Blastomino Privacy

Blastomino is made by one person. This policy says what the app does with your information, and the short version is: nothing leaves your phone unless you share a score.

What Blastomino collects

Blastomino has no accounts, no analytics, no advertising, no crash reporting and no tracking of any kind. It does not ask who you are and has no way to find out. The one thing it ever sends anywhere is a score you choose to share, described under Sharing scores and rivals below.

Everything the app remembers is stored on your device only:

The name attached to a high score is whatever you type, and you can change it at any time in Settings. It stays on your phone unless you choose to share a score.

Sharing scores and rivals

Sharing is always your choice. When you share a score, Blastomino writes a short message — your name, the score, rows, time, date, difficulty, and a code that lets a friend play the same run — and hands it to the app you pick, such as a messaging app. The message goes wherever you send it.

The code can come with a replay of the run: where each shot landed, which way the piece was turned, and when the clock pushed a row in. A Time Attack replay also carries how long each shot took, because there the clock is the score. That is all a replay contains. The phone that receives it plays the run back to check the score is real.

Short links

From version 1.3.4, to keep the link in that message short, Blastomino sends the code and replay to Belle Prairie Games’ server at blastomino.com, which stores them and returns a link like blastomino.com/r/Ab3dE9xQ2k. This happens only when you share, and it is the only time the app sends anything.

What is stored is exactly what the message would otherwise have carried in full — the code (your name as you typed it, the score, rows, time, date, difficulty and the run’s seed) and the replay — and the time it was stored. Nothing else: no account, no device identifier, and no IP address.

Your IP address reaches the server, as it does with any web request. It is held in memory only, to stop one address storing an unreasonable number of links, and is forgotten within about an hour. It is never written to disk or to a log.

Who can see it: anyone with the link, which is who you sent it to. Links are not listed anywhere, cannot be guessed, and ask search engines not to index them. A chat app may show a preview of the link — your name and score — the same way it would show the message.

How long: stored runs are kept so the links you have sent keep working. To have one deleted, email the link to the address under Contact.

If the server cannot be reached when you share, Blastomino sends the long link instead and nothing is stored. Opening a short link asks the server for the run it names; the game then checks it exactly as it checks any other.

Long links

A long link, to belleprairiegames.com/b/, carries the score in the part after the #, which browsers never send to a website, so opening it does not give the score to Belle Prairie Games or anyone else. The page reads it in the visitor’s own browser and stores nothing. Links shared before version 1.3.4 are all long links, and keep working.

A Daily Puzzle result shares the same way: your name, the puzzle’s number, how many shots you took and whether you solved it, and the replay.

If someone without the game opens the link and taps Get it on Google Play, the challenge code goes to Google Play inside that store link, and Google Play passes it to the game when it is installed, so the challenge is waiting on first launch. Blastomino reads it once, on the phone, and sends nothing back.

A score a friend shares with you is added to your Rivals only when you choose to add it, and is kept on your phone only, like your own scores. Paste a challenge reads your clipboard only at the moment you tap it. You can remove a rival at any time.

Playing in a browser

At play.blastomino.com you can play the first era of a Normal Game and the Daily Puzzle in a web browser, with nothing to install. Everything it remembers — your settings, and your Daily Puzzle results and streak — is kept in that browser’s own storage on your device and is never sent anywhere. Clearing the site’s data in your browser removes it.

To play the Daily Puzzle, the page asks Belle Prairie Games’ server for that day’s puzzle. Like any web request it reaches the server with your IP address, which is not stored or logged, and the request carries nothing else about you. Sharing a result works exactly as in the app, short links included. The page loads nothing from any other website: no analytics, no advertising, no fonts from elsewhere.

Purchases

When you buy something, Google Play processes the payment under Google’s own privacy policy and tells the game only which products your Google account owns, so it can unlock them. That list of product names is kept on your phone and is never sent anywhere by Blastomino. Restoring purchases on a new phone asks Google Play for the same list again.

Internet access

The game itself is entirely offline and works with the phone in aeroplane mode. It uses the internet for two things only: buying or restoring a purchase, which goes through the Google Play app; and sharing a score or opening a short link, which talks to blastomino.com. With no connection, sharing still works — it sends the long link instead.

Now and then - after a new best score or a long Daily Challenge streak, and never more than a few times - Blastomino asks Google Play to show its rating card. The card, and anything you choose to write in it, belong to Google Play. Blastomino only remembers, on your phone, when it last asked.

The app’s Android manifest lists the INTERNET permission, which Blastomino uses for short links, above, and nothing else. The other permissions requested are for vibration, for audio playback, for Google Play billing (only used when you choose to buy something), for notifications (only if you turn on the daily reminder), and for checking whether a network connection is available (ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE), which the libraries Blastomino is built with add and which tells nobody anything.

Blastomino also asks Google Play for its install referrer, once, the first time the game opens after installing. That is how a challenge link opened before installing reaches the game. It reads only what the store link carried — a challenge code, if there was one — keeps it on your phone, and sends nothing back.

Notifications

If you turn on the Daily Puzzle reminder in Settings, Blastomino asks your permission to show notifications, and then schedules one reminder a day, at the time you choose, on your phone. Android keeps and delivers them on the device: nothing is sent to or from a server, and no push service is used. The reminder skips a day you have already played. Turn it off in Settings, or turn off notifications for Blastomino in Android, and there are none. The permission to start after a restart (RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED) is there only so scheduled reminders survive the phone restarting.

Children

Blastomino contains no advertising, no chat and no means of contacting anyone. The only thing it ever sends is a score the player chooses to share, stored to make a short link as described above. The only personal detail that can be in it is the name typed for the score table, which can be anything, including a nickname.

Deleting your data

Everything the app remembers is on your device. Uninstalling Blastomino removes all of it from your phone.

The one thing held elsewhere is a score you shared as a short link, which is stored so the link keeps working. To have it deleted, email the link to the address under Contact and it will be removed; the link then stops working.

The one other copy that can exist is your phone’s own Android backup. If backup is switched on in your phone’s settings, Android includes Blastomino’s saved games, scores and settings in the backup it keeps in your Google account, so your progress can come back on a new phone. That backup is between you and Google; Blastomino never sees it, and you can turn it off or delete it in your phone’s Google settings.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the date at the top of this page changes with it.

Contact

Questions about this policy: Belle Prairie Games — privacy@belleprairiegames.com