Privacy

Who's responsible

Really Bad Studio is a small studio run by Corey Johnson in Phoenix, Arizona. We decide what this site collects and why, and the contact for anything on this page is studio@reallybadstudio.com. There's no privacy department. It's the same inbox as everything else.

This page covers reallybadstudio.com and everything under it, including the games, the Dailies, the tools pages and the journal. Work that lives on its own domain has its own policy; see links off the site.

Visiting the site

The site is hosted on Vercel. Like any web host, Vercel's servers log the requests they serve: your IP address, the page, your browser, the referring page and the time. That's how pages reach you and how we'd notice an outage or abuse. We don't build profiles from those logs or match them with anything else.

What we count

We send simple counts to PostHog, an analytics service, in its United States region. We don't load PostHog's tracking script. Our own small script sends a count when a page loads and when you do one of a few named things:

• Starting a game or toy
• Opening a release or filtering the work on the homepage
• Asking for the release notes, or confirming that request

Each count carries the page, the site that sent you there, any public campaign label in the link (like utm_source=newsletter), and the game's name. It carries a random number that only lasts for that one page load, so we can't tell your visits apart. We don't set cookies or store an ID for this. We send 0.0.0.0 in place of your IP address, location lookup is off, and PostHog's IP anonymizing is switched on for our project.

On Setlist we also count when a puzzle fails to load, save or check, with no message text or player content attached. That helps us fix things.

We don't use session recording, heatmaps or click tracking. Nothing you type into a game or form is sent with these counts.

Setlist: counting comebacks

Setlist is our daily word puzzle. We'd like to know whether people come back to it, and the page counts above can't tell us that. So Setlist may ask you once, after you finish a puzzle. It's off unless you say yes.

If you say yes

• Your browser saves a random ID for Setlist (in local storage, under rbs:setlist:measurement:v1). It isn't a cookie, and it isn't linked to any account, email address or other game.
• With that ID we count visits to Setlist, puzzles started, puzzles finished (clean, with hints, or with a word revealed), and whether you came back 1, 7, 28 or 30 days after you started.
• We never send your name, your guesses, your answers, your time zone or anything you type.
• Counting starts from your next puzzle. Nothing from before you said yes is added.

Changing your mind

Open How to play on Setlist and choose No thanks. We delete the ID from your browser and stop counting. Your puzzles, streak and sound setting stay exactly as they were. Saying yes again later starts a new ID.

Turning it off stops future counts, but it doesn't remove counts already sent. To have those deleted, email studio@reallybadstudio.com and tell us roughly when you played. We'll find and delete them.

If your browser blocks storage, or sends Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control, Setlist won't ask and won't count.

Email lists

A few places ask for an email address: the release notes and Studio notes signup, and product waitlists like Name in Lights. We keep the address in our email service, Resend, with a note of what you signed up for and when. The release notes send a confirmation link first and only start after you click it. Waitlist addresses get no mail until that product opens.

We use your address for what you asked for. We don't pass it to advertisers or data brokers. To come off a list, email studio@reallybadstudio.com and we'll remove you. You don't have to explain.

If you write to us directly, we get your address and message, and we keep the thread as long as it's useful.

What stays on your device

Some things never reach us. They live in your browser's local storage:

• Game saves and settings, such as Dailies progress and streaks, Impossidle, Sundrift and our other games.
• Small flags, such as whether you've seen a game's how-to card, or that the opening animation already played.

We can't read any of it. Clearing your site data wipes it, saves included, and we have no copy to restore from. The one exception that's sent anywhere is Setlist's ID, and only if you say yes.

Other companies involved

Four companies process something for us when you use this site:

• Vercel

  United States

  Hosts the site and serves every page. Keeps standard request logs.

• PostHog

  United States

  Stores the counts described above, and Setlist's comeback counts if you say yes.

• Resend

  United States

  Holds our email list and sends the notes you signed up for.

• Google Fonts

  United States

  Serves the typefaces. Google receives your IP address and browser details when the fonts load.

No ad networks, tag managers or social pixels. If you're outside the US, these services handle your data in the United States.

Your choices and rights

Switch it off

Turn on Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control in your browser and we don't count anything. Firefox, Brave and DuckDuckGo offer GPC by default or behind one switch. Any content blocker does the same job. On Setlist, you can also just choose No thanks.

See it, or have it deleted

Email studio@reallybadstudio.com. Tell us the address you signed up with, or roughly when you visited or played, and we'll find what exists and delete it. No charge, no form.

If you're in the UK, the EU or a US state with a privacy law

You can ask to access, correct, delete or move your data, or object to how we use it. The route is the same email address, and we'll answer within 30 days. We rely on legitimate interest for request logs and the page counts above, and on consent for Setlist's comeback counts and for email lists. You can withdraw consent anytime, and doing so never costs you a game save.

We have never sold personal information, and we don't share it for advertising.

How long we keep things

• Request logs: kept by Vercel on its own schedule.
• Counts in PostHog, including Setlist's: up to one year, which is the retention on our PostHog plan. We delete on request.
• Your email address: until you unsubscribe or ask us to remove it.
• Email you send us: as long as the conversation is useful.

Children

This site isn't aimed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect anything from them. If you think a child has sent us something, email us and we'll delete it.

Links off the site

Some of our work lives on its own domain, and some pages link to where an asset came from. Once you follow a link you're on someone else's site, under their policy.

Changes to this page

If what we collect changes, this page changes first and the date at the top moves.