Privacy & Analytics

Two different things

This website and the game you download are separate surfaces with separate behaviour, and until August 2026 this page described only the first while implying it covered both. It does not any more. Read the half you care about:

• The website — cookieless, anonymous page counts, and whatever you type into a form. Nothing persistent identifies you.
• The game client — sends a persistent random install ID to our analytics server on every launch, and this is on by default. It can also submit your score and lab name to the leaderboard, but only if you opt in. The full list is below, with the switch for each one.

The earlier version of this page said we use no persistent identifiers. That was true of the website and false of the game. Sorry — it is corrected below rather than quietly deleted.

The website: privacy-first analytics

We want to know whether pages get read — not who you are. We use Plausible Analytics, a privacy-first analytics service that helps us improve the website without compromising your privacy.

The website: what we collect

From your visits to this site we collect only aggregate, anonymous information:

• Page views: Which pages are visited (no user identification)
• Referrers: Where visitors come from (e.g., search engines, social media)
• Browser & OS: General browser and operating system information
• Device type: Desktop, mobile, or tablet (no device fingerprinting)
• Approximate location: Country level, worked out from your IP address at the moment of the request (the IP itself is never stored)

What We DON'T Collect

From a visit to this website, in the browser:

• IP addresses (anonymized immediately)
• Cookies or browser local storage (except for your opt-out preference)
• Personal information (names, emails, etc.)
• Cross-site tracking data
• Fingerprinting data

Those five lines are about the website only. They are not a claim about the game client, which writes and sends a persistent install ID — see the game client below.

And that covers analytics only. If you use the form on this site or email us, we receive whatever you choose to send. We use each thing only for the reason you gave it to us:

• Your email (the bug form on this site) — used only to reply to you about that report. Kept with the report while it's open, then cleared. Never added to a mailing list, never published.
• Name for credit (the bug form on this site, optional) — used only to credit you, and only because you chose to fill it in. This one may appear publicly (release notes or a linked issue). Leave it blank to stay anonymous.
• The report itself — goes privately to our team by email. If that send fails, the form offers to open a pre-filled public GitHub issue instead, so don't put anything in the description you wouldn't want published.

The bug reporter inside the game is a different thing and behaves differently: it transmits nothing at all. It is described below.

We don't sell or share any of it, and you can ask us to delete what we hold about you any time — team@pdoom1.com.

The game client: everything it sends

This is the complete list. The downloaded game can make five different network requests, written in two files of its source, and they all go to us or to GitHub. There is no third-party SDK in the build, no ad network, and no crash reporter.

1. The launch ping — a persistent install ID, on by default

Unless you turn it off, every time you start the game it sends one event to analytics.pdoom1.com/api/event — the same Plausible server this website uses. This is on by default. It carries exactly four things, and nothing else:

• An install ID — a random UUID generated the first time you run the game and saved to install_id.txt in the game's user folder. It is not derived from your hardware, MAC address, username or anything about your machine. But it is persistent: the same value is sent on every launch, so launches from one installation can be joined up over time. That makes it a persistent identifier, and it is stored with the event on our analytics server. Deleting the file or reinstalling produces a new one.
• The game version you are running.
• Your operating system name — the word "Windows", "Linux" or "macOS", not a machine name.
• Whether this is the first launch — true or false.

The request also sets a User-Agent of the form pdoom1/<version> (<OS>), and, like any network request, our server sees the IP address it came from.

To turn it off: in the game, open Settings, press >> ALL PROTOCOLS to open the full board, and in the DISCLOSURE column switch off "Anonymous launch ping — counts installs; no personal data". It saves immediately and is remembered. With it off, no ping is sent and no request is made.

2. The leaderboard — off until you opt in

Submitting a score is opt-in. The first time a run reaches score submission the game asks you once, explicitly; you can also set it in Settings → ALL PROTOCOLS → DISCLOSURE under "Submit scores to the global leaderboard — shares player + lab name publicly. Opt-in." Until you say yes, nothing identifying leaves your machine. Declining changes nothing about the game: local scores always save either way.

If you do opt in, each finished run that counts for the board — scenario runs and runs using the in-game dev tools do not — is posted to api.pdoom1.com/score_api.php carrying:

• The lab name you chose — this is the name that appears on the public leaderboard on this site. If you type your real name into it, your real name is published.
• Your score (turns survived) and the doom-integral tiebreak
• The final turn number, and how long the run took in seconds
• The build version, the run's seed, and the leaderboard epoch the board is keyed on
• A timestamp, a random per-entry ID, and two baseline comparison numbers

If a submission can't reach the server it is queued in a file in the game's user folder and retried on the next launch, so a score can leave your machine some time after the run that produced it. Turning the setting off stops future submissions; it does not recall a score already on the board — email us to have one removed.

Viewing the leaderboard is a plain read. It sends nothing about you and is not gated by the setting.

3. The update check — no identifiers, no switch

On launch the game fetches the release manifest from the project's GitHub releases page, and if that fails, falls back once to pdoom1.com/data/version.json on this site. Both are ordinary downloads of a public file. They carry no install ID and nothing about you beyond the same pdoom1/<version> (<OS>) User-Agent and the IP the request comes from — GitHub sees that as it would for any download. There is no toggle for this one, and it never auto-downloads anything: if a newer version exists you get a dismissible notice and a link.

4. The in-game bug reporter — sends nothing

The bug reporter inside the game does not transmit your report anywhere. It writes a .json file to your own machine, along with a screenshot and a copy of your latest save if you ticked those boxes, then shows you the full path and asks you to email that file to team@pdoom1.com yourself. If you don't, we never see it. This build has no automatic submission of any kind.

The file records your operating system, the game and engine versions, a UTC timestamp, and your name and contact details only if you ticked the attribution box. All of that sits on your disk until you choose to send it.

What the game keeps on your machine

Stored locally, sent nowhere by itself: the install ID file, your settings (including the two choices above), your local scores, the queue of score submissions still waiting to go, and any bug report files you have saved. Deleting the game's user folder removes all of it.

Opt-Out Controls (website)

You can opt out of website analytics at any time. Your preference is stored locally and will persist across visits. You can also opt back in if you change your mind.

This button does not reach the game. The game's two switches live in the game's own Settings, in the DISCLOSURE column — see above.

Note: If you have Do Not Track enabled in your browser, analytics are automatically disabled regardless of this setting.

Data Retention

Analytics data is kept indefinitely — there is no automatic deletion after a fixed period. We keep it so we can compare traffic across years.

For website visits that data holds no names, emails or IP addresses, and the hash Plausible uses to count repeat visits is regenerated daily, so visits can't be joined up across days into a user profile.

For game launches it is different, and the difference is the whole reason this section is now two paragraphs: the install ID is stored alongside each launch event and does not rotate, so launches from one installation can be joined up across days and months for as long as we keep the data. That is what it is for — counting how many installs there are, rather than how many launches. It is not linked to a name, an email or an account, because we hold none of those.

Leaderboard entries are kept for as long as the board exists, and the lab name on them is public by design.

Analytics Provider

We use Plausible Analytics, an open-source, privacy-focused analytics platform. We run our own copy of it on our own server at analytics.pdoom1.com, so your data is never sent to Plausible's hosted service or to any other analytics company. The game's launch ping goes to that same server. Plausible is:

• Open source and auditable
• Self-hosted by us, for full data ownership
• Lightweight and fast (~5KB script)
• Does not use cookies or track users across sites
• Built to satisfy GDPR, CCPA and PECR by collecting no personal data and setting no cookies

Those five points describe Plausible's browser tracking, which is what runs on this website. They are not a description of the game's launch ping: that is our own code posting our own event to the same server, and it carries the persistent install ID described above.

Alternative Providers

We evaluated several privacy-preserving analytics solutions including:

• Plausible: Our chosen solution (lightweight, open-source)
• Umami: Self-hosted option with similar privacy features
• Simple Analytics: Privacy-focused with carbon-conscious hosting

All three are cookieless and collect no personal data. We chose Plausible for its simplicity, open-source nature, and excellent documentation.

The honest legal bit

We're a small, volunteer-made, non-commercial project, and we'd rather show you good mechanics than wave a compliance badge. Plainly:

• Website analytics: they process no personal data — no names, emails, IP addresses or cross-session identifiers — so most of what GDPR governs simply does not arise. For the aggregate counts we keep, the basis is our legitimate interest in knowing whether the site works and is found.
• The game's launch ping is the exception, and we are not going to bury it: it carries a persistent random install ID, it is on by default, and a persistent identifier is a stronger thing than the anonymous counting above — that is why it has its own labelled switch in the game rather than being folded into this page's opt-out. It still carries no name, email or account, and nothing about your machine.
• Where it lives: on our own server (a virtual machine currently hosted in the United States), never with a third-party analytics company.
• No third parties: the analytics are self-hosted; nothing is shared with, sold to, or processed by anyone else. The downloaded game contains no third-party analytics, ads or crash reporting.
• Your rights: access, correction and deletion of personal data are trivial for us to honour — we hold very little. You can stop the anonymous web counting any time via Do Not Track or the opt-out above, and stop the game's ping with its own switch. Ask us to delete a leaderboard entry and we will. For pings already sent, be warned that the honest answer is the switch: we have built no way to pick one install ID back out of the analytics store, so turning it off stops new events rather than erasing old ones.

If there is something here we could do better, please tell us — genuinely. team@pdoom1.com or the issue tracker.

Questions?

If you have any questions about our privacy practices or analytics implementation, please check our GitHub repository or contact us through the issue tracker.