Privacy Policy

Last updated: 2026-08-24

Waddleton is a free game with no ads and no analytics. You can play the whole thing without signing in and without spending anything. Signing in is optional, and the mobile app — once it ships — will have optional purchases for cosmetic extras. That keeps the amount we collect small, which is why this page is short. Everything below is what actually happens.

Who we are

Waddleton is made by HyperSage AI Labs, an independent studio. Contact: support@hypersage.ai.

The short version

What we store

Your penguin

When you first play, a guest identity is created for you automatically — a random identifier, with no email address or password attached. Against that identifier we store the display name your penguin is carrying, your penguin's state — colours, clothing, items, coins, level, badges, pets, and igloo — and the age band described below. That's what makes your penguin still be there tomorrow.

Your age band

Before the island loads, Waddleton asks the month and year you were born. Those two numbers stay inside the screen that asked for them: they are not written to storage, not attached to your penguin, and not sent to us. What we do keep is the single band they put you in — child, teen, or adult. It is saved on your device, and it travels with your penguin's profile record to our database. We keep the band and not the date on purpose: a band is not a date of birth, and the band is what decides whether you can type in chat, whether you can read what other players type, and whether a name you picked may go on a public board.

If you sign in

Signing in is optional and exists for one reason: so your penguin can follow you to another device. If you sign in with Google, we receive and store the account identifier and the email address Google gives us, and we attach your existing penguin to it. We do not use that address to email you marketing, and we do not pass it on.

Your scores

When you set a personal best in a mini-game, we store the board, the score, the name published against it, and the time so it can appear on the shared leaderboard for that game, along with a short-lived run token used to check the score came from a real play session. For a teen or adult, that name is the one you chose, and it is visible to every other player on that board — so please don't make it your real full name.

For a player in the under-13 band, nothing they picked is published. The game does not give those players a name field at all, and the board is handed a penguin name the game generates instead — which is why a child's row will not match the name over their penguin's head. The substitution happens both when the score is queued and again when it is sent, so a score that waited offline cannot carry an older name onto a board. Either way the score itself still counts. Your best score is also kept in your own browser.

If you buy something (mobile app only)

Purchases are handled entirely by the App Store or Google Play. We never see, receive, or store your payment details — the store tells the app only that a purchase succeeded, and the app adds the item to your penguin. We keep a record of which purchases have been added, so you are never charged twice or credited twice. The browser version has no purchases.

Reports

If you report another player, we store who reported, who was reported, the category, and the note you wrote (up to 500 characters). Please be honest and please don't include personal information about yourself or anyone else in that note.

On your own device

Your browser's local storage holds your penguin's profile, your personal best in each game, and small preferences like zoom level. In the mobile app the same profile is also copied into the app's own storage, so it survives the phone clearing space. If you have not signed in, clearing your browser data still means a lost penguin and there is no way for us to recover it — signing in is what protects against that.

What we don't store

Anti-abuse

To stop one person creating thousands of penguins, our multiplayer server briefly keeps a count of recent guest sign-ups against the network address they came from. That's a short list of timestamps, it ages out on its own, and it isn't connected to your penguin or used for anything else. New sign-ins may also show a Cloudflare Turnstile check, which is there to tell people from bots.

Who else is involved

These act as service providers for us. None of them is given your data for their own purposes.

Children

Waddleton is a gentle game with a friendly art style, and plenty of younger players will find it. It asks one thing of everybody before they play — the month and year you were born, so it knows which band to use — and it does not keep those numbers; see Your age band above for exactly what is kept and where it goes. Beyond that it never asks a child for personal information: no real name, no address, and no email unless an adult chooses to sign in. A guest penguin needs nothing at all.

For a player in the under-13 band the game offers no name field at all — the penguin's name is picked from a list the game generates — and a score posted to a shared board is published under a generated name rather than anything the player picked. For a teen or an adult the display name is chosen freely, is shown to other players and on leaderboards, and we ask that you not use a real full name.

Purchases in the mobile app go through the App Store or Google Play, which is where a parent's existing purchase controls — Ask to Buy, Family Sharing, and password prompts — apply. We'd encourage any parent to turn those on.

We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has entered personal information into Waddleton — in a display name or a report, for example — email support@hypersage.ai and we will delete it.

Chatting with strangers

Waddleton is a live multiplayer world, so the penguins around you are real people. You can mute or block any player, and those take effect immediately. There is a quick-chat list of safe pre-written phrases for anyone who'd rather not type freely, and for players in the under-13 band it is the only way to talk: the typing box is not rendered for them at all, and free text other players type never reaches their screen. Reports are recorded, but to be straightforward with you: there is not a full-time moderation team reviewing them in real time, so mute and block are the tools that work instantly. Parents may want to sit with younger players the first time.

Your choices

Changes

If we change this policy we'll update the date above and post the new version here.

Contact

Questions about privacy: support@hypersage.ai