What's collected, and what isn't.

01Who is responsible

HOLLOWMAST is made and run by one person in the United Kingdom. For data protection purposes that person is the data controller. There is no company, no team and no third party operating any part of this on their behalf, other than the service providers named in section 7.

The contact address for privacy questions is shown in the footer of this page. The form on the support page also reaches us.

02The game itself

The game is a single file that runs entirely in your browser. It does not have accounts, logins, profiles or friend lists, because it has no server to keep them on.

• Saves are written to your browser's local storage on your own device. They are never uploaded automatically. Clearing browser data deletes the local copy; nobody can recover it unless you exported a save blob and kept that copy.
• Settings are stored the same way and stay on your device.
• No cookies are set by the game, and it makes no request to any third party.

03First-party reports from the game

To find out where a game is too hard, too confusing, or simply broken, the game can send small reports back. These carry information about the run and the machine it ran on — which build, how far you got, what killed you, the browser and graphics card, and the details of any crash. The complete list, and the matching list of what is never included, is on the support page.

As the game ships today this is on unless you turn it off. Opening the game queues a loaded milestone and a GPU-class report before the saved setting is read. The switch stops every report after those two, before a run starts.

They are anonymous in a specific sense worth stating precisely rather than grandly. There is an install identifier: a random string this browser stores the first time you play and sends with each report, so that repeat visits can be told apart from first ones. It is deliberately the one thing that does link your visits to each other — whether people come back is a question we cannot answer without it, and we would rather say that plainly than describe it as anonymous and leave you to find out. It names nobody, it is never shared, nothing but the game reads it, and clearing this site's data removes it. Turning the switch below off stops later reports. What a report also carries is your browser version, your graphics card and the country the request came from — which, taken together and now sitting beside a stable identifier, are more distinctive than most people expect. We do not use them to recognise you; we are telling you they are there.

There is a switch in the game's Settings that stops future sends: Send anonymous reports, which reads ON or OFF. Settings is on the title screen before a run, and it is also on the pause menu during one — press Escape. The two startup reports above are already queued by then.

04The form on the support page

If you send a bug report or an idea using the form, it transmits the text you typed, which kind you picked, the build number, a website source marker and the client time. The receiver adds the receipt time and request country. It does not attach your name, email, account, cookie or game install identifier; the host processes the IP address but it is not stored with the message.

That cuts both ways: there is no way to reply to you unless you put contact details in the text. A later deletion request can locate a message only if you provide enough of the text or timing to distinguish it.

05Website logs

This site is served by Cloudflare Pages. Like every web host, it processes the requests it receives in order to serve the page and to keep the service working and secure. That processing involves your IP address at the moment of the request.

When Cloudflare's bot protection is switched on, it can also add its own small script to the pages it serves — including the game page — to tell browsers from bots. That script is Cloudflare's, not ours and not part of the game file, and what it looks at is described in Cloudflare's privacy policy. The game file itself carries no third-party code either way; section 6 covers everything this site runs by choice.

The website can run Google Analytics, and only after you accept it — see section 6. It is never in the game. The one thing deliberately recorded alongside a game report is the country the request came from, which the host supplies with every request. The address itself is not stored.

06Cookies, measurement and advertising

This website sets no cookies until you say so. On your first visit a banner asks; before you choose, nothing that measures or tracks is loaded or stored. Accept loads Google Analytics and its cookies. Decline stores only that choice, so the banner does not ask again, and everything on the site still works.

What accepting turns on:

• Google Analytics, run by Google, which counts visits to this website and sets its own cookies to tell one visit from another. Google's account of what it collects and how long it keeps it is in Google's cookie policy. It is loaded only after Accept, and it is never in the game: the game is a single self-contained file with no third-party code in it, and this has been true from the first build.

07Who else can see any of this

• Cloudflare — hosts the site and the endpoint that receives reports, and stores those reports on my behalf.
• Google — runs Google Analytics on this website, if you accept it (section 6). It sees the visit; it never sees a game report.
• An advertising provider — none today; when one is added it will be named here and in section 6 before it goes live.

Nothing is sold, and nothing is shared for anyone else's marketing. Reports are read by one person, to fix and balance the game.

08How long things are kept

Reports and form submissions are stored with a 90-day expiry set at the moment they are written, after which they are deleted automatically rather than by anyone remembering to do it. Saved games last exactly as long as you keep them, because they are on your own device.

09Your rights, and the one that is hard here

Under UK data protection law you have rights over personal data held about you, including access, correction, erasure and objection. To exercise any of them, write to the address in section 1, which is also in the footer of this page. The form on the support page reaches us too, but it is anonymous by design, so a rights request sent that way gives us no way to reply.

There is a real limit worth being upfront about. Reports carry no name, email or account, but their stable install identifier and technical fields distinguish one browser from another. The game does not show that identifier to you, so a request normally cannot name which reports are yours. A form message can be found if you give enough of its text or timing; an exported identifier is not available today.

You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK regulator, at ico.org.uk.

10Changes to this policy

The date at the top changes whenever this does. Anything material — advertising arriving being the obvious one — gets a visible note on the site rather than a silent edit, because a policy nobody is told about has changed is not really a policy.