Ancient Potions: Privacy Policy

Last updated: September 25, 2026

Ancient Potions asks, the first time it opens, whether it may send us a small amount of usage data to help us understand how the game is played, and sends nothing unless you say yes. It shows optional rewarded ads through Google AdMob, only when you choose to watch one. There are no accounts and no interruptions, and nothing we collect ourselves includes your name, your email address or anything you type.

Ads, and the choice they always are

Ancient Potions never interrupts you with an ad. The only ads in the game are rewarded ads you ask for: a clearly labelled button that says what you’ll get (hurrying a brew or a garden bed along), and only plays after you tap it. Declining costs nothing, waiting is always free, and the game is fully playable without ever watching one.

Ads are served by Google AdMob. When an ad is shown, Google and its certified ad partners may collect data as described in Google’s privacy policy and how Google uses information from partners, including:

• Device identifiers, including the advertising ID on Android and, on iOS, the advertising identifier (IDFA), but only if you allow it when the game asks. If you decline, or never answer, no IDFA is used.
• IP address, used among other things to estimate a general (city-level) location.
• Ad interaction data: which ads were shown, watched, or tapped.

We do not receive or store any of this ourselves. The list of Google’s certified ad partners is at support.google.com/admob/answer/9012903.

Consent

• On iPhone and iPad, Apple’s App Tracking Transparency prompt appears the first time the game opens, before any ad is requested, and asks whether the game may use the advertising identifier (IDFA) to show you more relevant ads. Google’s short explanation of the question comes just before it. Saying no is free: the game plays exactly the same, and the ads simply stay non-personalized. You can change the answer at any time in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking.
• In the EEA and UK, Google’s consent form (GDPR) is shown the first time you tap an ad button, and no ad is requested before you answer it; if you decline, ads are limited or non-personalized depending on your choices. Where a form like this applies to you, Settings → Privacy Options (Ads) in the game reopens it at any time.

What we collect ourselves (analytics)

The first time the game opens, it asks whether it may share usage stats. Nothing is sent before you answer, and nothing is sent if you say no. If you say yes, the game sends us a short stream of gameplay events:

• App interactions: session starts, tutorial progress, and gameplay milestones (a potion brewed or bottled, an order fulfilled, a villager delivery, a level gained).
• Diagnostics: if the game hits an error, the file name, line number, error message, and what kind of error it was, so we can fix crashes. Warnings are not reported, and the same fault repeating is sent once rather than over and over.

Each event is tagged with a randomly generated install identifier, a per-session random identifier, the app version, the platform name (e.g. “android”), and a timestamp. The install identifier is minted on your device, is not derived from your device or any account, and is deleted when you uninstall the game.

How the game closed last time

When the game opens, it asks the operating system how it closed the last time: whether it crashed, ran out of memory, or was simply closed by you, whether it was on your screen at the time, roughly how much memory it was using, when it happened, and which version of the game it was. We do this because a game that crashes cannot report its own crash, so the report has to come afterwards, from the system that watched it happen.

It is a single line about the app. It describes nothing you did, contains nothing about you, and is covered by the same “Share Usage Stats” choice as everything else on this page.

Alongside the events we receive a few facts about the device and how the game ran on it: the device’s model name, its graphics chip, roughly how much memory it has, its operating system version, its language setting, whether notifications are allowed, and how smoothly the game ran (its frame rate and how long it took to load). Those say which devices the game is too heavy for and where it is slow. None of them is unique to you: a great many phones would answer every one of them identically.

What we do NOT collect

• No names, email addresses, or accounts of our own. The witch and town names you choose in the story never leave your device. If you sign in to Google Play Games on Android, that account stays with Google and we never see it; the same is true of Game Center and your Apple Account on iOS (see both sections below).
• Our own analytics never touch the advertising identifier, and our server does not log or store IP addresses.
• No contacts, photos, files, microphone, or camera: the game never asks for those permissions.
• Our analytics data is never shared with, or sold to, anyone. It goes to our own self-hosted service and stays there. (Ad data collected by Google when you watch an ad is governed by Google’s policies, linked above.)

How we use it

Aggregate analytics only: how many people play, whether they return, where the tutorial loses them, and which features get used. Our data is not used for advertising, profiling, or any per-person decision, and it is encrypted in transit (HTTPS).

How long we keep it

Events are deleted after 180 days: the whole record, the random identifiers with it. That runs on a schedule, not on someone remembering. For up to 14 days longer a deleted record may still sit inside a database backup, because backups are kept a fortnight before they roll off.

A daily count outlives them. Before events are deleted they are rolled into totals: on this day, this many sessions, from this many distinct installs. The totals are counts (identifiers are counted and then thrown away, never stored), so what remains describes a day rather than a person, and we keep it.

Who else handles data

We do not share, sell or hand over the data we collect to anyone. The services built into the game that collect data themselves are Google AdMob (for the ads), Google Play or the App Store (for purchases), and Google Play Games or Apple Game Center (only if you use them). Each handles that data under its own privacy policy, linked in the sections here, and we only use services whose terms commit them to protecting it at least as well as this policy does.

Your choices

• Never watch an ad: simply don’t tap the ad buttons; they are the only way an ad can appear.
• Privacy options: Settings → “Privacy Options (Ads)” reopens Google’s consent form, where one applies to you.
• Read this policy: Settings → “Privacy Policy” opens it from inside the game.
• Report an ad: Settings → “Report an Ad” writes to us about any ad you saw in the game.
• Turn analytics off or on: Settings → “Share Usage Stats”. Turning it off discards anything queued but not yet sent, sends one last record saying that you switched it off (so we know how many people have), and then sends nothing more.
• Reset your identity: Settings → “Reset Analytics ID” generates a fresh random identifier and starts a new session with it, so data collected before the reset can no longer be associated with what is collected after it.
• Deletion requests: email us (below) with the analytics ID shown in Settings → Privacy, and we will delete the server-side data for it. If you have already reset it, tell us roughly when you played and we will do our best. For data collected by Google when serving ads, use the controls at myadcenter.google.com.

Purchases

Ancient Potions offers two optional one-time purchases. Neither is needed to play, nothing is withheld behind one, and nothing in the game expires if you never buy either.

Payment is handled entirely by Google Play or the App Store. We never see or receive your payment details: the store tells the game only whether a purchase completed, so it can unlock what you bought. Refunds are handled by the store you bought from.

What stays with us is small: what you own is recorded in the save file on your own device, and our analytics receive one event noting which of the two products was bought, against the same random install identifier described above. No price, no payment method, no account, no name.

Google Play Games (Android only)

On Android you can sign in to Google Play Games from Settings, which records achievements and leaderboard placings against your Play Games account. The game never asks at launch, never asks twice, and plays exactly the same if you never sign in.

Signing in is handled entirely by Google. We do not receive your Google account, your name, your email address, or your Play Games profile, and the game never reads any of them. What it sends is progress you have already earned in the game: which achievements you have unlocked, and three lifetime totals (potions brewed, orders fulfilled, and coins earned) for the leaderboards. Google’s handling of that data is described in Google’s privacy policy.

You can sign out at any time from the Google Play Games app, which stops further submissions. Nothing in the game is lost or locked if you do: your progress lives in the save file on your device either way.

Game Center (iOS only)

On iPhone and iPad the same achievements and the same three lifetime totals are reported to Apple Game Center. It is the Apple counterpart of the section above, and what it sends is identical: which achievements you have unlocked, and your totals for potions brewed, orders fulfilled, and coins earned.

The difference worth knowing is who decides. Game Center sign-in is handled by iOS itself: the game never asks at launch, and if you are not signed in, Settings offers a “Sign in to Game Center” button that hands you to Apple’s own sign-in. The game never receives your Apple Account, your name, or your email address. If Game Center is turned off on your device, nothing is sent and the game plays exactly the same. Apple’s handling of that data is described in Apple’s privacy policy.

Your saved game is not copied to Apple. The cloud copy described below is an Android-only feature.

Your saved game

Your progress is kept in a save file on your own device. Uninstalling the app deletes it.

If you are signed in to Google Play Games on Android, a copy of that same save file is also kept in your own Google account, using Play Games' saved-games feature, so that a new or reset phone can pick your cottage back up. This is the only circumstance in which your progress leaves your device.

Three things are worth being precise about:

• It goes to you, not to us. The copy is stored in your Google account's private app storage. We have no server, no copy, and no way to read, list, or recover it. If you delete it, it is gone.
• It is only the game. The file holds coins, ingredients, recipes, what you have decorated, where you are in the story: the same things the on-device save holds. It contains no name, no email address, and no account identifier.
• You can tell when it happens. The copy is refreshed when you put the game down, and Settings shows when the last one was made and offers a Back Up Now button. Signing out of Play Games stops it.

If the two copies ever disagree (say you played on a second phone), the game shows you both, with what is in each and when it was last played, and asks which one to carry on with. It never picks for you, and whichever you choose, the other is kept on your device as a backup. The one exception is a phone with no save file at all, where there is nothing to choose between and your cottage is simply restored.

Children

Ad content is capped at the most restrictive general-audiences rating (G), rewarded ads only ever play when explicitly requested, and our own analytics are sent only with consent, carry no name or contact details, and are never used for advertising or profiling.

Changes

If a future update changes any of the above, this policy will be updated before that version ships, and the in-store data-safety section will be revised to match.