our newsletter from inside the App, the App hands the signup off to your web browser. See Newsletter signup below.
• If you choose to send us a bug report or a feature request, what you typed is posted to our community Discord, publicly. See Bug reports and feature requests below.

None of these happens unless you choose it.

Data flows in the App

Two flows touch personal data inside the App on their own. There are no others.

• Save state, on your device, with Android backup. Your character, inventory, skill XP, settings, and other in-game state are stored in the App's private storage on your device, which other apps cannot read. If backup is turned on in your device's settings, Android's own backup service copies your saves, your settings (including a record of whether you own the unlock), and the newsletter state described below to your Google account, at most about once a day, and offers them back when you reinstall Tideward or set up a new device, including when you move to a new device with Android's transfer tool. Google provides that service to you under your Google account's terms. We have no access to that copy and cannot read it. The backup deliberately leaves out the App's diagnostic log, its engagement metrics, its random install ID, and its offline-time records, which stay on the device that made them. It is a recovery copy, not sync: it does not keep two devices in step.
• Google Play Billing, in-app purchase. When you buy the Full Version Unlock, Google Play takes the payment, and we never see your payment details. The App asks Google Play which of its products your Google account owns, checks Google's signature on that answer on your device, and confirms each purchase back to Google Play. Like every developer on Google Play, we can see a record of each order in the Google Play Console: an order number, the product, the price and tax, the date, the model of the device used, and the buyer's city, state, postcode, and country. We use those records only for accounting, tax, and refund requests, and they never include your payment details.

Two things Google does on its own, which Tideward neither adds to nor controls:

• Crash reports through Android vitals. If you have allowed your Android device to share usage and diagnostics data with Google, Google collects crash and "app not responding" reports from it and shows them to developers in the Google Play Console. That setting belongs to Android and Google, not to Tideward.
• The rating card. Now and then the App may show Google Play's own rating card. What you write there goes to Google Play under Google's terms and appears publicly on the Google Play listing. The App is never told whether you rated it or what you wrote.

On-device-only telemetry

The App keeps its telemetry only on your device. None of it is ever transmitted to Manu Games, and none of it has an upload path in the App at all.

• Engagement metrics. To make balance and pacing decisions in future updates, the App generates lightweight engagement metrics (session lengths, return gaps between sessions, and Day-N retention markers) and stores them in the App's own local settings store, kept out of Android backup, so they never leave the device that recorded them.
• Exit information. On Android 11 and later, Android keeps a short record of how the App's recent processes ended (for example a crash or an "app not responding" stop) and hands it to the App on a later launch. The App keeps it in its own store on your device, separate from everything above, drops anything older than 30 days, and sends none of it anywhere. You can share that record yourself from the Diagnostics screen in Settings: it goes only where you send it, and it holds, for each stop, the time, Android's reason and description, the App's memory use, and for a crash or an "app not responding" stop the technical trace Android recorded.

None of these stores is ever attached to a bug report. You can clear them at any time with Settings → Delete Local Data; they are also removed when you uninstall the App.

Newsletter signup from inside the App

The App can offer you a card inviting you to subscribe to The Assembly Line, our newsletter. It is optional and it is never pre-checked.

• The App makes a random, opaque token on your device. It is not derived from your name, your email, your Google account, your device, or anything else about you.
• That token is stored on your device and, if Android backup is on, travels with your backup to your Google account. It is attached to the signup link as a campaign tag, and the link says it came from the Android App.
• The App then opens that link in your web browser. It does not handle your email address at all. You type your address into Ghost's signup page, under Ghost's privacy policy.
• If you subscribe, the campaign tag travels with your signup and may be stored alongside your subscription by Ghost, so we stop prompting people who already said yes.

If you never tap the card, no token is ever handed to anyone. You can unsubscribe from any newsletter issue at any time, and you can ask us to delete the association by writing to privacy@manugames.com.

Bug reports and feature requests from inside the App

The App has a form under Settings → Support for reporting a bug or requesting a feature. It is optional, it never runs on its own, and it sends nothing until you fill it in and press the button. What you send is published publicly.

• Your report is sent over HTTPS to a small intake service we run on Cloudflare Workers. It keeps no copy of your report: it validates it, passes it straight to Discord, and forgets it.
• The intake service opens a thread in our public Discord, in #bug-reports or #suggestions. Anyone who can see that Discord server can read your report.
• You choose how much rides along, on the form, before you send. The Include control offers three levels, and it starts at Everything:
  • Everything. Your device and app version, plus the diagnostic log described below.
  • Device only. Your device and app version, and nothing else. No log.
  • Nothing. Your message alone: no device, no app version, no log, not even the random install ID.
• A bug report carries what you typed, plus the app version, the Android version, the device maker and model (for example Google Pixel 9, and whether the device is a Chromebook), and the platform. The random install ID described below is sent alongside them.
• The diagnostic log has exactly three parts. A short header (the install ID, a per-launch session ID, your app version, Android version, device model, the time the file was written, and how long the App's data store took to open, or a line saying that it failed to open); the App's own event log, up to 8,000 entries, including the random number that seeded the fight in progress, so we can replay a fight you reported; and up to 10 KB of the App's own system log from the last 15 minutes, each line tagged with its log tag. You can also export the diagnostic log yourself from the Diagnostics screen in Settings; that copy adds the time of your last save, a count of failed autosaves, and your keeper's game mode, and it goes only where you send it. Your character's name is deliberately not included.
• What the log does not contain. No display or accessibility settings, no language, no battery state, no device temperature, no free-storage figure, and no measure of how long the App had been open.
• A feature request carries only what you typed and the same app and device fields. No log is attached.
• No name, no email address, no Google account, and no account information is included, ever. The only identifier attached is a random install ID the App generates for itself: the post shows its first eight characters, and the attached log carries it in full. It is left out of Android backup, so a reinstalled or new device makes a new one. We use it only for rate-limiting.

If you would rather not post in public, email us at support@manugames.com; the App's Contact Support row does exactly that. To have a report taken down, write to privacy@manugames.com and we will delete the thread. Once your report is on Discord, Discord's own privacy policy governs that copy of it.

AI-generated artwork

Tideward's artwork, including the creature portraits and the item and equipment icons, has been produced with AI image-generation tools since the project's first day, directed, curated, edited, and assembled by a person. The artwork was generated before release and ships as ordinary image files. The App does not run any AI model and does not generate anything while you play. Nothing you do in Tideward is sent to an AI service, and we do not use your data to train anything.

Google Play Games

The Android App does not use Google Play Games: no Play Games sign-in, profile, achievements, or leaderboards. If we add it, this policy will describe exactly what it shares before the build that uses it ships.

Notifications and Android permissions

The App's reminders (for example, that your offline time is close to its limit) are scheduled on your device and shown by your device. No server sends them. On Android 13 and later, the App asks for the notifications permission only when you choose reminders, from the offer it shows after you return or from Settings → Notifications. Saying no costs you nothing but the reminders.

The notifications permission is the only one the App ever asks you to grant. The others in its manifest are ones Android grants at install without asking, such as internet access (used only to send a report you write), Google Play billing, and re-arming your reminders after the device restarts; none of them reads anything about you. The App does not request your location, contacts, camera, microphone, photos or files, phone, or calendar, and it does not use the Android advertising ID.

Service providers

• Google provides Google Play Billing to us under the Google Play Developer Distribution Agreement, and provides Android backup to you under your Google account's terms. We rely on those documents; we do not separately negotiate terms with Google, and we do not represent otherwise.
• Cloudflare, Inc. runs the report form's intake service.

Google Play Data safety

The Data safety section on Google Play declares the report-form data: what you type (as user-generated content), the event log attached to a bug report (as app interactions and other actions), the device and app details and the system-log tail (as diagnostics), and the random install ID (as a device ID). All of it is optional, used only for app functionality, and encrypted in transit. The engagement metrics are not declared, because they never leave your device.

Google collects and discloses information related to its own services (Google Play purchase history, Android backup, Android vitals). Those disclosures are Google's; see Google's privacy policy.

Beta testing

If you ask to join a test build and we invite you by email through a Google Play testing track, we hold the email address you gave us in the Google Play Console, where Google uses it to let you install the test build. We use it only to run the test, and we remove it when the test ends or when you ask. Tester feedback sent through Google Play reaches us with the details Google attaches. A test build follows this policy like any other build.

Retention

• Saves and settings on your device stay until you delete a keeper from the character screen or uninstall the App. Deleting a keeper removes it from your device together with the safety copies the App keeps of it.
• The Android backup copy, if backup is on, is kept and deleted by Google under its policies for your Google account. You can turn backup off, or delete your device's backup, in your device's or your Google account's backup settings. We cannot see it or delete it for you.
• On-device engagement metrics and exit information are retained until you tap Settings → Delete Local Data or uninstall the App; exit information is also dropped after 30 days.
• Google Play purchase history is retained by Google per its policies. The order records Google Play shows us are kept for as long as tax and accounting law requires, and no longer.
• The newsletter campaign token is held alongside your Ghost subscription, and on your device and in your Android backup. Unsubscribing removes the Ghost side; uninstalling the App removes the device copy, and backup settings remove the backup copy.
• A bug report or feature request stays in the Discord thread it created for as long as that thread exists. The intake service keeps no copy. Write to privacy@manugames.com to have a thread deleted.
• A beta tester's email address is kept until the test ends or you ask us to remove it.

Your rights

The rights you have depend on where you live. To exercise any of them, write to privacy@manugames.com. We will respond within the timeframe applicable law requires (commonly 45 days, sometimes extendable).

• Right to know and access: confirmation of whether we process personal information about you and a copy of what we hold. Off your device we hold the Google Play order records and beta-tester addresses described above. Your saves are on your device, and Google's account tools cover what Google holds about you.
• Right to correct: to correct inaccurate personal information we hold.
• Right to delete: on your device, use Settings → Delete Local Data, delete a keeper from the character screen, or uninstall the App, and use your backup settings for the backup copy. For anything else, email us.
• Right to portability: we hold no gameplay data off your device to port; write to us and we will tell you what exists and where.
• Right to opt out of "sale" or "sharing" for cross-context behavioral advertising. We do not sell or share. There is nothing to opt out of.
• Right to limit use of sensitive personal information. We do not process sensitive personal information.
• Right to non-discrimination: we will not deny service, charge different prices, or provide different quality because you exercised a privacy right.
• Right to appeal: if we deny a rights request you submit, you may appeal by replying to our response email within 60 days; we will respond within 60 days and explain our reasoning.

Children

On Google Play, Tideward carries the age rating shown on its listing, is listed for players aged 13 and over, and is not part of Google Play's Families program. It is not directed to children within the meaning of the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA, 16 CFR Part 312) or the New York Child Data Protection Act. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

If you are a parent or guardian and become aware that a child under 13 has used the App, contact privacy@manugames.com. We will delete personal information consistent with COPPA, document the deletion, and confirm in writing.

The App applies child-protective defaults to all users (no profiling, no targeted advertising, data minimization, sensible privacy defaults) regardless of age.

International transfers

• Google infrastructure. Google operates Google Play and Android backup in the United States and other jurisdictions, under Google's own transfer protections. We do not separately re-transfer that data.
• The report form. A bug report or feature request you choose to send passes through our intake service on Cloudflare and is posted to Discord, both of which operate in the United States and other jurisdictions.

Google's privacy policy is at policies.google.com/privacy. Cloudflare's is at cloudflare.com/privacypolicy.

Security

Your saves on your device sit in the App's private storage, which Android keeps from other apps, and the backup copy is held by Google's backup service under Google's protections. The report form's intake service keeps no copy of a report. The App is distributed and signed through Google Play, and we review every dependency we add.

Breach notification

If a personal-information breach occurs that is likely to affect you, we will notify you and, where required, the applicable authority within the timeframes the applicable law requires. For Google Play Billing, we act on any notice Google gives us the same way.

US state-specific notices

If you are a resident of California, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Texas, Oregon, Iowa, Indiana, Tennessee, Montana, Delaware, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Nebraska, Maryland, Minnesota, or Rhode Island (or another state with a substantially similar comprehensive privacy law) the following apply to your interactions with the App:

• Categories of personal information processed: your Google Play purchase entitlement, the order records Google Play shows us, and gameplay content stored on your device and in your own Android backup; what you type into the report form, the random install ID, and the device and diagnostic details you choose to include with it; a beta tester's email address if you join a test.
• Purposes: delivering the App, backing up your save through Android's backup service, granting your in-app purchase entitlement, keeping the accounting and tax records a sale requires, answering the reports you choose to send, and running test builds you choose to join.
• Categories of third parties with whom personal information is shared: Google as provider of Google Play Billing and of the Android backup service in your own Google account; Cloudflare, Inc. runs the report form's intake service; Ghost Foundation Ltd receives your email address only if you choose to subscribe to the newsletter; Discord, Inc. receives a bug report or feature request, publicly, only if you choose to send one.
• We do not sell personal information. We have not sold personal information in the prior 12 months and do not intend to.
• We do not "share" personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising. We do not engage in advertising at all.
• We do not engage in profiling for legal or similarly significant decisions.
• Sensitive personal information: we do not process sensitive personal information as defined by these statutes.
• Universal opt-out signals (GPC): because we do not engage in selling, sharing, or targeted advertising, there is no such processing for a Global Privacy Control or equivalent signal to opt out of. We honor any signal we are required by law to honor.
• Right to appeal: if we deny a rights request you submit, you may appeal by replying to our response email within 60 days; we will respond within 60 days and explain our reasoning.

Maryland (MODPA). We limit collection of personal data to what is reasonably necessary and proportionate to the specific service you have requested. We do not sell personal data of any consumer we know to be under 18, and we do not process minor data for targeted advertising.

California (CCPA / CPRA). California residents have the rights described above. Retention windows are described in Retention. Our designated method for submitting rights requests is the email address in Contact.

Washington and Nevada, consumer health data

Tideward is a game. We do not collect or process "consumer health data" as defined in Washington's My Health My Data Act (RCW 19.373.020(8)) or Nevada SB 370. Session-length, return-gap, and engagement telemetry are stored only on your device, are not transmitted to Manu Games, and are not used to identify any past, present, or future physical or mental health status.

New York minors (CDPA)

Tideward is a general-audience service and is not "primarily directed to minors" within the meaning of the New York Child Data Protection Act. We do not knowingly process personal data of New York minors under 13 except as permitted by COPPA, and we do not process personal data of New York minors aged 13 to 17 except as strictly necessary to provide the service the user has requested.

Places outside the United States

The App is offered only in the countries on its Google Play listing, which today do not include the EU, the EEA, the UK, or Indonesia. Before it is offered in any of them, this policy adds the sections those places need.

Third-party links

The App links to services we don't control: Google Play, Discord, Reddit, X, Instagram, Threads, YouTube (for our videos), and Ghost (the newsletter platform). Once you click through, you're governed by their privacy practices, not ours.

Updates to this policy

We may update this policy when our data practices change, when statute requires, when we open the App in a new place, or when we improve the wording. When we make a material change, we will update the Last Updated date at the top of this page.

Contact

• Privacy questions, rights requests, deletion requests, complaints: privacy@manugames.com
• Refund-rights inquiries and other legal notices: legal@manugames.com
• General support and product questions: support@manugames.com

Manu Games LLC
89 Waynesville Plaza #1028
Waynesville, NC 28786
United States