Privacy Policy
Effective July 29, 2026
Sea Legs is made by Brick River Lab ("we", "us"). This policy explains what information the Sea Legs app handles, why, who processes it, and what you can do about it. The short version: the game needs your location to work, we keep as little as possible, your save is tied to an anonymous player id rather than to you, and we never sell your information. For a plain-language inventory of every piece of data and where it lives, see the Data Policy.
1. Playing without an account, or with one
Sea Legs never requires an account. When you first open the game it creates an anonymous player id (via Firebase Anonymous Authentication) that links your save to your device. We cannot tell who you are from it, and we do not try to.
You can choose to save your captain to an account so a new phone or a reinstall does not lose it. That is the only way we ever learn anything identifying about you, and it is entirely optional:
- Sign in with Apple gives us the identifier Apple issues for this app, plus the address you choose to share. If you use Apple's private relay, we only ever see the relay address.
- Sign in with Google gives us your Google account identifier and the email address on that account.
- Email and password stores your email address. The password itself is handled by Firebase Authentication and never reaches us.
We use that only to recognize you when you sign in and to reattach your saved captains. We do not email you, and we do not sell or share it with anyone.
2. Location, the heart of the game
Walking in the real world is how you sail, so Sea Legs uses your device's location while you play. Here is exactly what happens to it:
- Your real-time position drives the game on your device: moving your ship, clearing fog, and detecting when you reach a port. We do not upload a trail or history of where you've walked. The one exception is a shared world with a friend, described below.
- Some location-derived game data is saved to your cloud save, because your world has to survive reinstalls: the coordinates of your home port (set where you first opened the game), the coordinates of islands and ports the game placed near paths you've walked, and the map areas you've revealed from the fog. Together these sketch the neighborhoods where you've played. They are stored under your anonymous player id.
- Aggregate stats such as total distance sailed are saved as numbers, not routes.
- Background sailing is optional and off by default. If you turn it on, the game keeps receiving location with the screen locked so your walk keeps counting; a visible indicator (iOS) or a persistent notification (Android) shows while it's active. Turn it off any time at your Home Port.
Playing together. Sea Legs lets you invite a friend to sail the same ocean. The invite code you share contains your home port's coordinates, so their game can rebuild your world. While you both sail that shared world, a live beacon (your latest position and heading, plus your captain and company names and current ship) is stored on our servers so each of you can see the other's ship on the chart. It is the latest position only, not a stored trail, and it is readable only by someone holding the invite code. Sharing your position is on by default; you can turn it off at your Home Port ("Share position with shipmates"), which stops the beacon and deletes it, and if you never hand out an invite, no one else can find your world. This is the one case where your location leaves your device.
3. Your game save
Your save is stored on our servers (Google Firebase) under your anonymous player id so you can pick up where you left off. It holds silver, ships, cargo, crew, bank balances, warehouse stock, the Captain's Log (which ports you visited and when, prices you saw, trades you made), game statistics, app version, and platform. If you enter a captain name or trading-company name, those are stored too; they can be whatever you like and don't need to be your real name.
4. Crash and diagnostic data
The app uses Firebase Crashlytics to report crashes so we can fix them: stack traces, device model, operating-system version, and app version. Crash reports are not tied to your name (we don't have it).
5. Ads, optional and rewarded only
Sea Legs shows no banner ads and no forced ads. The only advertising in the game is rewarded video you choose to watch (for example, haggling a better price with a merchant). These ads are served by Google AdMob. When the app runs, the Google Mobile Ads SDK may collect device information such as your IP address, device identifiers, and ad-interaction data, as described in Google's privacy policy. On iOS, Apple's App Tracking Transparency rules apply. If ads fail to load, the game simply carries on without them.
6. Service providers
Sea Legs is built on a small set of processors. Each receives only what it needs to do its job:
| Provider | What for | What it receives |
|---|---|---|
| Google Firebase (Auth, Cloud Firestore, Crashlytics) | Anonymous sign-in, cloud saves, the shared-world position beacon, crash reports | Everything described in sections 1–4, including the shared-world beacon in section 2 |
| Google AdMob | Optional rewarded video | Device info, IP, ad-interaction data (see section 5) |
| Stadia Maps | The street-map tiles under the ocean | Your IP address and which map areas the app displays |
| OpenStreetMap Overpass servers | Finding real walkable paths where ports can appear | Queries for map areas near where you play (no player id) |
7. What we don't do
- We do not sell your data. We don't share it with anyone beyond the processors listed above, except the position beacon you choose to share with a friend you invite (section 2), which only they can read.
- We do not access your contacts, photos, camera, microphone, or messages.
- We do not use your location for advertising, and we don't build movement profiles.
8. Keeping and deleting your data
- While you play, your save stays on our servers so your world persists.
- Retiring or resetting in the game wipes your world (fog, islands, save) from our servers and starts a fresh one.
- Uninstalling the app stops all collection immediately. A save that was never tied to an account is orphaned on our servers until deleted.
- Delete everything from inside the game: Home Port, then Ship's Papers, then "Delete account and all captains". This removes every captain on the device and everything stored for them on our servers, including the account record and the sign-in itself. It cannot be undone.
- Or ask us: email jeff@brickriverlab.com. If you saved your captain to an account, send it from that address and we can find your data straight away. If you never made one, include your captain or company name, since that is all an anonymous save carries.
9. Children
Sea Legs is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has used the game and you'd like their data removed, contact us and we'll delete it.
10. Changes to this policy
If we change what the game collects, for example by adding optional account linking, we'll update this page and the effective date above before the change ships.
11. Contact
Questions, concerns, or deletion requests: jeff@brickriverlab.com.