Privacy
10 Million Cells is made by The Next Beacon. There is no login, no account and no profile, so the game never learns who you are. That is not a feature we are bragging about; it is just how the game is built.
Below is every field the game sends. Not categories — the actual fields. The list is taken from the code that sends them, so it can be checked against the game rather than taken on trust.
You are asked first
The game asks whether you are willing to share anonymous play data. If you say no, nothing in the next section is sent, and the game keeps working exactly the same. You can change your mind either way in Settings.
What it sends, if you agree
About the device, once per batch
| Field | What it is |
|---|---|
vendor_id | The identifier the phone gives us (Apple's identifierForVendor, Android's SSAID). It is scoped to us as a publisher, so it cannot follow you into anyone else's apps, and it resets if you delete all our apps. |
install_id | A random id the game makes up on first launch. Ours, local, gone if you reinstall. Not derived from you or your hardware. |
platform, os_version | iOS or Android, and the version. Lets us tie a crash to an OS release. |
model_class | Just "phone", "tablet" or "desktop". A model name is close to a fingerprint, and all we need is which of those three. |
locale, tz_offset | Language region, and how many minutes you are from UTC. |
About the app
Version, build number, and whether it is a release or a development build.
The events themselves
Each event has a random id, a name, a timestamp and a counter. The names are things you did in the game — a ball sent out, a picture recovered, a chapter begun, a screen opened. They are actions, never content: the game has nothing you can type into it.
Six values ride along with each one, and this is the whole list:
| Field | What it is |
|---|---|
ch | Which chapter you were in, counted from one. |
lt | Lifetime pixels — the running total the game shows you. |
res | Resonance, one of the game's own numbers. |
str | The deepest ring you have reached. |
tier | Which quality tier the game settled on for your device. |
d | How many days since you installed it. |
We use all of this to find crashes, to see where people stop playing, and to balance a game whose numbers are hard to judge from a desk.
Your save file, only when you ask
The game can move your progress to another phone. When you ask for a transfer code, and only then, it uploads your save file — every field you have dug, including the chapters you have left, along with your fleet, your pictures and your balance — and gives you a short code. Typing that code into another device downloads it back, so the chapters you have finished arrive with you rather than staying behind.
That file is your game, not you: there is nothing personal in it, because there is nowhere to put anything personal. It is held so the code can be redeemed and is not used for anything else. If you never ask for a code, your save never leaves the phone.
What stays on your device
The game keeps a private record for the "Your field in numbers" screen — how long you have played, what you have found, what you have done. That record is local, is never uploaded, and is not part of anything above. It exists so the screen has something to show you, whether or not you agreed to share anything.
What it does not send
- No email, name, phone number, address or birthday. There is nowhere to type them.
- No advertising id. There are no ads, so we never ask for it.
- No location. No GPS, and your IP address is not stored anywhere by us.
- No contacts, photos, files, microphone, camera, health data or purchase history.
- No third-party analytics or advertising SDK. The server is ours. Nobody else gets any of this.
One more connection
On launch the game asks our server for its current tuning — prices, speeds, the numbers we adjust after release. That request sends nothing about you; it only asks what the numbers are today.
Children
The game is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect anything from them. There is nothing in it that could identify a child if they did play it.
Keeping and removing it
Event data is kept while it is useful for finding faults and balancing the
game. Deleting the app ends the sending; the install_id goes with
it. If you want what is held against your device removed, write to
hello@thenextbeacon.com and say so
— we will need the transfer code or install id to find it, since there is no
account to look you up by.
Changes
If this changes, the date at the top changes with it, and a change that affects what is sent will be described here rather than quietly folded in.