Privacy Policy
Hopline is a free browser game at hopline.pilim.ai. It has no accounts, asks for no email address or password, and shows no ads. This page explains what it does store, why, who can see it, and how to have it removed.
1. Who is responsible
The data controller is Vladimir Smirnov, trading as Rhodaris, a sole proprietorship registered with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce (KVK) under number 95530436, based in the Netherlands. Contact: [email protected].
2. What the game stores about you
On the server
On your first visit the game creates an anonymous player: a random secret token that identifies your browser, a player number, and a nickname (one you choose, or a generated one like Brisk Otter). Everything below is tied to that player, not to a name or email address.
| Data | Why |
|---|---|
| Player token, player number, nickname, avatar colour and character | To recognise your browser on the next visit and show you to other players. |
| Best progress per level (percent reached, attempts) and when it was set | To keep your progress across visits and fill the per-level leaderboards. |
| Race results: party code, level, finishing place, time, percent, attempts, start and end time | To show your recent races and the results screen of a party. |
| Friendships (which players added each other) and when | To show your friends, their online status and let you invite them. |
| When the player was created and last seen | To delete unused anonymous players (see retention). |
In your browser
The game itself sets no cookies; the only cookie on the site is PostHog's, described in section 4, and it exists only if you said OK to analytics. The game keeps a few items in your browser's local storage: the player token and nickname (hopline-player), a local copy of your best scores (hopline-best) and your settings such as avatar and presence (hopline-settings). Session storage remembers the party you were in so a reload can rejoin it (hopline-party) and whether the page already reloaded for an update (hopline-reloaded-for). Your settings include your answer to the analytics question, so it is not asked again. Clearing site data for hopline.pilim.ai removes all of it, and the game will treat you as a new player.
Live, while you play
With "Show other players on my level" switched on (the default, changeable on the Avatar screen), the game opens a connection to the server as soon as it loads. It tells the server which level you are playing and relays your position, mode and avatar a few times per second to the other players on that level, who see you as a ghost; you see them the same way. In a party or race the same happens between party members, plus your attempt count and best point. These live positions are relayed only and never stored. The menu also shows how many players are online right now.
Your friends see whether you are online and what you are doing (playing alone, which level, or in a party).
3. What other players can see
- Your nickname, best percent and attempts on a level's leaderboard (the top ten on the level-complete screen).
- Your nickname, avatar and live progress to everyone in your party or on your level, and your result to everyone in a race.
- Nicknames are unique and anyone online can find you by yours to add you as a friend or send you an invite. Choose a nickname that does not reveal who you are.
Nobody is shown your player token, player number, IP address or anything else.
4. Analytics
Analytics run only with your consent. The first time you open the menu, a bar asks whether that is OK; until you choose OK, and if you choose "No thanks", PostHog's script is not loaded and nothing described in this section is stored or sent. You can change your answer at any time with "Share gameplay analytics" on the Avatar screen: switching it off stops reporting at once and removes PostHog's identifier from your browser.
With your consent, to see where players struggle and which levels need work, the game sends gameplay events to PostHog, hosted in PostHog's EU cloud (data centre in Frankfurt, Germany). The events are: player created, level started, death (with the level, the position, percent and moment where it happened, the attempt number, the player mode, whether it was a race, and the timing of that attempt's jump inputs so the attempt can be replayed in the simulation), level won, party joined (how), race finished and friend added, each stamped with the game version. They are tied to your player number, nickname, avatar colour and character, never to the secret token.
PostHog's script also records page views and interface clicks, your browser, operating system, device type, screen size and language, and receives your IP address, which it uses to estimate your approximate location. It may record a replay of your session: the menus you see and how you interact with them. Recording pauses while a level is being played, and text you type, such as a nickname, is masked in replays. PostHog stores an identifier in your browser (a cookie or local storage item starting with ph_) to tell visits apart.
The legal basis is your consent (GDPR article 6(1)(a)); withdrawing it does not affect what was processed before. The data is never used for advertising, profiling beyond the game, or sold. You can also ask us to delete the analytics data tied to your player (see section 8).
5. Hosting and other processors
- Fly.io, Inc. (Chicago, USA) hosts the game server and its database on a machine in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Fly's network edge terminates the connection, so it processes your IP address and connection metadata to deliver the service and to defend against abuse. Transfers to the US, where they happen, are covered by the EU standard contractual clauses in Fly's data processing agreement.
- PostHog, Inc. (San Francisco, USA) processes the analytics described above on servers in Frankfurt, Germany, under its data processing agreement.
Our own server keeps no access logs of individual requests. We do not share player data with anyone else, except where the law requires it.
6. Legal bases
- Storing your player, progress, races and friends, and relaying your position to other players, is necessary to provide the game you asked for (GDPR article 6(1)(b)).
- Analytics rest on your consent (article 6(1)(a)), given on the analytics bar and withdrawable at any time on the Avatar screen.
- Keeping the service secure and dealing with abuse also rests on legitimate interest.
7. Retention
- An anonymous player with no best scores, race results or friends is deleted automatically after 7 days without a visit.
- Players who have played a level, raced or added a friend are kept until you ask us to delete them, so your progress and your friends' lists keep working. Deleting a player also deletes their scores, race results and friendships.
- Data in your browser stays until you clear it.
- PostHog keeps events and replays for the retention period set in our project (replays for a much shorter time than events); we delete the data tied to your player on request.
8. Your rights
Under the GDPR you can ask to see the data we hold about your player, have it corrected or deleted, restrict or object to its processing, and receive a copy in a portable format. Your nickname and avatar you can change yourself on the Avatar screen; presence you can switch off there too.
Because the game knows you only by a token, write to [email protected] with your nickname. To make sure the player is really yours, we may ask you to change your nickname in the game to a short code we send you. We answer within a month. You also have the right to complain to the Dutch data protection authority, the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, or the authority in your own country.
9. Children
Hopline is suitable for all ages and collects the same minimal data from everyone. It never asks for a name, age or contact details. If you are under 16, please do not use your real name as a nickname and ask a parent or guardian before playing online with others. Parents who want a child's player deleted can write to us as described above.
10. Security
The game is served over HTTPS only. The player token is a random 128-bit value that is sent only to our server and is never shown to other players or sent to PostHog. The database lives on an encrypted volume in a single European data centre.
11. Changes
If the game starts collecting something new (for example an optional sign-in), we will update this page and its date before it goes live. The current version is always at hopline.pilim.ai/legal/privacy.html.