Privacy notice

Who runs this

Hillmade Games is run by Jonathan Hill, trading as Hillmade, in the UK. I am the person responsible for your data (the "controller" in UK data protection law). Contact me at jonathan.hill@hillmade.uk.

What we keep, why, and for how long

What	Why	How long
Your email address, when you make an account	To make your account, sign you in and tell you about it. This is the only personal detail an account holds. Basis: so I can provide the account you asked for.	Until you delete your account. If an account sits unused for three years I will email you first and close it 30 days later unless you sign in.
The adult confirmation: that you ticked "I am 18 or over", when, and which wording you saw	To show the platform is for adults only. Basis: my legitimate interest in keeping accounts adult-only, which protects children.	As long as the account exists.
Your news choice: yes or no, and when you chose	To send product news only to people who asked for it. The box is separate and unticked. Basis: your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.	Until you unsubscribe or delete your account. Unsubscribing keeps your account and stops news.
Sign-in links	To check it is really you signing in. There is no password. Each link works once. Opening it shows a confirm page, and you are only signed in when you press the button, so a mail scanner that opens the link ahead of you cannot use it up.	They expire within 15 minutes. Used and expired ones are cleared out. An account that is made but never signed in to is deleted after 48 hours.
Anti-abuse counters: when you ask for a sign-in email, a scrambled code made from your IP address and another made from the email address you typed, each with a count for that hour; when you send Seething Sheep feedback, a scrambled code made from your IP address, with a count for that hour	To stop people flooding the sign-in form and the Seething Sheep feedback form. The codes cannot be turned back into your IP address or email address. Basis: my legitimate interest in keeping the site secure.	A few hours. They are cleared out automatically each time someone asks for a sign-in link.
Access records: which perks and games your account has, when it was made, when you last signed in	To open the right games for you and honour the founders' perks. Basis: providing the account.	As long as the account exists.
Payment records, once payments start	To know what you bought and to keep accounts as the law requires. Stripe handles your card; I never see or keep your card number. Basis: providing what you bought, and a legal duty to keep business records.	As long as tax law requires, currently six years.
Emails we send you	Sign-in emails, a few account messages, and news only if you opted in. Resend delivers them and keeps its own delivery log.	Resend keeps its own delivery log under its own retention rules. I do not keep copies of the emails.
Ordinary web server logs	Every website's host sees your IP address and the page you asked for. Vercel keeps these briefly to run the site and spot abuse. Basis: my legitimate interest in keeping the site working and secure.	A short period, set by Vercel.

I do not make decisions about you by computer that have a legal or similar effect. I do not build profiles of players.

Seething Sheep feedback form

The FEEDBACK button in Seething Sheep sends me what you type, and you do not need an account to use it. Each answer is saved as one private file in Vercel's file storage, with:

the time you sent it;
the level you were on and your fun rating (1 to 5);
your written comments;
the email or @handle you chose to add, if any (optional, used only to reply to you);
the game version and which screen you were on;
your browser's name and version string (the "user agent"), and your country, which Vercel works out from your connection. Your IP address is not stored with the answer.

I use it to fix and improve the game. Basis: my legitimate interest in improving the game, plus your consent for any contact detail you add. I read it and delete it once dealt with, and in any case within 12 months.

If you are under 18, please leave the contact box empty and do not put personal details in your comments. If a child's details do get in, email me and I will delete them.

What stays on your device

Some things are stored in your own browser. They are not sent to me, and you can clear them at any time in your browser settings.

In the games, your saves, progress, settings and best scores. If you clear your browser data they are gone, because I do not have a copy.
Seething Sheep keeps its game files in your browser's cache so it can load quickly and work offline.

These exist only to make the games work the way you asked.

Cookies and analytics

One essential cookie. When you sign in to an account, one cookie keeps you signed in. It is needed for the sign-in to work, so it is set without asking. You will not have it if you never sign in.
No tracking cookies and no adverts. Nothing here follows you around the web.
Vercel Web Analytics is on every page of this site, including Seething Sheep, the sign-in confirmation page and these notice pages. It counts visits and which pages and buttons are used, without cookies and without storing anything on your device. It records the page, where you came from, your country, and your browser and device type. Vercel says it tells visitors apart with a short-lived scrambled code from the request that it throws away after a day, so there is no profile of you over time. Basis: my legitimate interest in knowing which games get played.
Fonts. The typefaces on this site are served from this site, so your browser does not contact Google or any other font service.
A code library from jsDelivr. The four free demos (CINDER, HEAT, HOLD THE LINE and DRIFTER) load the three.js graphics library, and HEAT its physics engine, from jsDelivr, a free content delivery network. So jsDelivr's servers see your IP address when you open one of them. Seething Sheep and these notice pages do not do this.

Children

Accounts are for adults only. Signing up needs the "I am 18 or over" tick. I do not check ID, so I rely on that tick. A parent or guardian can sign up and let a child play under their supervision; the account is then theirs.
Children can play the first world of Seething Sheep with no account. We collect nothing from them: no email, no name, no location, no profile. The only exceptions are the optional feedback form above and the cookie-free page counts described under Cookies and analytics.
There are no adverts, no nudges to share more, no sharing of anyone's data for marketing, and no tracking of precise location. The only location is the country in the feedback form and analytics described above.
If you think a child has made an account, email me and I will delete it.

Who else handles your data

I use these companies to run the site. They handle your data on my instructions and only for that. I have not given anyone your data to use for their own marketing.

Company	What they do
Vercel	Hosts the website and runs its code. Stores feedback files. Provides the cookie-free analytics above.
Neon	Holds the account database (email address, adult confirmation, news choice, access records, sign-in links, signed-in sessions (kept for up to 30 days), open checkouts and payment records (once payments start), and the anti-abuse counters).
Resend	Sends our emails: sign-in messages and, if you opted in, news.
Stripe	Takes payments, once payments start. It collects your card details itself, and also keeps some records of its own under its own privacy notice, for example to prevent fraud.
jsDelivr (code library only)	Supplies the three.js graphics library, and HEAT's physics engine, to the four free demos, as described above.

Some of these companies are based in the US or use US servers. Where your data goes outside the UK, they rely on an approved safeguard such as the UK-US data bridge or standard contract terms.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you can:

ask for a copy of what I hold about you;
have it corrected, or deleted;
ask me to limit how I use it, or object to my using it;
take your data in a form you can move elsewhere;
withdraw your consent, for example by unsubscribing from news.

Signed-in players can download or delete their data from the account page. Anyone can also email jonathan.hill@hillmade.uk. I will answer within a month. It costs nothing.

If you are not happy with how I have handled your data, tell me first and I will try to put it right. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.

Changes to this notice

If I change it in a way that matters, I will say so on this page and email account holders. The date at the top shows the latest version.

The short version