Last updated 12 November 2026
Privacy
Every game on The Game Shelf plays without a profile, and then nothing about you is stored on our servers. A profile is optional. This page says what we keep if you make one, why, and for how long.
Who is responsible
The Game Shelf (games.world-explorers.org) is run by REFLECTOPIA LLC, which is responsible for your data (the “controller” under the EU General Data Protection Regulation, the GDPR). Write to us about anything on this page at privacy@world-explorers.org.
Playing without a profile
The games save your progress in your browser, on your device. The shelf reads those saves to show where you left off. None of it is sent to us.
Like any website, the pages reach you through our host, Cloudflare, which handles your IP address and the usual technical details of each request in order to deliver them. When a page talks to our server (for example to show the high scores), Cloudflare keeps a technical log of that request for up to 7 days, which we use only to find and fix problems.
What we keep if you make a profile
- Your email address, to send you sign-in links and to know it’s you when you sign in. It is never shown to anyone, and we use it for nothing else: no newsletters, no marketing.
- A made-up public name, like “Cosy Otter 42”, chosen at random. You can pick a new one at any time.
- A copy of each game’s save, so your progress follows you to your other devices. It holds what the game keeps on your device: chapters solved, scores, badges, unlocked items, game settings, and in the German games the words you practised, any words you added yourself, and the answers you typed in their stories.
- Your best scores. While you’re signed in, they appear on the public high-score boards under your made-up name, never your email.
- If you add a passkey: its public key, the kind of device it was added on (like “iPhone”), and the days it was added and last used. The private key stays on your device or in your password manager. Your face, fingerprint or screen lock is checked by your device and never sent to us.
- For each signed-in browser, a scrambled copy of its sign-in code, which can’t be turned back into the code.
- The dates your profile was made and last used, and when each save and best score was updated.
Profiles are for players aged 16 and over. Younger players can play every game without one.
Signing in with Stormy Fans (optional)
Stormy Fans (stormyfans.com) is Stormy’s fan club for everything Stormy makes, a separate website with its own privacy notice, which says what the club keeps. If you have a profile here and a card there, you can link them, so that either site opens the other signed in with one press. Nothing happens without a press: opening a page never passes anything on by itself.
When you press a Stormy Fans button in your profile, we give Stormy Fans, in a signed one-time pass that works once and for five minutes, your profile’s email address and its random identifier, which Stormy Fans card it is linked to (by the random identifier Stormy Fans gave the card), if any, and the page to open there. When you come here from Stormy Fans, its pass brings the same about your card: the email address Stormy Fans checked, your card’s random identifier there (never its number or name), and which profile here it is linked to, if any. The pass travels after the # in the address, which browsers never send to a server, and it is used only when you press its button. Nothing else passes either way: none of your saves, scores or passkeys, and nothing from your card.
Your profile is linked only when you press a button that says so, or when Stormy Fans already has your card linked to this profile. If you come from Stormy Fans without a profile, one press makes one with the email address Stormy Fans checked, exactly as an email sign-in would. We then keep which Stormy Fans card is linked (by its random identifier there), since when, and how the link was made (with a new profile, on a press, from Stormy Fans’ own note of the link, or moved from another card on a press), and, if you unlink, a note that you did, so that Stormy Fans’ word alone never links it again. Unlink any time in your profile. Deleting your profile deletes the link and the note.
Stamps from your games (optional)
Each game here has a stamp for a Stormy Fans card, for reaching a milestone such as finishing Book One of Alice, Bob & Eve. We work out which ones your profile has earned from the saves and best scores it already holds, each time you open your profile; nothing new is recorded for that.
When you press Collect on Stormy Fans, the signed one-time pass described above opens Stormy Fans with a signed link that names which stamps you earned and your profile’s random identifier, so that Stormy Fans gives them only to the card linked to this profile. Nothing is sent without that press: none of your saves or scores, only the names of the stamps. We then keep which stamps this profile has sent and when, so your profile stops offering them. Deleting your profile deletes that too. What Stormy Fans keeps about the stamps on your card is in its own privacy notice.
Why we may use it
- To give you what you signed up for: sign-in, your saves on every device and the boards (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR).
- To link your profile with your Stormy Fans card and open one from the other, and to collect the stamps your games earned on it, when you press a button that asks for it (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR).
- To keep the service safe: limits on how many sign-in links and passkey attempts one address or one email can use, and the technical logs (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR, our legitimate interest in a secure service).
Who helps us run it
One provider processes data on our behalf, under a data processing agreement: Cloudflare, Inc., which hosts the site, stores the profiles and their saves, and sends the sign-in emails. Cloudflare is based in the United States and is certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, which the European Commission recognises as giving adequate protection; its agreement with us also includes the EU standard contractual clauses as a fallback. We share your data with no one else, except what you send to Stormy Fans yourself with a press (see above), and there are no ads.
On your device
Each game keeps its save in your browser’s storage. The shelf adds a few small entries of its own: your made-up name while you’re signed in, a note of what was last synced, the copy of a save that a newer one from your profile replaced (so nothing is lost), and which high-score board you last looked at. While you’re signed in there is also one cookie, which holds your sign-in code and nothing else.
All of this is strictly necessary for what you asked for, so under the German law on device storage (s. 25(2) TDDDG) no separate consent is needed. There are no advertising or analytics cookies, and nothing tracks you across sites.
How long we keep things
- Your profile, its saves and its scores: until you delete it. Nothing is deleted for inactivity.
- A sign-in link works for 15 minutes and is removed a day later. A passkey request expires after 5 minutes.
- A one-time pass from Stormy Fans works for 5 minutes; we keep its random identifier for a day after that, so it can’t be used twice.
- The link to your Stormy Fans card: until you unlink it or delete your profile. A note that you unlinked it, and which stamps you sent to Stormy Fans and when: until you delete your profile.
- A signed-in browser stays signed in for up to a year, or until you sign out.
- A passkey stays until you remove it or delete your profile.
- The counters that stop misuse of sign-in delete themselves within an hour. Cloudflare’s technical logs are kept for up to 7 days.
- We keep backup copies only to recover from a failure: one from each of the last 90 nights, and the first of each month for two years. Passkeys, sign-ins and used passes from Stormy Fans are not in them.
Deleting your profile
In your profile, choose Delete my profile. Your email, made-up name, saves, scores, passkeys, the link to your Stormy Fans card, the note of stamps sent there and sign-ins are removed from our live systems at once, and from every backup copy the following night. We keep only the profile’s random identifier and the date, so that a backup can never bring it back. The games on your devices keep their progress, because that lives on your device. To remove it there, clear this site’s data in your browser.
Your rights
Under the GDPR you have the right to access your data, to have it corrected or deleted, to restrict how it is used, to receive it in a portable format, and to object to any use based on our legitimate interest.
You can do most of this yourself: Download my data and Delete my profile are in your profile, and you can pick a new name there. For anything else, write to privacy@world-explorers.org and we will answer within one month. You also have the right to complain to a data protection supervisory authority, in particular in the EU country where you live or work. We make no automated decisions about anyone.
Changes
If we change what we keep or why, we will update this page and its date first.