Privacy policy
Last updated August 7, 2026
Ember is a free strategy game. This policy says what it collects, who else sees it, how long it is kept, and how to delete it.
Playing without an account
You can play Ember without signing in.
The first time you arrive, the game generates a random player id on your device and stores it in your browser. It is how the board knows which spots are yours after a reload, and how a rival rejoins a game you started together. It is not derived from your name, your email, or your hardware, and no account is created.
Guest games are stored on the server against that id, so they can be replayed, watched, or finished later. Clearing your browser storage retires the id, and the games behind it become unreachable from your device.
Signing in
Signing in unlocks ranked play, a profile, and a place on the leaderboard. It is a six digit passcode sent to your email address, handled by Stytch, our sign-in provider. There is no password.
Ember's own database never stores your email address. It holds a Stytch user id, the name you play under, and your ranked ratings. Your address stays with Stytch, and we read it only in the moment we ask them to sign you in. The passcode stays there too: Stytch issues it and Stytch checks it.
Guest history never merges into an account. Signing in starts a clean identity.
Your name is public
The name you play under is the one thing you publish on Ember. It shows on the leaderboard, on your profile, in the live games feed, and in the roster and replay of every game you play. Do not make it your email address or your legal name unless you want it read by strangers.
Changing your name rewrites it everywhere it has appeared, including games that finished long ago. That is how you get an old name off the site without deleting your account.
What the game records
For every game you take a seat in we store:
- The board, the rules preset, and every move each seat made, so the game can be replayed.
- The result, the final scores, and who was in it.
- Your ranked rating and its history.
- Aggregate statistics about the openings you play, used to tune the bots.
Analytics, errors, and session replay
Ember uses PostHog to see how the game is used and to find what is broken. It records page views, in-app actions such as starting a game or opening a dialog, which buttons get clicked, your device and browser, and an approximate location worked out from your IP address. It also captures errors.
PostHog records session replays too. A replay reconstructs a browsing session: what the page showed, where the pointer went, what was clicked, and which pages followed which. Text you type into the sign-in field and the name field is masked and never reaches the recording. Replays are deleted after 30 days.
A tracker blocker stops all of it, and the game plays exactly the same either way.
Server logs
Our servers log the requests they answer: which route was called, the response code, how long it took, and an id for tracing one request through the system. Those go to PostHog and Better Stack.
Render, which hosts the game, and Cloudflare, which sits in front of it, each write their own line per request, and those do record the IP address the request came from and the browser and device string your browser sends. Render's copy goes to Better Stack alongside ours. Ember also reads your IP address in memory to rate limit abusive traffic.
All of these logs are short lived. They keep the service running and deal with abuse.
What stays on your device
Some things stay in your browser and are never sent anywhere: light or dark mode, your accessibility settings, how you prefer to place a spot, the seat colors you have been assigned, your puzzle progress, and the setup of the last game you started.
Deleting your account leaves the accessibility and display settings alone.
What we do not do
We do not sell your data or share it with data brokers or advertisers. Ember carries no ads and no ad network, and nothing in it tracks you across other apps or websites. We do not build advertising profiles, and we do not use your games to train anything except the bots you play against.
Players under 13
Ember is for players 13 and over, and we do not knowingly collect anything from a child under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has given us data, write to spark@playember.gg and we will delete it.
Your choices
Delete your account yourself, from the account page. It is immediate and permanent. Deleting removes your account, its ranked ratings, its leaderboard presence, and the Stytch user behind it, which is what removes your email address and signs you out everywhere. Your past games stay on the site under a generated name, linked to no profile.
Change the name you play under from the same page. It is rewritten across every game you have played.
If you can no longer sign in, write to spark@playember.gg from the address on the account and we will delete it for you. The same address takes a request for a copy of what we hold, a correction, or anything else here.
Where you live may give you further rights, in the EEA, the UK, or California in particular. We apply them to everyone.
How long things are kept
Account data is kept until you delete the account. Session replays are deleted after 30 days. Analytics events and error reports follow our PostHog project's retention settings.
Games and their results are kept indefinitely: a replay, a leaderboard, and a rating history are made of finished games. Once the account that played them is deleted, those seats carry a generated name and link to no profile.
Security
Traffic to and from the game is encrypted. Sign-in is passwordless, so we hold no password of yours to lose, and the passcode is issued and checked by Stytch.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. If the change is significant, we will say so on the site rather than quietly reissue the page.
Getting in touch
Questions about this policy, or a request about your own data, go to spark@playember.gg.
Ember is built and run by Ryan Seekely in California, USA. In this policy, "we" and "us" mean that operator.
Also worth reading: Terms