Privacy
The short version: Bark Blast never asks who you are. If you join the leaderboard, your best scores go on it under a made-up name. The game only sets a cookie if you join the leaderboard, so your name follows you between our games, and we never sell or share your data.
Who we are
Bark Blast is made by Scritches Studios, the small independent team behind Bark Raiders ("we", "us"). We're responsible for the personal data described here. For any privacy question or request, email hello@bark-raiders.com.
On your device
The game saves your best score, the game you're playing, whether the sound is on and, if you join the leaderboard, your name and code for it, in your browser's local storage. It stays on your device. You can delete it by clearing this site's data in your browser settings.
The leaderboard
The leaderboard is optional: nothing goes on it until you pick a name. The names are made up from dog words, like "WaggyTail27", and you choose one of the ones offered, so a name never says who you are. If you like, you can put two initials in front of it, like "AB-WaggyTail27". That's all you can type: two letters, and nothing else. They're optional, and you can change or remove them any time.
Once you've picked one, the game sends us your scores as you finish games, or when you save your score partway through one, and your best today and your best ever are shown on the leaderboard for anyone to see. We keep:
- your name, with your initials if you added them;
- your best score today and your best ever, each with how many blocks you placed and lines you cleared in that game;
- a random code your device made up for itself, so your scores count as yours and the game can show you where you came. It isn't linked to anything else about you.
- Legal basis: your consent, which you give by picking a name. You can withdraw it at any time.
- Who handles it: Cloudflare stores it for us, in its D1 database. To stop anyone flooding the leaderboard, Cloudflare counts how often each IP address sends scores, a minute at a time. We don't store IP addresses with the scores.
- Checking you're a person: just before a score is sent, Cloudflare Turnstile checks that a person is playing, not a program sending scores on its own. It only runs once you've picked a name. Most of the time you won't see it; now and then it asks you to tap a box. To tell people from programs, Cloudflare looks at things like your IP address and details of your browser, and it also uses them to improve the check. See Cloudflare's Turnstile privacy addendum. Our legal basis for this is our legitimate interest in keeping fake scores off the leaderboard.
- How long we keep it: today's scores are deleted automatically once the day's over (midnight in Greenwich). Your best ever stays on the board until you take yourself off.
- Taking yourself off: "Leave the leaderboard", where you pick your name in the game, deletes all your scores in this game straight away. You can choose to leave every game's leaderboard instead, and each of our games deletes your scores the next time you open it. If you've cleared your browser's data since, the game can't find them any more, so email us your name and we'll delete them.
Your name in every game
Our games at scritches.studio share one leaderboard name, so you don't have to pick a new one in each. When you pick a name, our server sets one cookie for scritches.studio, which holds your name, your initials and your code. Only our games' servers can read it. It's only set once you've picked a name, it's only used for this, and it lasts up to 400 days from your last visit. It's never used for advertising or to follow you anywhere else.
If you picked names in two of our games before they could share one, the game asks which you'd like to keep, and moves your scores under the other one across to it. When you leave the leaderboard, you can leave just this game's or every game's. Leaving every game's keeps your old code in the cookie for a while, so each of our games knows to delete your scores there too the next time you open it. You can also delete the cookie by clearing your browser's data for scritches.studio.
Legal basis: your consent, which you give by picking a name. The cookie is strictly necessary for the shared name you asked for.
Your rights
You can ask us for a copy of the personal data we hold about you, or ask us to correct or delete it. Email hello@bark-raiders.com and we'll reply within a month.
If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, you can complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.