Pyxis privacy policy

Your data, in plain words

Pyxis has no accounts of its own. It keeps your progress on your device, and on Android, if you use Google Play Games, a copy in your own Google account too. The Android app counts how the game is played with Google Analytics for Firebase, only where the law needs no consent for it, and never for ads. It shows ads from Google AdMob, which collects some data to show and measure them, and sells optional extras through Google Play. The web version for iPhone, iPad and computers never shows ads and sells nothing.

Last updated on 25 October 2026. This policy covers the Pyxis app for Android, its web version for iPhone, iPad and computers, and Pyxis's pages on this site.

  • No accounts of our own
  • Progress on your device, and in Play Games if you use it
  • Ads from Google AdMob, Android only
  • Play counted with Firebase, never for ads
  • Your consent where the law requires it
  • Plays fully offline

Who we are

Pyxis is made by Shravan Goswami, who runs Chaosmos. Questions about this policy go to hello@chaosmos.studio.

What the game collects

Pyxis has no accounts and no crash reporting of its own, and it never asks for your name or email. Your progress and settings are kept on your device, and on Android, while you are signed in to Google Play Games, a copy goes to your Google account, as Google Play Games explains below. The Android app counts how the game is played, as How play is counted explains below. The only other data that leaves the Android app is what Google's ads, Google Play and Google Play Games collect, also described below. We do not receive that data ourselves: AdMob, Google Play and Play Games show us only totals, such as how many ads were shown or how many players earned an achievement, and the leaderboards everyone can see.

What the app keeps on your device

To remember your progress, the app keeps a small settings file in its private storage on your phone. It holds:

  • The stars you have earned on each level, which is also how levels unlock
  • The levels you have opened early with a key or a video, and the level keys you have not used yet
  • Whether you have seen or skipped the first level's guide
  • Your choice of Auto, Light or Dark, and the colour theme and web look you picked
  • Your sound, music and vibration settings, and how loud the sounds and the music are
  • Which of the shop's packs this Google account owns, as Google Play last reported them, so they keep working offline, and how many tips you have given
  • Which packs you are trying after a video, and until when
  • How many of the day's free hints you have used, and on which date, so they come back at midnight
  • The days of the daily puzzle you have played and your time for each, the days kept for your streak, and any Streak keepers you have not used
  • Whether you chose to rate the game, and how far you had played when it last asked, so it does not ask again too soon

That file stays on your device, apart from the copies that can be kept in your own Google account. If backup is on for your Google account, Android copies the file there, encrypted, so your progress comes back when you install Pyxis again on a phone signed in to the same account. You can turn backup off in your phone's Settings. The other copy is Google Play Games' cloud save, below. Reset progress, in the game's Settings, forgets your stars on this phone and keeps the rest. While you are signed in to Play Games, its copy can bring your stars back, so delete that copy too if you want to start over. Clearing the app's storage, or uninstalling it, erases the file on your phone.

Google Play Games, in the Android app

The Android app works with Google Play Games. When the game starts, Play Games signs you in by itself if you use it on your phone, and the game asks again only when you tap something that needs it, such as Leaderboards or Achievements. Nothing in the game waits on it, and the game plays the same without it. While you are signed in, the app sends Google Play Games:

  • Your scores for its leaderboards: your total stars, your longest daily streak, and your time on each daily puzzle you solve on its day
  • Your progress toward its achievements: how many levels you have solved, how many with three stars, how many days of the daily puzzle you have solved, and your longest streak
  • For its game stats, each level you solve, with its stars, the hints you took and how long it took, and how many levels you have solved
  • A copy of the game's settings file above, its cloud save, so a new phone signed in to the same account picks up where the old one stopped. When the game reads it back, it takes only your progress from it: your stars, the levels you have opened, whether you have seen the first level's guide, your level keys, your tips and your days of the daily puzzle. Your settings stay this phone's own, and purchases always come from Google Play itself.

Play Games keeps all of this in your own Google account, under Google's privacy policy. Its leaderboards and achievements show your scores with your Play Games name and picture to other players, as your Play Games profile settings allow.

You decide how much of this happens. In Google Play Games' settings you can turn off signing in to games automatically, and you can delete this game's Play Games data, or your whole Play Games profile, which removes the saved copy, your scores and your achievements. The game has no sign-out button of its own, and your progress on the phone stays when you stop using Play Games. Without Play Games on your phone, or while you are not signed in, nothing is sent to it. The web version has no Play Games at all.

Cards you keep

When you solve a level, the game makes a card of it. A card you share is written to the app's own private folder, one file written over each time, and handed to your phone's share sheet, so it goes only where you send it. Save to Pictures puts the card in your phone's Pictures, in a Pyxis folder. That needs no storage permission on Android 10 and later, and on older phones the app offers the share sheet instead. In a browser, a card is shared through the browser's share sheet or downloaded.

How play is counted

The Android app counts how Pyxis is played with Google Analytics for Firebase, so we can see which levels are too hard and where people stop. It counts:

  • Each level you start, and how it ended: solved or not, the stars, and how many seconds it took
  • When you ask for a hint, share or save a card, or open the shop
  • Which of the game's screens you visit
  • What Firebase counts by itself: when the app is first opened or updated, how often and how long it is used, purchases made through Google Play, and the ads shown with what they earned

With these go the app's version, your phone's model, Android version and language, your country and region, worked out from your IP address, which Google does not keep, and for a new install, the link or store page that brought it. Each install has a random app instance ID, so counts from one phone can be told apart without knowing whose phone it is. The game never reads your advertising ID or Android ID for this, sends nothing that names you, and uses none of it for advertising. Google processes it for us under the Firebase data processing terms and keeps it for up to 14 months. We see it only as totals and charts.

Wherever Google's consent tool has a choice to offer, as in the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland, the app counts nothing at all. Everywhere else it counts only once the consent tool has confirmed that no choice is needed. Counts made offline wait on your phone until you are next online. Clearing the app's storage, or installing it again, gives it a new app instance ID that is not linked to the old one.

Ads in the Android app

The Android app shows ads through Google AdMob, using the Google Mobile Ads SDK. They are kept off the puzzle itself. Once you have solved 3 levels, a banner sits at the bottom of the title screen, the level list and the result after a level, and below the web while you play, never over it. Once you have solved 12, a full-screen ad may come between levels now and then, never more than once every 4 levels you solve. No full-screen ad ever interrupts a level. Ads are limited to content rated PG, suitable for most audiences with parental guidance, and they play muted when the game's sound is off.

You can also choose to watch a short video, and only when you ask, for:

  • A hint, once the day's free ones are used
  • A locked level, opened early
  • A level key
  • A past day of the daily puzzle, or a missed day kept for your streak
  • A 6-hour try of Every level, the Web pack or the Themes pack

To show ads, measure how they perform and prevent fraud, the SDK collects the following and sends it to Google:

  • Device identifiers, including your device's advertising ID
  • Your approximate location, worked out from your IP address
  • How you interact with ads, such as which ads are shown to you and whether you tap them
  • Diagnostics, such as how the app and the ads perform, and crash data from the SDK

Google uses this data under its own policies: how Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services, and Google's privacy policy. Ads need a connection, so while you play offline, none are requested and nothing is sent.

At times the app shows our own games in these places instead of Google's ads: a banner for another Chaosmos game, and in place of a video, a tiny playable taste of one that you can close at any time. There are no full-screen ads between levels then. These are built into the app, so nothing is requested or sent for them, and tapping one only opens that game's page on Google Play.

Your choices about ads

When the app starts, it checks with Google's consent tool, the User Messaging Platform, before it asks for any ads. Where the law requires a choice, such as in the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland, and in some US states, it shows Google's consent form first. Whether ads are personalised depends on that choice, where the law requires one, and on your phone's ads settings. Ads that are not personalised still use some data, for example to limit how often you see the same ad, to measure it and to prevent fraud.

  • Where a choice is required, Privacy choices in the game's Settings opens the form again, so you can change your answer at any time.
  • You can reset or delete your advertising ID, or turn off personalised ads, in your phone's Settings, under Privacy and then Ads, or Google and then Ads, depending on the phone.
  • The consent tool keeps your answer on your device, so the form does not ask again every time.
  • Wherever the form is offered, the app counts no play at all, whatever you answer.

Purchases in the Android app

The Android app has an optional shop, and nothing in it is needed to play. The Supporter pack turns off the banner and the ads between levels and makes every hint free. Every level opens every level. The Web pack adds four more ways to draw the web: Constellation, Neon, Chalk and Gold leaf, and the Themes pack fifteen more colour themes. The Complete pack holds those four. Each of these is bought once. Level keys, which open one locked level each, Streak keepers, which keep a missed day of the daily puzzle for your streak, and tips, which open nothing, can be bought again and again.

Google Play Billing handles every purchase from start to finish: your payment details go to Google, under Google's privacy policy and Google Play's terms, and never reach us. The game learns only what this Google account owns, and the keys and tips it has bought. It asks Google Play when it starts, and remembers the answer on your device, so your purchases work offline.

The web version

The web version is for iPhone, iPad and computers, since there is no iOS app yet. It never shows ads and sells nothing, and it loads no ad, billing or Play Games code. Your progress and settings are saved in your browser's own storage for this site, on your device. They are not sent to us, and clearing the site's data in your browser erases them. The two cookie-free counters described above count each visit to it. On an Android phone or tablet, its loading page reads this site's list of games and points you toPyxis on Google Play instead, without loading the game.

Permissions

The Android app asks for vibration, so picking up a knot and letting it go can buzz lightly when vibration is switched on. It also has network access, which the ads and Google Play purchases need: Google's ads SDK adds the internet, network state, advertising ID and basic phone state permissions, and the wake lock and foreground service permissions its background tasks use, Google Play Billing adds its billing permission, and Google Analytics for Firebase adds Google Play's install referrer, which tells it the link or store page that brought an install. It asks for no location, camera, microphone, contacts or files, saving a card needs no storage permission, and the game plays fully offline.

Google Play

The Android app comes through Google Play. Google may collect data about installs, devices and app crashes as part of running the store, under Google's privacy policy. That happens outside the app, and we see only totals, such as install counts, in the Play Console.

Now and then, between levels, the app asks Google Play to show its own card for rating the game. Google Play decides whether it appears. If you rate or review Pyxis there, that goes to Google Play under Google Play's terms, and the game never sees it. The app also asks Google Play whether a newer version is out, so it can offer the update, and Google Play handles the download.

These pages

Pyxis's pages are part of the Chaosmos website, a set of static pages hosted on GitHub Pages. GitHub may log standard technical data, such as IP addresses, to keep the service secure and working, as described in GitHub's privacy statement. The site sets no cookies. Two cookie-free counters, GoatCounter and Umami, count visits to these pages and to the web version, as the website's privacy policy explains: they keep no IP address and cannot tell who you are. Search runs entirely in your browser from a file on this site, and your light or dark theme choice is kept in your browser's local storage.

Comments and feedback

The support page has an optional comment box powered by Giscus, which stores comments as GitHub Discussions in a public repository. It loads only on that page, from giscus.app. Commenting needs you to sign in with GitHub, and anything you post is public and covered by GitHub's terms and privacy statement. If you email us, we use your message and address only to reply.

Children

Pyxis is a gentle game that anyone can enjoy, but it is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. The ads in the Android app are limited to content rated PG. If you believe a child under 13 has used the app and have a question about their data, email us.

Changes

If a future version changes what the app does with data, this page will be updated before that version is released, and the date at the top will change.

Contact

Email hello@chaosmos.studio with any question about privacy.