Privacy

The short version

Chain Chasers is a game that runs in your browser at playchainchasers.com. You never need an account to play it, and your progress is kept on your own device. We use Google Analytics and the Meta Pixel to learn how the game is played and how people find it. If you play a friend or look at the leaderboards, the game signs you in anonymously with Google Firebase. If you choose to claim a bag tag (a name, a number and an email address), your name and number become public in the game, your email address is kept in Firebase to send you sign-in codes, and your progress is saved with it so another device can load it. If you tick the newsletter box, we keep your email address to send you news. That is the whole list, and the rest of this page explains each part.

What stays on your device

The game saves to your browser's local storage: the round you are in the middle of, your pins and trophies, your career stats and recent rounds, your Course Cred, your preferences (sound, throwing hand, outfits, the tutorial switch), the list of your multiplayer matches, and whether the game has already asked you about the newsletter or notifications. If you have a bag tag, it also keeps your bag tag's name and number, the leaderboards it last read, and a note of when your progress was last saved to your locker. Unless you have a bag tag (below), none of your progress is sent to us.

If you play a friend, look at the leaderboards or claim a bag tag, your browser also keeps the anonymous sign-in described below, in the browser's own database storage.

Clearing this site's data in your browser removes all of it, including any matches you were in. On an iPhone or iPad, Safari can clear a site's storage after seven days of browser use without a visit to the site, unless the game has been added to the Home Screen. The game asks your browser to treat this storage as persistent; whether it agrees is up to the browser.

Playing a friend

When you open PLAY A FRIEND (or the leaderboards, or the bag tag card), Google Firebase signs you in anonymously. That gives you a random identifier and nothing else: no name, no email, no password. Each match is stored as a record in Google's Firestore database. A match record holds the match code, the mode and settings, both players' anonymous identifiers, each player's chaser (the character's name and outfit), every throw (the disc, power, aim and where it landed), the scores, a small set of canned reactions, and timestamps.

Match records can be read by other players of the game who are signed in the same anonymous way. They never contain your email address. If you have a bag tag, your seat in a match shows your bag tag name. Match records are kept so that a match can be picked up again later.

Your bag tag (optional)

A bag tag is a name of up to ten characters and a number given in the order people claimed them. To claim one you give us the name, an email address, and confirmation that you are 13 or older. Here is where each part goes:

• Your email address is stored in Google Firebase Authentication. It is never put in any game record, including the ones other players can read. We use it to send you your bag tag and the six-digit codes that sign you in, sent through our mail provider, Resend, which keeps a log of the mail it sends. We do not send you news or offers at this address unless you also tick the newsletter box. Until you confirm the first code, we do not store the address in our systems: your device keeps it with the unconfirmed claim, and the code is checked against a scrambled (hashed) copy that expires after fifteen minutes.
• Your bag tag name and number are public inside the game. Other players can see them on your seat in a match, on the leaderboards, in the clubhouse list of new bag tags, and on the statue in the park if you lead the week's board.
• Leaderboard entries hold your bag tag name and number, your score to par, your total, and the date. They are posted from your device when an eighteen-hole round beats your own entry.
• Your locker is a copy of your progress (pins, trophies, career stats and recent rounds, Course Cred, best scores) saved in Google's Firestore database under your bag tag, so that signing in on another device brings it back. Only you can read it.
• Codes and limits: to stop the sign-in mail being misused, we keep a scrambled copy of each code, when it expires, how many tries it has had, and how many codes have been sent recently, including a scrambled (hashed) copy of each address a code went to with the times it was sent, kept for a day's limits.
• Analytics: the events for claiming and confirming a bag tag include its number.

A bag tag that is never confirmed is released after seven days. SIGN OUT on the bag tag card clears the game from that device and starts it fresh; your locker stays. DELETE MY BAG TAG removes your email address, your name, your leaderboard entries and your locker, and takes you off the newsletter's mailing list at Resend; the name is free for someone else at once and the number is never given out again. The copy of a newsletter sign-up in our Netlify form records is removed if you ask us. Records of matches you have already played keep the bag tag name that was on your seat.

Notifications

The game can tell you when it is your throw, but only if you say yes when it asks, and on an iPhone or iPad only after the game is on your Home Screen. If you say yes, your browser creates a push subscription (an address at your browser's push service plus two keys). We store that subscription with our hosting provider, Netlify, filed under your anonymous identifier, and use it for one thing: a short message saying it is your throw and how the last one went. A subscription that stops working is deleted. Turning notifications off in your browser settings ends it.

Google Analytics

The site uses Google Analytics 4, through Firebase, to understand how the game is played: which courses and holes are played, which discs are thrown and how the throws turn out, scores, pins, menus opened, whether a multiplayer match was started, and errors the game ran into. Google also records the kind of device and browser you use and an approximate location worked out from your internet address, and it sets a cookie so it can tell one visit from the next. We have set Google to keep event data for 14 months. Google's own privacy policy is at policies.google.com/privacy. You can block this with Google's opt-out browser add-on or by blocking cookies for this site.

The Meta Pixel

The site also loads the Meta Pixel (Facebook and Instagram) so we can tell whether our adverts bring people to the game and make those adverts better. The pixel records that you visited, and a few game events: starting and finishing a round, unlocking a course, claiming a bag tag, and joining the newsletter. It sends those to Meta with its own cookies, your internet address and browser details.

The pixel runs on the website only. High-frequency play data, such as individual throws, is never sent to Meta.

The newsletter (the FOUNDING CHASERS list)

If you tick Be first to know: new courses and fun features when you claim a bag tag (or joined the FOUNDING CHASERS list before bag tags existed), we keep your email address and, if you gave one, your name. For a bag tag, nothing is added until you confirm your code, so that nobody can sign up an address that is not theirs. Then your address is submitted through Netlify Forms and stored in our Netlify account, and once you confirm your bag tag's code, your address is also added to our mailing list at Resend, which sends the newsletter. We use them to send you the newsletter: new courses, new features, big updates, and now and then a way to support the game, such as our Patreon. Every newsletter says how to stop them, and you can ask us to remove you at any time. If your sign-up cannot be sent at the moment you make it (no signal, for instance), the game keeps it on your device and sends it the next time it can.

Our mail is tracked. The newsletter and the bag tag mails (including the code) record whether they were opened, through a tiny image in the mail, and which links were tapped: links go through links.playchainchasers.com, Resend's tracking address on our own domain, before reaching the game. We use this to see whether mail arrives and gets read. Blocking images in your mail app stops the open tracking; the links work the same either way.

We may also give Meta a scrambled (hashed) copy of newsletter addresses so our adverts can reach you, or people like you, on Facebook and Instagram (Meta calls these custom and lookalike audiences). Meta matches the scrambled copy against its own accounts and does not get your address in the clear. If you unsubscribe, we stop including your address.

reCAPTCHA

When you open PLAY A FRIEND, the leaderboards or the bag tag card, the game loads Google reCAPTCHA (through Firebase App Check) to confirm the request comes from this game on this site and not from a copy of it or an automated script. reCAPTCHA works in the background; it never asks you to solve a puzzle. To do that, Google collects information about your device and how the page is used, under the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. If you never use those online features, reCAPTCHA is never loaded.

Hosting and other requests

The site is served by Netlify. Like any web host, Netlify may log requests (your internet address, the time, the page) to run and protect the service. The game's pixel font is loaded from Google Fonts, so your browser asks Google for it and Google sees your internet address in that request. Bag tag mail is sent by Resend, which handles the address and the message to deliver it. Multiplayer, bag tags, leaderboards, notifications and analytics use Google Cloud, Resend and Netlify servers, which may be outside your country.

Links to other places

The game links out to Patreon and to the sponsors named on the course plaques. It asks before it takes you there. Those sites have their own privacy policies, and this page does not cover them.

Children

Chain Chasers is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. Claiming a bag tag asks you to confirm you are 13 or older; without that, the game plays on anonymously exactly as before. If you believe a child has given us an email address, contact us and we will delete it.

Your choices

• You can play the whole game without a bag tag, without the newsletter, without playing a friend and without turning notifications on.
• DELETE MY BAG TAG, on the bag tag card in the game, removes your bag tag, its email address, its leaderboard entries and its locker. SIGN OUT clears the game from one device.
• Clearing this site's data in your browser removes everything the game stored on your device.
• Blocking cookies, or using a content blocker, stops Google Analytics and the Meta Pixel. The game still plays.
• You can turn notifications off in your browser or phone settings at any time.
• You can unsubscribe from the newsletter from any newsletter, or ask us to remove you, or to delete a notification subscription or match records we can identify as yours.

Changes

If we start doing something new with your information, this page changes first and the date at the top moves.

Contact

Questions, requests, or something on this page that does not match what the game does: hello@playchainchasers.com.