A Note on Privacy

Quillbyte Studios began as a writing group and became a small, independent game studio. We write narrative games and visual novels: The Lighthouse Letters and Margins, with Evergreen Line and A Court of Ink still in drafting. This note covers quillbytestudios.com and the games we publish.

We are responsible for the personal information described here. If you have a question about any of it, write to [email protected].

Our games reach you through PC, console, and mobile stores. Each store keeps its own records of your account and purchases under its own privacy policy. This note covers only what reaches our desk.

Very little, by design. A story about you should be yours to write, not ours.

On this website

• No cookies, no analytics, and no advertising trackers.
• Our web host keeps ordinary server logs (IP address, browser type, the page requested, and the time) so the site stays up and safe.
• Our typefaces come from a third-party web-font service, which sees your IP address when it delivers them.

In our games

• Your choices and saves. The letters you send in The Lighthouse Letters and the notes you follow in Margins are saved on your device. If your platform offers cloud saves, it carries them between devices; we can't read them.
• Reading preferences. Text speed, font size, language, and accessibility modes are stored locally, and only for you.
• Choice statistics, if you allow them. Some of our games can share anonymous tallies, such as "38% of readers burned the letter," so we can learn which branches readers find. This is off unless you turn it on, and it is never tied to your name or account.
• Crash reports. If a game fails, it may offer to send a technical report (device, system version, game version, and the error). Sending one is up to you.

When you write to us

• Your email address and whatever your letter holds: press questions, translation offers, or a few words about an ending that stayed with you.

Every line we record has a purpose, and we use it for nothing else:

• to reply to your letters;
• to mend the bugs that crash reports reveal;
• to understand, in aggregate, how readers move through our stories, so the next one is better told;
• to keep this website secure; and
• to meet our legal duties.

Where the law asks for a legal basis, ours are: your consent (choice statistics and crash reports), our legitimate interest in answering correspondence and keeping things working, and legal obligation.

We do not sell your personal information, and we never trade it to advertisers. A few trusted parties may handle it for us, under contract and only as far as needed:

• our website host and email provider;
• an analytics provider that stores anonymous choice statistics;
• a crash-reporting service;
• the stores and platforms that sell our games and sync your saves; and
• authorities, where the law requires it.

Should Quillbyte ever join another publishing house, this note, or one equally protective, would travel with your information.

Some of our stories deal with loss, grief, and difficult choices, and they are written for teenage and adult readers. Please check each game's store age rating. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13, or under the age of digital consent where you live. If a child has written to us, a parent or guardian can ask us to delete the letter, and we will.

Nothing is kept forever, and nothing is kept longer than it is useful:

• Website server logs: about 30 days.
• Crash reports: up to 6 months, then deleted.
• Choice statistics: kept only as anonymous tallies, which can't be traced back to you.
• Letters and emails: as long as the conversation continues, and deleted within 3 years of the last exchange unless you ask us to keep them (some readers do).

Your saves stay on your own device or platform until you delete them.

You may ask us, at any time and without charge, to:

• show you the personal information we hold about you;
• correct what is wrong;
• erase it;
• give you a copy in a portable format; or
• stop using it, including withdrawing any consent you gave.

Choice statistics and crash reports can be switched off in each game's settings, with no letter needed. For anything else, write to us and we will reply within one month. If you live in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, California, or another place with similar laws, these are your legal rights, and you may also complain to your local data-protection authority. Using these rights will never change how we treat you.

We protect what we hold with encrypted connections, limited access, and accounts secured by strong authentication. No drawer is perfectly secure. If a breach ever affects your information, we will tell you and the relevant authorities as the law requires.

Because our games are read in many languages, the providers we use may store information in countries other than yours. When information leaves the EEA or UK, we rely on recognised safeguards such as Standard Contractual Clauses.