PhialA Markolana game

Phial privacy policy

Phial does not collect personal data and does not send gameplay data to the developer.

Effective

This policy covers the Phial app on iPhone and on Android, and the one thing this website collects: an email address you choose to leave for the release announcement. Where the two platforms differ, the difference is stated; everything else applies to both.

The short version

  • Phial contains no advertising, no analytics, no tracking, and no third-party SDKs.
  • The app creates no account and talks to no server of ours.
  • Your progress is stored on your device. On iPhone it is mirrored to your own iCloud if you have it enabled; on Android it is included in your own Google account’s device backup if you have that enabled.
  • We never receive your gameplay data, and we have no way to request it.
  • The app’s App Store privacy label is Data Not Collected, and its Google Play Data safety section says the same: no data collected, none shared.
  • This website keeps one thing, and only if you give it: an email address for the release announcement. What that involves is set out below.

What Phial stores on your device

So the game can remember your playthrough and your preferences, Phial writes the following to ordinary app storage on your device:

  • Campaign progress: which levels are solved, stars earned, best move counts, current level.
  • Journal discoveries - which colours, recipes and techniques you have witnessed.
  • Master’s Trial results and Daily Order results, including your streak.
  • Saved Daily Order puzzles, their completion status and best move counts, so an order you have already filled can be replayed after an update.
  • Which one-time lessons and coach marks you have already seen.
  • Settings: music and effects volume, haptics, reduced motion.

None of this identifies you, none of it leaves your device except as described in the next section, and none of it reaches us.

Keeping your progress across devices

On iPhone: iCloud

When iCloud is available, Phial uses Apple’s iCloud key-value store to mirror game progress, discoveries, the current level, trials and Daily Order progress between devices signed in to the same Apple Account, so a lost or replaced phone does not cost you your stars.

Saved Daily Order puzzles and their results also sync as files in Phial’s private iCloud storage, so you can replay them on your other Apple devices. These files use a small amount of your device and iCloud storage. Sync depends on iCloud being available and having room; saved puzzles remain playable on the device that saved them without any connection.

All of that data sits in your iCloud account under your control. It is not shared with the developer, and the developer has no access to it and no mechanism to request it.

On Android: your device backup

Phial on Android has no cloud sync of its own. Instead it opts its single save file into Android’s standard device backup and device-to-device transfer, so that when you set up a new phone from your Google account’s backup, or move to one directly from the old phone, your progress comes with it. That backup is a feature of Android, stored in your Google account under Google’s terms and switched on or off in your device’s backup settings; the developer has no access to it.

Purchases

Apple, on iPhone, or Google Play, on Android, processes the full-game purchase. Phial receives only the product information needed to show the localized price and the verified entitlement that says whether the game is unlocked. Phial does not receive, see, or store your payment details, your Apple Account or Google account, or your name.

Refunds, receipts and purchase history are handled by Apple or Google under your agreement with them.

What Phial does not do

Phial contains no advertising, analytics, tracking, attribution or third-party software development kits. The only outside code in the app is the store’s own purchase library, which exists to talk to the store. Phial does not sell or share personal data, and it does not track you across apps or websites. There is no advertising identifier, no device fingerprint, and no user identifier of any kind. On Android, Phial’s own code asks for no internet permission; the one the installed app carries comes from Google’s purchase library, which needs it to reach the store, and nothing else in the app uses it.

Phial is fully playable with no network connection at all - including the Daily Order, whose puzzle is computed on your device from the date rather than fetched from anywhere.

Apple’s and Google’s role

Apple provides iCloud, StoreKit and App Store distribution; Google provides Android backup, Google Play Billing and Google Play distribution. If you have chosen to share diagnostics with app developers in your device or Google Play settings, the store may give the developer crash reports and aggregated diagnostics; Phial includes no independent analytics or crash-reporting service of its own, by design rather than by omission - shipping one would mean adding a third-party SDK and creating a store of player data that does not exist today. Their handling of information is governed by Apple’s privacy policy and Google’s privacy policy.

The release mailing list

Until Phial is released, this website offers to tell you when it is. If you type an email address into that form and press the button, we store the address, the time, and which of the two forms on the page you used. Nothing else is recorded: no name, no IP address, no cookie, and nothing about how you reached the page. (To stop a script filling the list, the number of signups from one connection per minute is counted at the edge; that count is not kept.)

The address is used to send one email when Phial is released, and for nothing else. It is not shared with or sold to anyone, and no third-party mailing service receives it: the list is stored in a private data store in our Cloudflare account, and the page that collects it runs no script. The legal basis is your consent, given when you press the button, and you can withdraw it at any time.

To be removed, write to privacy@markolana.com from the address you signed up with, or name it, and it is deleted. The list is deleted in full once the release email has gone out.

Legal basis for processing

Because Phial collects no personal data, most of the GDPR’s processing questions do not arise. Where data is processed at all - the on-device save, the iCloud mirror or Android backup, and the entitlement check with Apple or Google - the basis is performance of the contract you entered into by installing and using the app, under Article 6(1)(b): without them the game cannot remember your progress or know whether you own it.

Retention and deletion

On-device gameplay data stays until you reset your progress or remove the app. Removing the app does not delete data already mirrored to iCloud; use Reset Game Progress in Settings to delete gameplay data and saved Daily Order puzzles.

On iPhone, Reset Game Progress deletes stars, discoveries, lessons, trials, Daily Order progress and saved puzzles from that device and requests their deletion from iCloud. Cloud deletion, and the reset reaching your other devices, take effect when iCloud is available and those devices sync. Phial keeps a small reset marker so that old progress cannot return from a device that had not yet synced. On Android the same choice deletes them from the device, and the backed-up copy is replaced at the next backup; Android’s own backup settings let you switch backup off or manage what is kept in your Google account.

Your local settings remain until you remove the app. Purchase records are retained and managed by Apple or Google, not by us. From the app, we hold nothing - the developer does not hold your saves and cannot delete them on your behalf - so there is nothing for us to delete; the release mailing list is the one exception, and the section above says how it is deleted.

Your rights

Under the GDPR, the UK GDPR, the CCPA and similar laws you have rights of access, correction, deletion, portability and objection. We can honour them trivially, because the honest answer to "what do you hold about me" is nothing - or, if you joined the release mailing list, one email address, which is deleted on request.

We do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined by the CCPA, and we have never done so. If you would like that confirmed in writing for your records, write to privacy@markolana.com and you will get a reply. You may also complain to a supervisory authority in your country.

Children

Phial is suitable for all ages and knowingly collects no data from anyone, including children. There is no chat, no user-generated content, no social feature, no advertising and no link out of the app other than to the store’s own pages and this website.

Changes to this policy

If Phial’s data practices change, this policy and the store privacy information will be updated before the changed version is released - not afterwards. The effective date at the top of this page is the version currently in force.

Contact

Phial is developed and operated by Andriy Nastyn (Markolana), Ukraine - the data controller for the purposes of the GDPR and equivalent laws.