Privacy Policy

Your garden, your data, your choices.

Your progress stays on your device, and no Firefly Garden account is required. The game uses PostHog for usage analytics, with a sharing switch in Settings. Version 1.1 adds Google AdMob ads and optional purchases through Apple or Google.

Effective 25 September 2026 · covers version 1.0 (build 5 onward) and version 1.1 on iOS and Android

Ads and purchases in version 1.1

Version 1.0 has no advertising or in-app purchases. Version 1.1 includes ads between some levels, rewarded ads for hints, an optional Remove Ads purchase, and optional tips. Test builds may show Google's test ads. The ad SDK still connects to Google in those builds.

Google AdMob: Google's Mobile Ads SDK can collect and share your IP address (which can estimate approximate location), app and ad interactions, diagnostic information, and device identifiers such as the advertising ID and app set ID. Google uses this information for advertising, measurement, and fraud prevention. This is separate from PostHog usage analytics. Turning off Share usage statistics stops PostHog events; it does not disable Google's ad SDK or its data collection.

The app uses Google's consent form where required before requesting ads. Where available, Settings → Ad privacy choices lets you revisit those choices. On iOS, the app asks adults for tracking permission when applicable; declining does not block the game. On Android, advertising-ID controls are in your device settings. The game does not request GPS location permission. Google's SDK sends its data using HTTPS/TLS. See Google's Privacy Policy, Google's advertising information, and Google's iOS SDK data disclosures and Android SDK data disclosures for Google's processing and controls. Google controls the retention of data it receives; removing this app does not itself delete data already held by Google.

Google Analytics for Firebase (install measurement): From the next version, the game includes Google's Firebase SDK so that installs can be matched to the ads that led to them. It is off when the app starts and only turns on for players who chose an adult age range and have Share usage statistics on; for players under 18 or whose age is not known it never turns on, and turning the switch off turns it off again. While on, it sends Google an app-instance ID, the app version, device and OS type, first-open and session events, and your IP address (which can estimate approximate location). In the EU, the EEA and the UK, your agreement covers usage measurement only: advertising consent stays off, so the data is not used to match installs to ads there. Everywhere, personalized advertising from this data is switched off. On iPhone, Google's on-device conversion measurement matches installs on the device without the advertising identifier. See Firebase's privacy information.

Purchases: Apple App Store or Google Play processes payment. The app receives product and transaction information needed to finish a purchase and restore ownership, and keeps an ad-removal status on your device. I do not receive your payment-card details through the app. Store purchase records and billing-account data are handled under Apple's or Google's privacy policy. There is no developer purchase server. Removing ads changes the ads shown; it is not a promise that Google's SDK never initializes or receives data.

You can report an inappropriate advertisement through Settings → Report an ad. This opens your email app; nothing is sent until you choose to send it.

Checking the date for the Daily Glow

Everyone gets the same Daily Glow on the same day, so from version 1.1 build 18 the game checks the date online instead of trusting the phone's clock. Once the Daily Glow is open to you, the game asks for the current time with an ordinary web request to www.apple.com, www.google.com and one.one.one.one (Cloudflare) at the same time, and uses the first answer. The request carries no identifier, no account and nothing about your game. Like any web request, it reaches those companies with your device's IP address. The game keeps only the time it got back, on your device, and the check happens whether or not usage sharing is on.

Usage analytics in both versions

The remaining usage-sharing descriptions concern PostHog analytics, not advertising. PostHog was added in build 3. From version 1.0 build 5 onward, the game asks first when your phone's region is set to the EU, EEA or UK, and starts with sharing on in other regions, with a switch in Settings to turn it off.

When the game asks first

It depends on the region your phone is set to, not on where you are. On iPhone that is Settings → General → Language & Region → Region; on Android it is usually the country of the first language in your language settings. The game never uses GPS. This phone-region check is for analytics; in version 1.1, Google may estimate approximate location from your IP address as described above.

• The European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway or the United Kingdom. The first time you play, right after the short three-step practice, the game asks once whether you want to share anonymous play stats. Either answer starts the game. Nothing is sent unless you say yes, and if you never answer, for example because you leave the practice early, sharing stays off. A phone that reports no region at all is treated the same way.
• Any other region. Sharing is on from the start and the game does not ask. You can switch it off at any time in Settings, under Share usage statistics.

Once this is settled, by your answer, by the switch, or by sharing starting on, it stays with the app on that phone: changing your phone's region later does not ask again or change it. Until it is settled, the game applies the rule again each time it opens.

If you played an earlier build, a choice you made in build 4, by answering its question or using the switch, is kept. Any other earlier save is settled by the same rule the first time build 5 opens. On phones set to a region outside the EU, the EEA and the UK, that switches sharing on, even if you had turned it off in build 3, because build 3 did not record that as a choice. Inside them, sharing stays off unless you say yes.

What stays on your device

• Which clearings you have unlocked and completed, and your best number of moves for each.
• The board you are part-way through, so you can close the app and come back to it.
• Your Daily Glow history and streak, and your Endless Night progress.
• Your settings: sound, haptics, reduced motion, and whether you share anonymous usage.
• The time from the last Daily Glow date check, so the date is still known offline.

This is stored using the operating system's ordinary app storage. It is not readable by other apps, and the game never sends it anywhere: the events described below report counts such as moves and seconds, never the board or the moves themselves. On iOS this save is kept out of iCloud backups. On Android, the phone's automatic Google backup can include it. Deleting the app deletes it from your device.

What is shared while sharing is on

When sharing is off, nothing is sent, and the analytics SDK is not even started unless sharing is on. While it is on, the game sends these events as you play:

• level_started: the mode, world and level, its difficulty, and whether it is a replay.
• level_completed: the mode, world and level, moves, seconds, hints used, and whether it was a replay.
• level_abandoned: the mode, world and level, and the moves and seconds so far.
• hint_used: the mode, world and level.
• world_unlocked: which world.
• daily_glow_started and daily_glow_completed: the date and whether it is a replay, plus moves, seconds and hints used when you finish.
• endless_started and endless_ended: the depth and night when you begin; the depth, levels cleared, nights lit and seconds when you stop.
• settings_changed: which setting you changed, and whether you turned it on or off.
• analytics_disabled: sent once, at the moment you switch sharing off.
• The PostHog SDK's own app events: Application Installed, Application Updated (with the previous version), Application Opened (with the link that opened the app, if there was one), Application Became Active, and Application Backgrounded.

Every event also carries:

• Firefly Garden's name, version and build, the platform (iOS or Android), and a tag saying whether it came from a development or a production build.
• A random ID that the PostHog SDK creates on your device, and a session ID. The random ID is not the advertising identifier, is not linked to your name, email address, Apple ID or any other account, and is removed when you delete the app.
• Details the SDK adds itself: the app's bundle identifier; the device type, which the SDK reports as “Mobile” on phones and tablets; the device maker; the operating system and its version; whether the app is running in a simulator; your language and region setting and time zone; the screen's width and height; the SDK's own name and version; the time of the event; and a few flags PostHog uses for its own bookkeeping.

The SDK would also attach your phone's model, but the game removes it before anything is sent, and your phone's name is never sent.

Each time the app starts with sharing on, the SDK also asks PostHog for its settings. That request can carry the same random ID and some of the app and system details listed above.

Like any internet service, PostHog receives your device's IP address with every request, and it may store that address with the events. Every event is marked so that PostHog does not look up a location from it, and I do not use it to identify anyone.

Who receives it

PostHog, Inc., the product analytics service I use, is the only company the game sends usage events to. Events go to PostHog's US cloud at us.i.posthog.com and are stored in the United States. Ads and the Daily Glow's date check are described above.

PostHog handles this data for me as a service provider. Under the U.S. privacy-law addendum in its privacy policy, which applies as soon as it starts processing data for me, PostHog may use or disclose that personal information only to provide its service to me or as the law allows or requires, and it commits to helping me answer requests to access or delete it. PostHog also takes part in the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, and publishes a Data Processing Agreement and a list of the companies it uses to run its service.

Those limits match the ones this page sets for me, with one difference I would rather state than bury: PostHog's terms let it use customer data to develop its own products and machine-learning models, once that data has been aggregated or de-identified so that it cannot reasonably be used to identify anyone. It does not let other companies train models on it.

Game Center leaderboards on iOS

Firefly Garden has two leaderboards, for the Daily Glow streak you are on now and the most glow earned in Endless Night. They run on Apple's Game Center. If you sign in to Game Center when the game offers it, your current streak and your glow are sent to Apple to place on those boards under your Game Center name; if you decline, nothing is sent and the game plays exactly the same. Apple, not I, holds Game Center accounts and scores, and Apple's Game Center privacy terms apply to them. No leaderboard data passes through any server of mine.

What is never collected

• No account of mine. There is no sign-up, no login, no name, and no email address. Game Center sign-in is optional and is Apple's, as above.
• No screen recording or session replay. PostHog autocapture and session replay are disabled. Version 1.1's ad SDK does collect ad interactions and diagnostics as described above.
• No GPS, contacts, photos, microphone, or camera access. The app does not request these permissions. This does not prevent approximate location inferred by Google's ad SDK from an IP address.
• Nothing from the reminder. The game asks once whether it may send notifications, after the short tutorial. If you allow it, it schedules a reminder on your own phone for the last hour of the day, so a Daily Glow streak is not lost by forgetting; a switch in Settings turns it off. These are local notifications: they are written by the app to your phone's own scheduler, there is no push token, no server of mine is involved, and nothing about them is sent anywhere. Saying no, or turning them off later, changes nothing else about the game.
• Not your board or your moves. The board and your move history never leave your device; events carry only counts such as moves and seconds.

How long PostHog events are kept, and deleting them

Events are kept only so I can maintain and improve the game, and they are used for nothing else.

Because an event carries a random ID rather than anything that names you, I cannot find one person's events from a name or an email address. What you can always do is stop them: switching sharing off stops collection immediately, and deleting the app removes the random ID from your device.

For questions about this data, or to ask for it to be deleted, email sampetersen007@gmail.com.

Changing your analytics choice

Open Settings and use the Share usage statistics switch; it works the same in every region. Turning it on starts sharing. Turning it off stops it at once: the game sends two last events, settings_changed recording that you switched it off and then analytics_disabled, so I can count how many people opt out, and after that nothing more. Once you have used the switch, changing your phone's region does not change it.

Age ranges and children in version 1.1

Version 1.1 on Android and iOS asks for an age range before the game starts. The game stores only that range on the device, not a birth date or exact age. Every age range can play the game.

For players under 18, or whose age is not yet known, PostHog usage analytics is disabled and the usage-sharing switch is not offered. The ad SDK is configured for child treatment, non-personalized ads, and general-audience ad content. The age-treatment signal is sent to Google; a child's age range is not sent to PostHog.

For adults, when usage sharing is enabled as described above, the selected age range (such as 25–34) accompanies usage events as age_band. This helps me understand the adult audience. It is associated with the same random installation ID as those events; it is not an anonymous count of every player. Turning usage sharing off also stops this age-range reporting. No extra age-collection permission prompt is shown.

These age-range provisions override the general usage-sharing descriptions above for under-18 players. Version 1.0 does not ask for an age range. A parent or guardian with a question about data can contact sampetersen007@gmail.com.

What the app stores do see

Apple and Google run the stores the app is distributed through, and they report aggregate figures to me as the developer — roughly how many people downloaded the app, crash reports, and anonymous retention percentages. That collection is done by the platform, not by Firefly Garden, and it is governed by their policies, not this one. I cannot see who you are in any of it.

You can limit what your device shares with Apple under Settings → Privacy & Security → Analytics & Improvements, and with Google under Settings → Google → Ads.

If this changes again

If a future version of Firefly Garden collects anything more, or uses it differently, this page will be updated before that version ships, the effective date at the top will change, and the change will be described here rather than quietly folded in.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your data: sampetersen007@gmail.com.