Duskroot has no accounts. Your farm is a file on your own device. On Android, if you are signed in to Google Play Games, a copy of it is also kept in your own Play Games account, so a new phone can carry on with your farm. On iPhone and iPad, if you are signed in to Game Center, the copy is kept in your own iCloud instead. We do not know who you are and we cannot see your save.
Three things reach outside the game: adverts, purchases, and, if you are 16 or over, measurement. Measurement is a few anonymous progress milestones that tell us how far players get, and on iPhone and iPad, counting which of our Google adverts led to an install. All of it is described below, and all of it is limited by the age you enter the first time you open the game.
None of it is uploaded to us, backed up by us, or readable by us. The one copy that can leave the device is your save: into your own Google Play Games account on Android, or into your own iCloud through Game Center on iPhone and iPad, both described below. Deleting the app deletes all of it from the device.
The first time you open Duskroot it asks what year you were born. It is asked once.
It is used for one thing: deciding whether advertising on this device may be personalised and whether anything at all may be measured. It is stored on your device as a year. It is never sent anywhere.
If it is not answered, or the stored value is missing or unreadable, the game treats this device as a child's, the strictest setting, rather than assuming otherwise.
You can change it at any time: pause → ADS.
Duskroot shows rewarded adverts only. There are no banners, no interstitials, and no advert that plays without you choosing it. Every one is behind a button you press to get something: a hint from Milo, or your sack back after a bad delve. Ignore them and the game is complete.
Adverts come from Google AdMob. When you choose to watch one, AdMob receives information from your device in order to serve and measure it. That can include a device advertising identifier, coarse location derived from your IP address, and basic device and app information.
What the age answer changes:
| You entered | What AdMob is asked for |
|---|---|
| 16 or over | Personalised adverts are permitted |
| 13 to 15 | Non-personalised adverts only |
| Under 13, or unanswered | Non-personalised, and the request is flagged as child-directed |
No advert is requested, loaded, or shown before the age question is answered. Not just no advert shown, no advert loaded, because a load is itself a network call carrying a device identifier.
On iOS, Duskroot does not show Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt and does not request permission to track. Version 1.0 therefore serves non-personalised adverts on iOS to everybody, whatever age you enter.
Google's own policy for the data AdMob collects: https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites
In-app purchases are handled by your platform's store (Google Play or the App Store) and validated through RevenueCat, which tells the game what you own so that a purchase made on one device is honoured on another.
RevenueCat receives an anonymous identifier it generates for the install, the identifiers of what you bought, and the receipt your platform's store issued. It does not receive your name, your email address, or your payment details. We never see your card.
Purchases are not gated on the age question. A child may not be profiled; a child may still own something a parent bought for them, and refusing to restore it would help nobody.
RevenueCat's policy: https://www.revenuecat.com/privacy
To see how far players get, the game can send us a few anonymous milestones. It only does this on a device where the age you entered is 16 or over. Under 16, or unanswered, nothing is sent.
What can be sent, each one at most once per install:
| Milestone | What it says |
|---|---|
| First open | The game was opened |
| Tutorial | The first day's walkthrough was finished, or skipped |
| Day reached | Your farm reached day 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 14, 21 or 30 |
| Achievement | Which achievement you won |
| Mine floor | You reached floor 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 50, 75 or 100 of the mine |
| Tour step | Which step of the first day's walkthrough, or of the shop lesson, you just finished, or the step you were on if you skipped it |
| Minutes played | Your total time in the game reached 1, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 45 or 60 minutes |
| Came back | You opened the game again 1, 2, 3, 7, 14 or 30 days after you first opened it |
| Where you stopped | Which part of the game you were in, like the farm or the mine, the first time you left it after at least ten seconds of play |
| Load time | How many whole seconds the game took to reach its first screen, the first time you opened it |
| Frame rate | How smoothly the game ran in your first session, as a rough band like 30 or 60 frames a second |
| Language | Which of the game's languages it was showing |
| Crops picked | You picked your first crop, and your total crops picked reached 10, 50 or 200 |
| Hungry night | You went to bed without supper for the first time |
| Items sold | You sold something in your shop for the first time, and your total items sold reached 10, 50, 100 or 500 |
| Minutes at the counter | How long you have stood at your shop's till with the sign open, in total, at 1, 3, 5, 10, 20 or 30 minutes |
| Shelves | How many shelves your shop has, each time you buy one |
| Wrapping | You wrapped something at the till for the first time |
| Sack and pick | How much your sack carries and which pick you have, each time you buy a better one |
| Sack full | The first time the mine told you your sack or your book had no room |
| Falls in the mine | Your total falls in the mine reached 1, 3 or 10 |
| First catch | You cast a line for the first time, and you caught your first fish |
| Stars spent | Your total stars spent reached 1, 5, 10 or 20 |
| Skill level | One of your skills (sword, bow, pick, farm, trade or fish) reached level 3, 5 or 10 |
| Villagers | You heard a villager out for the first time |
| Quests finished | Your total quests finished reached 1, 3 or 7 |
| Stories fed | Your total stories fed to the tree reached 1, 5, 10 or 18 |
| Tree grown | The Duskroot grew to stage 1, 2, 3 or 4 |
| Smithing | The smith made you something for the first time |
| Cottage | You moved furniture in the cottage, or put something in its chest, for the first time |
| Advert watched | Which of the two optional adverts you watched, once each |
| Pet | You let a pet out for the first time |
| Setting | Which accessibility setting you turned on: high contrast, reduce motion or text size |
| Reminders | Whether you allowed reminders when the game asked, and that you opened the game from a reminder for the first time |
| Daily gift | Your total daily gifts collected reached 1, 3 or 7 |
| Starting out | You pressed New game on the title screen, and then Begin after choosing your farmer's name and look |
| Trees felled | You felled a tree in the wood, sent once |
| Plants dug up | You dug up a plant on your farm, sent once |
| Farm buildings | Which farm building you bought, the coop or the barn, the first time for each |
| Farm animals | Which kind of animal you bought, a hen, a cow, a sheep or a pig, the first time for each kind |
| Orchard | You planted a tree, a bush or a vine for the first time |
| Gathering | The first egg, milk, wool, truffle and fruit you gathered, once each, and your total goods gathered reached 10, 50 or 200 |
| Animal care | The first time you fed an animal, petted one, bought hay or cut grass for it, and had an animal reach three hearts, once each |
| Young animals | The first time you bought a baby animal, had one born on your farm, and typed a name for an animal, once each. Only that you typed a name, never the name |
| Festivals | A festival was on while you played (Hollow's Eve, the Harvest Feast or Midwinter), sent once a year for each. Also once a year: the sweets or other festival tokens you earned reached 10, 50, 100 or 200, the things you bought at the festival's stall reached 1, 3 or 6, and you gave that festival's story to the tree |
The milestones from Crops picked to Starting out are sent only by a copy of the game whose first launch was on version 1.1.17 or later, counted from that first launch. Farm buildings, Farm animals, Orchard, Gathering, Animal care and Young animals are sent by every copy: the coop, the barn, the animals, their care, their young and the orchard are new, so the first of each on any copy is a real first. Farm buildings and Farm animals name what you bought with the game's own coins. None of them says what you bought with real money: purchases are handled by the app stores and RevenueCat, as described under Purchases above.
Trees felled and Plants dug up are sent by every copy too: both came with version 1.1.28.
With them the game sends the platform (Android or iOS), the game's version number, and whether it is a test build. Minutes played is how long the game has been open in total, never the time of day. Came back is worked out on your device from the date you first opened the game, and that date stays on your device. That is everything. There is no install id, no device id, no advertising id, no name and no time of day. Our server records the date a milestone arrived and nothing finer, and it does not read or store your IP address. Nothing in a milestone can be tied back to you or to your device.
The milestones go to a small server that Midknight Entertainment runs on Cloudflare. They are used only to count how many players reach each point, and they are not shared with anyone.
To turn it off: pause → STATS. Off stops it, and anything still waiting to be sent is deleted from your device.
On iPhone and iPad the game includes Google Analytics for Firebase. We use it for one job: to learn when one of our Google adverts led to somebody installing the game, so we know which adverts are worth paying for. The Android version does not include it, because Google Play already counts that without anything inside the game.
It follows the same rule as the milestones above. Firebase is only started on a device where the age you entered is 16 or over and STATS is on. Under 16, unanswered, or with STATS off, it is never started and sends nothing.
When it runs, Google receives:
Firebase also tells Apple's own install counting system (SKAdNetwork) that the game was installed. Apple built that system so an advert can be counted without saying who you are.
Google does not receive your phone's advertising id. The game never asks for Apple's tracking permission, and without it your phone does not hand that id out. Firebase is also set not to read the id Apple gives to each app maker's apps. Nothing from your save, no name and no email is sent, and none of it is used to choose which adverts you see.
Google's policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy How Google uses information from apps that use its services: https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites
To turn it off: pause → STATS, the same switch. Off stops Firebase collecting from that moment.
On Android the game can record achievements with Google Play Games Services. It is the same system that shows your achievements in the Play Games app.
Signing in is your choice and the game does not ask twice. If you decline, everything in Duskroot still works. Achievements are tracked on your own device either way; declining only means they are not copied to your Play Games profile.
When you do sign in, Google tells the game a Play Games player id, which is an identifier Google generates for you. It is not your email address and it is not your name. The game sends Google one thing back: which achievements you have unlocked. It sends no scores, no location, and nothing about what you bought.
Saved games. While you are signed in, the game also keeps a copy of your save file in your own Play Games account, after each save, so you can carry on with your farm on a new phone. It is the same file described under "Your save file" above: your farm, your farmer's name and look, and how far you have got. Google keeps it in your account, and only your signed in account can read it. We cannot. If the copy in your account is further along than the farm on a phone, that phone asks you on the title screen before either one replaces the other. Google lets you delete the copy with your other Play Games data, from your Play Games profile or your Google Account.
Achievements are not recorded on iPhone or iPad in this version. Saved games are, through Game Center, described next.
Google's policy for Play Games Services: https://policies.google.com/privacy
If you are signed in to Game Center, the game keeps a copy of your save file in your own iCloud, through Game Center, after each save, so you can carry on with your farm on a new iPhone or iPad. It is the same file described under "Your save file" above. Apple keeps it in your iCloud account, and only you can read it. We cannot. If the copy in your iCloud is further along than the farm on a device, that device asks you on the title screen before either one replaces the other. If you are not signed in to Game Center, or iCloud Drive is off, nothing is copied and the game works the same.
The game reads nothing else from Game Center: not your name and not your player id. The first time you reach the title screen, iOS may show Game Center's own sign in. That is Apple's screen, and you can close it.
Apple's privacy policy: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/
From version 1.1.18, if you are 13 or over, the game may ask your phone's permission to send you a reminder. You can say no, and nothing changes in the game.
If you say yes, the game sets a reminder on your own phone for six in the evening, at least twelve hours after you last played, once a day for up to a week, then once at two weeks and once at a month. Opening the game cancels the ones still waiting. The reminder is made and shown by your phone. Nothing is sent to us or to anyone else to make it happen, and there is no push service and no device token.
To turn reminders off: your phone's settings. Android: Settings, Apps, Duskroot, Notifications. iPhone and iPad: Settings, Notifications, Duskroot.
The first time you open the game on a new day, Eda leaves a small gift at your door. That happens inside the game, on your device, whether or not reminders are on.
Once the first day's walkthrough is done, that first open on a new day can also move your farm on by one night, as if you had slept. That happens on your device too, and nothing about it is sent.
Once, on a morning after your first story wakes the tree, the game may show the store's own card for rating the game: Google Play In-App Review on Android, and Apple's rating prompt on iPhone and iPad. The card belongs to the store. Any rating or review you give goes to Google Play or the App Store, not to us, and the game is never told whether you rated it, what you gave, or even whether the card appeared.
The game asks at most once per save, never with a question of its own first, and never for a reward. Google and Apple also limit how often any app may show the card.
Google's policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy Apple's policy: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/
Duskroot is not directed at children under 13, but it is a gentle farming game and we know children may play it. That is exactly why the age question exists and why an unanswered question is treated as a child rather than as an adult.
For a device the game treats as a child's, advertising is non-personalised and flagged child-directed to the ad network, and nothing is measured. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.
If you believe a child has provided personal information through Duskroot, write to privacy@midknightltd.com and it will be deleted.
| What | How |
|---|---|
| Change what adverts are allowed | Pause → ADS, and enter a different year |
| Stop the anonymous progress milestones, and install counting on iPhone | Pause → STATS, so it reads OFF |
| Stop reminders | Your phone's settings, under Notifications for Duskroot |
| Stop seeing adverts entirely | Do not press the buttons that offer them, or buy the Rootkeeper's Pact |
| Delete everything held about you | Uninstall the app. The save and settings go with it. On Android, the save copy in Google Play Games goes with your Play Games data, which you can delete from your Play Games profile or your Google Account. |
| Reset your device advertising id | Your phone's own settings. Android: Settings → Privacy → Ads. iOS: Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking |
The effective date at the top changes when this does. Material changes will be noted in the app's release notes as well as here.
Midknight Entertainment LTD
privacy@midknightltd.com
From version 1.1.19, Email us in the game's settings asks first, then opens your own mail app with a draft that already names the game version and your phone model and system. Nothing is sent until you send it, and you can change or delete any of it first. From the update after 1.1.26, if the game ever failed to save your farm on your phone, the draft also has one line saying how many times, the last reason and the day of play it happened on, so we can find the cause. That line is kept only on your phone until you send it.