The short version
Aldwater is a single-player fantasy RPG. It is playable start to finish with no account, no sign-in and no network connection. There is no advertising, no analytics, no crash reporting and no third-party tracking of any kind.
Two optional things reach a network. Signing in to Google Play Games is handled by Google. Using the Arena — the asynchronous player-versus-player mode — sends your character to a small server I run myself, so that other players have someone to fight. If you never sign in and never open the Arena, nothing about you leaves your device.
Who is responsible
Aldwater is made by one person: Obe de Bruijn-Jansen, in the Netherlands. For the Arena server I am the data controller under the GDPR. For Google Play Games sign-in, Google is the controller of your Play identity — it is their account, their service and their storage, governed by Google's privacy policy.
Contact: jansen.obe@gmail.com
What the app collects
On your device only
Your character, inventory, quest progress and settings are saved in a single file inside the app's own private storage. If you are signed in to Play Games it is also copied to your own Google Drive — see Cloud save below. It is never sent to me. If you have Android's own backup enabled, Android may include it in your Google account backup as well — that is a function of your device settings and Google's service, not of the game.
Google Play Games (optional)
On Android, Google Play Games Services signs you in automatically if you have it enabled. The game then receives two things from Google:
- Your Play player ID
- A long number that identifies you to this game only. It is not your email address and it is not reusable across games.
- Your Play display name
- The gamertag you chose in the Play Games app.
The game does not receive your email address, your real name, your Google account password, or your contacts. Sign-in and sign-out are managed in the Play Games app rather than here — Play Games Services v2 has no in-game sign-out, by design.
Cloud save (optional)
When you are signed in, Aldwater keeps one copy of your save in your own Google Drive, in a private folder that only this app can see. This is Google Play's Saved Games feature: Google stores it, in your account, and I never see it or have access to it. It exists so a lost or replaced phone does not cost you your character.
If the same character has been played on two devices in ways that cannot be reconciled, the game asks you which one to keep rather than choosing for you. The one you do not keep is replaced.
You can delete it at any time from the Google Play Games app, under your saved games for this title. Deleting the app's data on your device does not remove it, and removing it does not affect anything on your phone.
Trusted time
The game asks Google Play services for a trustworthy clock reading, so that timed things — shop rotation, resting to recover — cannot be skipped by changing your phone's clock. This is a local request to Play services on your own device. No information about you is sent, and where Play services is unavailable the game falls back to your device clock and plays identically.
The Arena — the only server I run (optional)
The Arena matches you against a snapshot of another player's character, controlled by the game's own AI. Nobody plays live. For that to work, when you are signed in the game sends the following to aldwater.odbj.nl, a server I host in the Netherlands:
- Your Play player ID
- So a match can be issued to you and its result recorded against you. Your Play display name — your gamertag — is not sent: the arena never receives it.
- Your character
- Level, statistics, equipment, skills, gold and progress flags — and the character name you typed when you created it. This is shown to your opponent. If you would rather not have a name of yours on a server, do not use your own name for your character.
- The moves you played in a match
- The list of buttons you pressed, and nothing else. The server re-runs the fight itself to work out who won, which is why the game cannot simply claim a victory.
Stored on that server, and nothing more: one row holding your current character, the matches issued to or against you (two player IDs, a random seed and a timestamp), and each match's outcome (who won and how many rounds it took).
The server keeps no email address, no password, no payment details, no location, no device identifier, no advertising ID and no contact information.
Server logs
The Arena service writes a log line per request containing the method, the path, the response code and how long it took. It does not log your IP address or your player ID. The web server that terminates HTTPS in front of it keeps ordinary access logs, which do include the IP address the request came from; these are rotated and discarded automatically by the server, and are used only to diagnose faults and abuse.
Permissions
Aldwater requests one Android permission that concerns you: internet access. It asks for no others — no location, no camera, no microphone, no contacts, no calendar, no storage, no phone state, no advertising identifier.
The app also declares one permission of its own, which Android requires so that the app's internal components can send messages to each other. It is defined by this app, granted only to this app, and gives access to nothing on your device.
Purchases
There are no in-app purchases in this version and nothing is for sale. If that changes, purchases will be handled by Google Play Billing, Google will process the payment, and this page will be updated before anything ships.
Who your data is shared with
Nobody. Nothing is sold, rented, or handed to advertisers, brokers or analytics companies. There are no third-party SDKs in the app other than Google Play services itself.
The only people who see anything of yours are other players in the Arena, who are shown your character's name and its item level when they are matched against you. Not your Play gamertag, and not your Play profile.
Why it is allowed (legal basis)
- Providing something you asked for (GDPR Article 6(1)(b)) — signing in and using the Arena are features you choose to switch on; they cannot work without the data above.
- Legitimate interest (Article 6(1)(f)) — keeping the random seed and the moves played, so a result can be verified by replaying it rather than trusted, and so the same match cannot be reported twice. This is what keeps the Arena honest, and it is the minimum that achieves it.
How long it is kept
Your character row on the Arena server is overwritten each time you open the game while signed in, so only the current version exists. Match and result rows are kept while the service runs; there is no automatic expiry at present, and I will say so here rather than claim a period I have not implemented. Everything is deleted on request, and everything is deleted if the Arena service is retired.
Getting your data, or having it deleted
Email jansen.obe@gmail.com from any address and tell me your Play display name or your character's name. I will reply within 30 days. You can ask me to:
- Send you a copy of everything the Arena server holds about you, as a JSON file.
- Delete it — your character row, every match you took part in, and their results. Deletion is permanent and it removes you from the opponent pool. It does not delete the save on your own phone, which is yours; uninstalling the game does that.
- Correct it, though in practice playing the game once overwrites it anyway.
Your Play Games account itself is Google's, not mine — you manage or delete that through your Google account.
If you are unhappy with how I have handled a request, you can complain to the Dutch data protection authority, the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens.
Children
Aldwater is not directed at children and I do not knowingly collect anything from a child. The game is playable in full with no sign-in and no network, which is the version I would suggest for a child's device.
Security
Traffic to the Arena is encrypted in transit with HTTPS. The service refuses any request that does not carry a verified credential, and it derives your player ID from that credential rather than believing what a request claims — so one player cannot publish, play or resolve a match as another. The server is not indexed by search engines.
I will not pretend to more than that: it is a small self-hosted service run by one person, and it holds nothing that would hurt you if it leaked — no email, no password, no payment details. If a breach ever did affect personal data, I would report it as the GDPR requires and say so on this page.
Changes to this policy
This page is the current version and carries its own date at the top. If the game starts transmitting something new, this page will be updated before that version is released, not after. Cloud save was added on 5 September 2026 and this page was updated in the same change.