ECHOES Privacy Policy
Information stored on your device
The game saves the following in your device's local app storage. We never receive it:
- your best scores in each game, stars (★), gems (💎), lifelines, mission and maze progress, unlocked and chosen skins and weathers, and sound settings;
- your Daily Drop result for each day (score, time and the paths of your echoes, used to draw your result card);
- the number of tries you've used on friend challenges;
- the name you type when you create a challenge (optional);
- the most recent weather reading, kept for up to 20 minutes so the game doesn't look it up again on every play.
To delete all of this, uninstall the app or clear its storage in your device settings. On the web version, clear the site data in your browser.
Location and live weather
Location is off by default. If you choose Live weather, the game asks for permission to use your device's location. Approximate location is enough. Before your coordinates leave your device, the game rounds them to about 1 km (two decimal places). It then sends them directly from your device to the free weather service Open-Meteo to get the current weather (conditions, temperature, wind, and whether it's day or night).
We don't receive, store or log your location. Open-Meteo's handling of requests is described in its own terms and privacy information. You can turn Live weather off at any time by choosing another weather option, or by revoking location permission in your device settings.
Online leaderboards
When you finish a game in the Android app, your score can be posted to that game's online leaderboard (today's board and the all-time board). To do this, the app signs in to Google Firebase Authentication anonymously: it receives a random player ID, with no email, phone number or account. For each board we store only that player ID, your leaderboard nickname (a random name like "TurboGhost32" unless you change it) and your score with the time it was posted. Your nickname and score are visible to everyone who opens the leaderboard. The data is stored in our Google Cloud Firestore database.
You can remove your entries any time in the app (Trophies → Leaderboards → Remove my scores), which also stops new scores from being posted, or by following the steps on our data deletion page.
Friend challenges and sharing
When you create a friend challenge, the game packs the challenge on your device: your echo paths, the arena seed, the weather type and the name you entered, if any.
To make the link short, the game stores this packed challenge in our Google Cloud Firestore database under a random-looking code,
such as qazidevs-echoes.web.app/c/Je0L7ULeW. Anyone who has the link can load that challenge.
Challenges contain no account, device identifier or location. If the database can't be reached, the game falls back to a longer link that carries the challenge inside the link itself.
Links and result images are shared only when you choose to share them, using your device's share menu or clipboard. The images are screenshots of your own game. To have a stored challenge removed, follow the steps on our data deletion page. We delete it within 30 days.
Website hosting
The ECHOES website (a browser demo that plays shared challenges) and the challenge links are served by Google Firebase Hosting. Like any web host, it may process technical data such as your IP address and browser type to deliver the page and protect against abuse. We don't use this data to identify you. See Firebase's privacy information.
Advertising (Android app)
The ECHOES Arcade Android app is free and shows ads served by Google AdMob: a banner under the game screens, an occasional full-screen ad between games, and optional videos you can choose to watch for rewards. The website shows no ads.
To show and measure ads, the Google Mobile Ads SDK collects and shares with Google information such as your device's advertising ID, approximate location derived from your IP address, device and app information, and how you interact with ads. Google may use it to show personalised ads, where the law allows and you have agreed. In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland the app asks for your consent first. We don't receive this information. See how Google uses information from apps that use its services.
You can reset your advertising ID or opt out of personalised ads in your device settings (Settings → Google → Ads, or Settings → Privacy → Ads).
What we don't do
- No accounts or sign-in.
- No analytics or crash-reporting SDKs (only Google AdMob for ads, as described above).
- No selling or renting of any data.
Children
ECHOES is not directed at children under 13. We don't knowingly collect personal information from children. The optional challenge name is stored only on the device and in links the player chooses to share.
Changes
If we add features that change how data is handled again (for example online leaderboards), we'll update this policy and the date above before those features go live.
Contact
Questions about this policy: likealife17@gmail.com