Privacy Policy

Welcome to Shadow Path, developed and operated by PJ Gaming Labs ("we", "us", or "our"). This Privacy Policy explains how our mobile puzzle game treats your information, what data is processed to deliver gameplay, and how we protect your rights under applicable privacy frameworks including Google Play Developer Policies, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

By downloading, installing, or playing Shadow Path, you acknowledge the terms of this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with any part of this policy, please do not use the application.

Shadow Path is engineered with an offline-first, privacy-by-design architecture. Unlike social or online multi-player apps, we do not require account creation, social logins, or personal details to enjoy the full game experience:

• No Real Names or Email Addresses: You can play 100% of levels without submitting your name, email, or physical address.
• No Phone Numbers or Address Books: The application does not access your contacts, SMS, or telephone functions.
• No Biometric or Sensitive Financial Data: We never collect, store, or process credit card numbers or banking credentials. Any in-app purchases are handled entirely by Google Play In-App Billing.
• No Precise Geolocation: The game does not track your physical GPS coordinates.

To ensure your game state is preserved even when disconnected from the internet, Shadow Path saves your gameplay progress locally on your device using encrypted, sandboxed storage (React Native AsyncStorage):

This information never leaves your device unless you initiate a cloud backup through your Google Play Games account. You can completely delete all locally stored data at any time by clearing the application's storage in your Android settings or by uninstalling the application.

Shadow Path is supported by advertisements provided through Google Mobile Ads (AdMob) and authorized mediation partners. Advertisements enable us to keep 600+ puzzle levels completely free for players worldwide.

Depending on your age verification and consent settings, Google AdMob may process:

• Advertising Identifiers: Google Advertising ID (GAID) on Android (subject to user opt-out or reset in device settings).
• Ad Interaction Metrics: Impressions, click-throughs, and completed video view telemetry for opt-in Rewarded Ads (such as double coins or hints).
• Device Technical Information: IP address (coarse country/region routing), device model, operating system version, and screen dimensions.

We utilize Google Firebase services to ensure game stability, fix software crashes, and dynamically balance puzzle difficulty:

• Firebase Crashlytics: In the rare event of an unexpected crash or freeze, Crashlytics captures stack traces, device hardware specs, OS version, and crash state. This diagnostic data contains no personally identifiable information and is used exclusively for engineering fixes.
• Firebase Analytics: Aggregated, anonymous metrics (e.g. level completion rate, average moves per puzzle, session duration) to help us calibrate par moves and balance level difficulty.
• Firebase Remote Config: Periodically synchronizes game configuration parameters (e.g. ad network waterfall priorities, daily challenge seeds, in-app update notices) without requiring a full APK download.

Protecting the privacy of children is of paramount importance to PJ Gaming Labs. Shadow Path strictly complies with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and Article 8 of the GDPR (GDPR-K):

• Age Gate Verification: Upon initial launch, players are prompted to indicate their age group.
• Child-Directed Safeguards: For players under 13 years of age, we automatically flag the session as child-directed in the Google Mobile Ads SDK (tagForChildDirectedTreatment = true) and restrict ad content ratings to Family Friendly (MaxAdContentRating.G).
• Zero Behavioral Profiling: We do not serve personalized, interest-based, or behavioral advertising to children under 13.
• Parental Inquiries: Parents and legal guardians may review, request deletion, or ask questions regarding their child's data by contacting us at pjgaminglabs@gmail.com.

Depending on your jurisdiction, you have specific legal rights regarding your personal information:

• Right to Know & Access: You may request details about the categories of data collected and processed.
• Right to Rectification & Erasure: You can clear your local device storage at any time to erase all saved progress.
• Right to Opt-Out of Sale / Targeted Advertising: We do NOT sell your personal data. You can opt out of personalized ads via your device's Google Play Services settings: Settings > Google > Ads > Reset or Delete Advertising ID.
• Right to Non-Discrimination: Exercising your privacy rights will never result in degraded gameplay or denial of service.

Since game state is stored locally, data retention is managed directly by you. Local progress remains on your smartphone as long as the application is installed.

Aggregated analytical metrics and anonymous crash reports processed by Firebase are retained according to Google's standard retention cycles (typically 14 months for analytics, and up to 90 days for crash logs), after which they are automatically purged.