The short version
Play as much as you like, free, with or without an account.
Do not cheat the leaderboards, do not attack the service, and pick a display name you would be happy to see on a screen next to a stranger's.
The game is offered as-is by one person, so it may occasionally break, change, or go down. Your data is always yours: download it or delete it whenever you want.
The sections below are the same thing, said carefully.
Who runs this
Bit Cryptic — this website, the World, the Tower, and the field guide — is made and operated by an individual, not a company. Throughout this page, "the game" means all of that, and "you" means whoever is playing it.
By using the game you accept these terms. If you do not, the remedy is simple and costs nothing: stop using it.
Your account
An account is optional. Everything in the game is playable as a guest, permanently. An account exists for one reason: so your progress follows you between devices.
Signing in uses a one-time link or a six-digit code sent to your email, or your Google account. There is no password. That means the security of your account is the security of your email — keep that safe, and do not forward sign-in links to anyone.
One account per person. Do not create accounts in bulk, and do not use an email address that is not yours.
Age
Accounts are for players 13 and up. Younger puzzlers are welcome to play as guests — nothing is collected.
The game does not ask for a date of birth. If you are under 13, play as a guest: it is the same game, with progress saved on your own device.
Playing fair
There is no long list of prohibitions here, because a cryptic clue game is not a place where much can go wrong. The few things that matter:
- Do not tamper with scores or submit results you did not earn by playing. Solving a clue by reading the code is a legitimate pleasure; putting the result on a public board is not.
- Do not attack, overload, or probe the service — no scripted floods, no attempts to reach other players' data, no scraping the leaderboard in bulk.
- Do not use the game to harass anyone, in a display name or anywhere else.
- Do not resell, rehost, or repackage the game as your own.
Solving clues together, spoiling nothing to strangers, and writing your own solvers for fun are all fine. The spirit of the rule is: enjoy the puzzle, leave the board honest.
Display names
Your display name is the only thing other players can see about you, so it is the only thing with rules. Three to twenty characters, letters, numbers, spaces, hyphens and underscores. Each one is unique.
Names that impersonate someone else, or that are hateful, harassing, or obscene, can be reset or removed. That judgement is made sparingly.
Leaderboards
The boards are social, not competitive. Scores are reported by the game running in your browser, which means they are tamper-evident rather than tamper-proof — a determined person can put a wrong number on the board, and the honest thing is to say so rather than pretend otherwise.
Entries that are obviously fabricated may be removed, and an account that keeps doing it may lose the ability to submit. Nothing about that affects your saves or your ability to play.
Submitting a score is a choice. Playing never requires it.
Your saves
Your progress lives in your browser first and, when you are signed in, is copied to your account so another device can pick it up. Reasonable care is taken with it — including keeping a few recent backups when two devices disagree — but a save file is not a bank record. Nobody can promise a browser will never clear its storage or a service will never have a bad day.
If a save matters to you, the account panel's Download my data button gives you a copy of everything in one file, any time.
Who owns what
The game — its clues, artwork, characters, writing, code, and the Bit Cryptic name and mark — belongs to its author. You get a personal, non-exclusive licence to play it. That does not include copying the clue archive, reusing the artwork, or shipping your own version of the game.
You are welcome to stream it, record it, write about it, and share screenshots, including monetised video, with credit and a link. If you want to do something bigger with it, write and ask; the answer is usually yes.
Your display name and your save data are yours. Storing and displaying them is permission to run the game for you, not a claim on them.
The game is provided as-is
Bit Cryptic is free, and it is made by one person. It is provided as-is and as-available, with no warranty of any kind: no promise that it is uninterrupted, error-free, or fit for any particular purpose.
Features may change. Puzzles may be rebalanced. Parts of the game may be taken away or replaced. If the whole thing ever has to shut down, the export button will be the last thing switched off, and there will be notice on this domain first.
Liability
To the fullest extent the law allows, the author is not liable for lost progress, lost time, or any indirect or consequential loss arising from using the game. Nothing here limits liability that cannot legally be limited.
Where the law gives you consumer rights that these terms cannot override, you keep them.
Ending things
You can delete your account at any time from the account panel. It erases your profile, both games' cloud saves, and your leaderboard entries, permanently. Progress already on your device stays where it is and keeps working, signed out.
An account may be suspended or removed for the conduct described above — repeated fabricated scores, attacks on the service, harassment. That is a last resort, not a first response, and you will be told why if there is a way to reach you.
Changes to these terms
These terms can change as the game grows. The date at the top changes with them, and anything significant will be announced in the game rather than quietly edited in. Continuing to play after a change means you accept it.
Contact
Questions, permissions, corrections, or a bug that ate your save:
team@bitcryptic.org
For what the game stores and how to get it back, see the privacy policy.