Clach is made by Peatstack. This note covers the one thing the game sends to us over the internet: anonymous play stats. It is also at clach-stats.peatstack.co.uk/privacy.
In short
- What is sent
- anonymous numbers about how you play (sessions, the stones you raise, what your crew is, a few settings), tied to a random id made on your device.
- Never sent or kept
- your name, any account, email, IP address, cookies, device ids, or anything you type.
- On by default
- in the browser on itch.io, with a note saying so and a Turn off button.
- Asks first
- on clach.peatstack.co.uk: nothing is sent until you say Yes.
- Off
- by default in the downloaded game.
- To turn it off
- Settings, Play stats, Share anonymous play stats.
What is sent
While you play, the game sends a small batch of numbers about once a minute, and again when you switch tabs, close the page or quit.
The random id
- A random install id
- A random number (a UUID) made on your device the first time the stats are on, and kept in a small file beside your save (telemetry_id.json), so a reload still counts as you. It isn't built from anything about you or your device, and it is never in your save. Starting a new game over a saved one makes a new id, and so does time: an id is replaced after about 13 months. Nothing links an old id to a new one.
Sessions and loading
- Sessions
- When a play session starts and ends, how long it lasted, how it ended (tab hidden for a long while, page closed, quit, a new game over a saved one, stats turned off), which session this is for the install id, and how long it has been since the last one (in broad bands, such as "between 2 and 4 hours"). Each session also has its own random id, made fresh and never saved. Switching tabs for a short while doesn't end a session.
- Which kind of site you play on
- With each session, one word for the kind of site the game is running on: itch.io, the game's own site, the game's own site shown on galaxy.click, the preview site, another site, or the downloaded game. The game works that word out on your device from the page's address and the page it was opened from; only the word is sent, never an address or a link.
- Loading
- How long the game took to start, in milliseconds. If the page can't start the game at all, one message says at which step it stopped (WebGL 2 missing, graphics switched off, a browser feature missing, or a start error). A slow load sends a message when it has taken two minutes, and another if it then starts; closing the page while it is still loading (after 10 seconds or more) sends one too. These carry the kind of site, whether it is a phone or a computer, and how many seconds the tab spent in the background, with a throwaway id that is never stored. They go only from itch.io (and not once you have turned the stats off there), or from the game's own site after your Yes.
- Your device, coarsely
- The window's size as a rough band (such as "1024 to 1440 pixels wide"), whether it is a phone, a computer or a Steam Deck, and whether you play with a mouse, keyboard, controller or touch.
- Which version
- The game's version, the version your install id began on, whether it is the demo or the full game, and the kind of system (web, Windows, Linux, macOS).
How you play
- The first minutes
- When the title screen showed, and when you pressed New game or Continue, chipped the knoll for the first time, got your first carrier and bought your first thing, each as milliseconds since the page opened and minutes played.
- Milestones
- The minutes played when each stone stands (1 to 46), when the knoll sheds a band, when a new era begins, when each avenue convoy comes in, and when the ring, the rows and the avenue close. Whether your first carrier was bought or came on his own.
- Each purchase
- What you bought (a carrier, a quarrier, a sledge, picks and so on), how many you now have, and whether you bought it or the auto-hire did (past the third of a kind in a batch, one line with how many).
- A snapshot of your ring
- Now and then (every five minutes of play, after a milestone and at the end of a session): stones standing, bands shed, the era, the stone in your pile (rounded to three figures), how many clicks and perfect heaves, and how many of each kind of crew and tool you have. Numbers only.
- Some settings
- Volume levels (master, music, crew and click) and mute, the Calm look, hints on or off, turning the auto-hire on or off, and turning the stats on or off, when you change them.
- Menus and links you open
- That you opened the unlocks list, or the link to the Discord, the studio's other game or the Peatstack site: which one, once a session. Never where you went after.
- Starting over
- When you start a new game over a saved one: that it came from a new game over a save, and how many minutes the old ring had. The old id and the new one are not linked.
- Errors
- How many engine or script errors happened in the batch, by kind only. Never the error text, a file name or anything on your screen.
What is never sent
- Your name, an account, an email address, a phone number or anything you type.
- Your IP address. The server doesn't read it, doesn't log it and doesn't store it.
- Your browser's user agent, cookies, other headers, or any id from your device or browser.
- The address of the page, or where you came from; only the kind of site as one word.
- The time of day: rows keep only the date they arrived.
Where it goes and who sees it
- The stats go to a small program at clach-stats.peatstack.co.uk running on Cloudflare Workers, which checks every field against a list and keeps only what passes, in a Cloudflare D1 database of its own. It keeps no request logs.
- Only Peatstack sees them, to find where players get stuck or leave, how long the ring takes, and whether the game loads. It is never sold, shared or joined with anything else.
How long it is kept
Rows are deleted 13 months after the day they arrived, by a clean-up that runs every day.
Your choices
- On itch.io the stats are on by default. A small note says so the first time, with a Turn off button. You can also turn them off at any time: Settings, Play stats, Share anonymous play stats. Turning them off sends one last batch saying so, and then nothing.
- On clach.peatstack.co.uk (and the preview site) the game asks first. Until you say Yes nothing is sent and no id is made. No is kept, and it doesn't ask again. The same switch in Settings changes your answer.
- In the downloaded game the stats are off unless you switch them on in Settings. The Steam version has it off by default.
- Anywhere else in a browser (a copy of the web game on another site, or the web build run from your own computer) nothing is sent, whatever the switch says.
- As nothing is tied to who you are, we can't find your rows to show or delete them. Turning the stats off stops everything from then on; the rows already sent are deleted after 13 months.
Contact
Questions: hello@peatstack.co.uk.