Bonkaboo privacy

The short version

We count how the game is used so we can make it better: how many people start it, host or join a room, finish a match, and how long they stay. We do not know who you are. There are no accounts, no cookies, no ads and no tracking across sites, and our analytics never store your IP address.

What the game sends

While you play, the game sends small anonymous events to playbonkaboo.com, for example "the game started", "hosted a room", "joined a room", "a match ended after 5 rounds with 3 players and 2 bots", "the host's tab was hidden for 40 seconds". Each event carries:

• A random id made fresh every time the page loads or the game starts. It is not saved on your device, so two visits cannot be linked.
• Whether it is the web or desktop build, and which version. A web page also says which site it was served from, playbonkaboo.com or itch.io, in a single word.
• For the first event only: your browser's language, the site you came from (just its name, such as reddit.com, not the page), your screen size and pixel ratio, the name of your graphics card as the browser gives it (such as "Apple M2"), and whether the device has a touch screen or is a phone.
• In the Steam game, the first event also says which system the game runs on (Windows, macOS or Linux), whether it is the demo or the full game, whether Steam was running and whether it is a Steam Deck. The Steam game also checks in once a minute and when the game loses focus, with how long it has been running and the kind of controls you used last.
• Numbers about the game: players, bots, rounds, match length, how long joining took, why a join failed.
• When a session ends, how long it lasted and whether the last thing you played with was a keyboard or mouse, a gamepad or a touch screen.
• If you use Quick play, the game also sends how long finding a table took, how many people were at it when you arrived, how long you stayed and what ended your time there, and whether the connection went through a relay. These are counts and times, never the room code or anyone's name.
• Which Steam button you pressed in the demo and where it was (the loading screen, the title, the pause menu, the end of a match, a locked arena, a locked part of Dress up, a room that was full, a full-game room).
• If you use Dress up, when the screen closes the game sends which hat, eyes, mouth and pattern you are wearing (as numbers in the game's lists), how many of them you changed, how often you pressed Surprise me and how long the screen was open. At the start of a match it also sends how many of the players are dressed up. Never a name or a code.
• If you open How to play, the game sends where you opened it, whether you looked at the rules and how long it was open. If you try the guided practice, it sends how far it got and how long it took. Never a name or a code.
• How smoothly it runs, every 30 seconds: how long frames take, the graphics setting in use and whether the game lowered it, and whether the browser had to reset the graphics.
• How long the web page took to load: the time until the title appeared, how long the game spent getting its graphics ready, and the graphics setting it picked. With them goes a broad kind of graphics chip, only its maker and the graphics system the browser uses (for example "ANGLE/D3D11/Intel"; never the model). If you close the page or switch away while it is still loading, the page sends the same kind of note (how far it got and how long that took) so we can tell which loads are too slow.

It never sends room codes, player names, chat, IP addresses or anything else that identifies you.

What the server adds and keeps

• The date (UTC) and the country the request came from, as Cloudflare reports it. Your IP address is used only to deliver the request and to slow down floods, in memory for a minute; it is never written down.
• We do not store your browser's user agent.
• Events are kept for 400 days and then deleted automatically.

The demo on itch.io

The free demo is also published on itch.io, where it runs inside the game's page there. It sends the same anonymous events as the demo on playbonkaboo.com, to playbonkaboo.com, and nothing more. The page around the game belongs to itch.io. Its accounts, cookies and statistics are covered by itch.io's own privacy policy, not by this page. Cloudflare Web Analytics, below, counts visits to playbonkaboo.com only.

Site statistics

The web page also uses Cloudflare Web Analytics to count page views, visitors, referring sites, countries and device types. It uses no cookies and no local storage and does not fingerprint visitors. Cloudflare hosts this site and runs the multiplayer signaling; its privacy policy is at cloudflare.com/privacypolicy.

Playing together

To connect players, the multiplayer service sees the players' network addresses for as long as a room is open, as any online game must. Room codes and names are used only to run the room and are not kept by our analytics.

Open tables (Quick play)

While a table is open, the server that connects players keeps its room code, how many people are at it, the game version, the kind of device that hosts it and a continent, so others can be seated. No names. If a host removes someone, a scrambled form of their network address stays with that table until it closes, so they can't come straight back. Open tables normally pass game traffic through a relay, so other players don't see your network address. Our analytics never see any of this.

Why, and your choices

We use these numbers only to understand whether the game works and is fun: to fix joins that fail, to size the servers and to see which features get played. We do not sell or share them. Because nothing we keep can be tied to you, there is no profile to show or delete; you can also block requests to playbonkaboo.com/api/e and the game plays the same.

Contact

Questions about this page or your data: alex@hugebrain.ai.