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The Ember Depths · Legal
Privacy Policy
What the game keeps about you, why, for how long, who sees it, and how to get a copy or have it deleted.
Privacy Policy · Terms of Service · Licences & credits
The short version
- No email, no password, no real name: your account is a random ID stored in your browser.
- We keep your save in the cloud so you can't lose it, plus what you do in our social features (handle, chat, friends, trades, letters).
- No ads, no analytics trackers, no selling or sharing your data for advertising. No tracking cookies, so no cookie banner.
- Other players never see your IP address. Chat and social features are for players 13 and older.
- You can ask for a copy of your data or have it deleted at any time: write to Quillon in the game or email us.
This summary is here to help; the full text below is what applies.
Who we are
The Ember Depths (the game at play.emberdepths.io and this website, together "the Service") is made and run by Emptyset Media LLC, 611 South DuPont Highway, Suite 102, Dover, DE 19901, USA ("we", "us"). We decide how your personal data is used, which makes us the "controller" under data-protection laws like the EU and UK GDPR.
This policy covers the game wherever you play it (our site, the itch.io page that embeds it, and later Steam), this website, and our Discord bot. It does not cover itch.io, Discord or Steam themselves, which have their own policies.
Age requirements and children
The game itself is for a general audience. Chat, friends, direct messages, trading, party invites and linking a Discord account are for players aged 13 or older (in some countries the age at which you can agree to this yourself is higher, up to 16; if that applies to you, use the social features only with a parent's or guardian's permission).
We don't ask for your name, email or birthday. Before chat, direct messages, friends or trading, the game asks whether you're 13 or older: the answer stays on your device (it's never sent to us), and if you're under 13 those features stay off on that device while the rest of the game works as normal. We don't knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you're a parent or guardian and think your child under 13 has used chat or put personal details in the game (for example a real name as a hero name), contact us (below) with the child's handle and we will delete that information.
What we collect and why
We don't have accounts with passwords or emails. When you first open the game, your browser makes a random player ID and a secret key, and keeps them in its storage. Everything below is tied to that ID, not to your name.
| What | Where it's kept | Why | How long | Who can see it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A random player ID and a secret device key | Your browser (localStorage); the server keeps the ID and a one-way hash of the key | To recognise your device for online play, cloud saves and letters (there are no passwords or email sign-ups) | Until you clear your browser storage; on the server while the account exists | Nobody else. Staff see the player ID, never the key |
| Your save (heroes, items, town, settings, play time), and for each cloud copy the time and a device label like "Chrome on Windows" | Your browser, and a cloud copy with up to 5 older backups | To keep your progress and move it between your devices | The cloud copy until you ask us to delete it; older backups are replaced as you play | You. Staff can see a summary (hero name, class, level, gold, play time) to help restore a save |
| Recovery and device-link codes | Only on your device. The server stores an unreadable, code-encrypted copy of your key and a hash of the code | So you can move your heroes to another device | Recovery: until you make a new code. Link codes: 10 minutes, single use | Nobody: we can't read or recover your codes |
| Your handle (account name) and past handles | Server | Your public name in chat, friends, parties and leaderboards | While the account exists. A handle you give up is reserved for you for 90 days | Everyone online, the public leaderboards, staff |
| Hero profile: hero name, race, class, level, power score, title, badges, hardcore status, arena rating | Server | Player cards, party frames, leaderboards | While the account exists | Everyone online and on the public leaderboards website |
| Inspect snapshot of your current hero: equipped gear, abilities, skills, feats, Legend board, pet and active sellswords, achievement count, play time (never your bag, stash or gold) | Server, one per account | So other players can Inspect your hero | Replaced as you play; deleted 90 days after you were last seen | Any player who inspects you, unless you switch off "Let other players inspect my hero" (Settings → Account); senior moderators can still see it |
| Gameplay stats (kills, bosses, gold earned, depth, play time …) | Server | Leaderboards, achievements and spotting impossible numbers | While the account exists | Leaderboards show the top entries publicly; staff see yours |
| Online status and where you are (town, a lobby, a dungeon, the arena), last seen time | Server (memory, plus a last-seen time) | The player list, friends list and joining a party | Presence while you are connected; last seen while the account exists | Players online and your friends; staff. A joinable lobby is shown so others can join |
| Friends, friend requests and blocks | Server | Friends list, direct messages, blocking | Until you remove them | You and the other player (blocks are private) |
| Public chat messages (Global, Trade, LFG) and reactions | Server | Chat, and moderation | The latest 20,000 messages per channel; older ones are deleted automatically | Everyone in that channel, staff |
| Direct messages (friends only) | Server | Delivering and showing your conversations | The latest 5,000 messages per pair of players | You and your friend. Staff can't read DMs; a DM you report is copied into that report |
| Party chat | Server, inside the party's lobby | Chat while you play together | The last 60 lines, deleted when the lobby closes | The party |
| Trades (items and gold offered, both players, result) | Server | Running the trade and resolving disputes | Kept as a log | Both traders, staff |
| Reports you make or receive (who, why, the reported message) | Server | Moderation | Kept as a moderation record | Staff (the reporter's name only to senior moderators). The reported player is never told who reported them |
| Moderation records (mutes, bans, renames, the reason and who acted) | Server | Enforcing the Community Rules and keeping staff accountable | Kept as an audit log | Staff; you are told what happened and why |
| Tell Quillon letters, replies and votes | Server | Bug reports, ideas, support and privacy requests | Kept with the letter. Screenshots are pruned, oldest closed letters first, to stay under a storage budget | You and staff. If staff put your idea on the in-game Ideas board, other players see it with your handle (never your private messages) |
| What a letter attaches (you see the list and can remove any item before sending): a screenshot, game version, device (browser, OS, phone/tablet/desktop, screen size), settings, where you were, your hero's class and level, the last ≤ 50 error lines | Server, with the letter | To understand and fix the problem | Kept with the letter | Staff. Emails, IP addresses and secret-looking text are scrubbed on your device and again on the server |
| Which days and hours you were active | Server | Counting daily players for our dashboard and the public player totals | Hourly records 3 days; daily records while the account exists | Staff see totals; the website shows only counts |
| Ratings (stars, optional words, game version, device type and OS family, play time) | Server | Knowing what players think of each version | Kept; a new rating replaces your current one | Staff (words also become a letter staff can answer) |
| Discord link: your Discord user ID, username and display name (only if you link) | Server | Linking your Discord to your handle, the "Linked Adventurer" role, /profile | Until you unlink (Settings → Account → Discord, or /unlink) | Your Discord username is shown on your profile only if you switch on "Show my Discord". Staff see the link |
What you choose to type is up to you. Hero names, handles, chat and letters are visible to others as described above, so please don't put your real name, address, phone number or other personal details in them.
What we don't do
- No advertising, ad networks or ad identifiers, and we don't sell or "share" personal data (in the sense of US state privacy laws).
- No third-party analytics, tracking pixels, fingerprinting or session recording in the game or on this website.
- No payments: the game is free and has no purchases, so we hold no payment details.
- No precise location, contacts, camera or microphone. We never read your IP address into the game's data (see below).
- No automated decisions with legal or similarly significant effects. Our chat filter automatically masks mild swearing and refuses slurs and links in messages; a person decides on mutes and bans.
Our legal bases (EEA, UK and similar laws)
- To provide the game you asked for (contract, GDPR Art. 6(1)(b)): your player ID, saves and cloud backups, recovery and link codes, handle, online play, chat, friends, DMs, trades, letters you send and your Discord link.
- Our legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) in keeping the game safe, fair and working: moderation records, reports, the chat filter, rate limits, stats plausibility checks, error logs attached to letters, ratings and the public leaderboards. We have weighed these against your interests; you can object (see "Your rights").
- Legal obligations (Art. 6(1)(c)): for example, acting on reports of illegal content and answering lawful requests from authorities.
- Your choice (consent, Art. 6(1)(a)) for optional extras: attaching a screenshot or your save's revision number to a letter, and "Show my Discord" on your profile. You can withdraw it at any time.
Cookies and storage on your device
The game and this website set no cookies. (The only cookie we use is a sign-in cookie for our staff on admin.emberdepths.io.) The game uses your browser's local storage, which privacy rules treat like cookies, only for things the game needs to work for you:
- your save and its cloud-sync status, your player ID and key, and your handle;
- your settings and preferences: connection type, the emoji you used recently and your skin tone, which menus and tips you've seen, players you muted on this device, and whether you've seen the chat rules;
- short-lived state for rejoining a party after a reload or finishing a trade.
All of these are strictly necessary for the game you asked to play, so the law (the EU ePrivacy rules and the UK's PECR) doesn't require a consent banner, and we don't show one. Nothing is used for advertising or tracking. You can clear it any time in your browser's settings; that deletes your save on that device unless you have a recovery code. This website stores nothing on your device. If we ever add privacy-friendly visitor statistics, they will be cookieless, and we'll update this section first.
Co-op, IP addresses and security
- Other players never see your IP address. Co-op and the arena go through a server relay: either our own WebSocket relay or Cloudflare's TURN relay. The game forces relay-only connections and removes your address from anything it sends to the party, so it never reaches another player.
- Like any website, the servers that run the game see your IP address while you're connected (Cloudflare handles that traffic). We don't store it with your player data. Where we need it against abuse (wrong recovery-code guesses, too many requests to the public leaderboards), we use it briefly in memory or as a one-way hash for 15 minutes.
- Your key is never put in a web address. Codes are hashed and encrypted on your device. Text you type is cleaned of hidden characters, and everything is displayed safely to prevent attacks between players.
- No system is perfectly secure. If a breach puts your data at risk, we'll tell the authorities and, where required, you, as the law requires.
How long we keep it
The table above says how long each kind of data is kept. In short: chat history rolls over automatically (20,000 messages per public channel, 5,000 per DM conversation, party chat until the lobby closes); recovery and link-code attempts are forgotten after 15 minutes; everything else tied to your player ID is kept while your account is in use and deleted when you ask us to delete it. Moderation records and reports about rule-breaking may be kept after deletion for as long as needed to keep a banned player from coming straight back and to handle any legal claims, with your other data removed.
Your rights and choices
Wherever you live, you can ask us to:
- see what we hold about you and get a copy (in a common, machine-readable format);
- correct it, delete it, or restrict how we use it;
- object to uses based on our legitimate interests, and withdraw consent you gave.
Many of these you can do yourself, right now: Settings → Account → Your data → Download my save gives you your save file; change your handle; turn off "Let other players inspect my hero"; unlink Discord or hide it from your profile; block or mute players; "Delete save" erases the save on that device. For anything else (a full copy of what's on our servers, or deleting your cloud save, chat history, letters and account), use Settings → Account → Your data → Ask to delete my data, which opens a letter to Quillon already filled in, or email us. We'll answer within one month (we may need to confirm the request comes from your device). It's free.
If you're in the EEA, UK or Switzerland and unhappy with how we handled your data, you can complain to your local data-protection authority (in the UK, the ICO), but we'd like the chance to fix it first.
International transfers
We are based in the United States and our provider, Cloudflare, runs a global network, so your data may be processed in the US and other countries. Cloudflare is certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (and its UK and Swiss extensions) and its Data Processing Addendum includes the EU Standard Contractual Clauses and the UK Addendum, which protect data transferred from the EEA, UK and Switzerland.
California and other US states
California and other US state privacy laws give residents rights to know, delete and correct personal information, and to opt out of its "sale" or "sharing" and of targeted advertising. We don't sell or share personal information, run targeted ads or use sensitive personal information to infer things about you, so there is nothing to opt out of; you can still use any of the rights above, and we won't treat you differently for doing so. In the last 12 months we collected the categories in the table above: identifiers (player ID, handle, Discord ID if linked), internet activity within the game, and the content you send (chat, letters, screenshots), for the purposes described there.
Changes to this policy
When this policy changes, we'll update the version and date at the top. For important changes we'll also say so in the game's What's New and on our Discord before they take effect.
Contact us
Questions or requests about your data:
- Email: privacy@emberdepths.io (general help: support@emberdepths.io)
- In the game: Settings → About → Tell Quillon (or F8), letter type "Something else". A letter is tied to your device's player identity, so it also proves the request comes from you.
- Our Discord community (for questions; please don't post personal details in public channels).
- Post: Emptyset Media LLC, 611 South DuPont Highway, Suite 102, Dover, DE 19901, USA
Privacy Policy · Terms of Service · Licences & credits