Privacy Policy for Word Crossword: Connect Puzzle
Gameplay diagnostics and optional session recording
In updated versions that include diagnostics, we collect crash categories and a short code-location fingerprint to identify bugs. We do not send exception messages, stack traces, account details or anything you type.
If you choose to allow gameplay recording, PlayBrain can reconstruct a sample of your play using screen changes, taps, timing and game state. This is not video or audio recording. Other games provide action timelines. Recordings use a random session identifier, not your advertising ID.
Recording is off until you allow it. Change your choice in Settings, Gameplay recording. Declining does not affect gameplay, rewards or purchases. Each capture lasts at most ten minutes. Captures become unavailable after seven days and are deleted during our daily cleanup. We use our existing backend, not a third-party session-recording service.
Your choice and at most one pending recording are stored on your device. Recordings are encrypted in transit and available only to our private review tools. We use them to identify bugs and confusing gameplay, not for advertising or tracking across apps.
Last updated: 7 September 2026
Word Crossword: Connect Puzzle ("the App") is made by PlayBrain. It is a single-player word puzzle, playable offline, and it asks for no account, no email address and no name.
The short version
- No account, sign-in, name, email, or any personal detail is needed to play, or accepted.
- Your progress is saved on your device, and optionally in your Google account through Google Play Games.
- Two things leave your device: anonymous gameplay analytics we collect ourselves, and a request to Google AdMob when an advert is shown.
- Most adverts are ones you choose to watch. One is not: a short full-screen advert may play between levels. There are no banners, and no advert ever interrupts a puzzle you are solving.
- In-app purchases are optional, and all 900 puzzles are in the app whether you buy anything or not.
- We do not collect raw exception messages or stack traces. Limited diagnostics and optional gameplay recording in updated versions are described in the notice above.
What the game records
A device identifier our own code generates. A random string created the first time the game runs and stored only on the device. It is not your advertising id, not your Google account, and it identifies a copy of this game rather than a person.
Gameplay events. Which screens are opened, which puzzles are started, solved and left, how long a session lasts, which adverts are offered, watched and shown, and how the in-game coins and ink are earned and spent. These are used to work out where the game is confusing or unfair. Every one of them is in the table below and nothing outside it is sent.
Purchase history. When something is bought in the game we record that a purchase happened, whether it succeeded, and a product identifier our own code chose together with a price tier, which is a code-chosen bucket such as t1. We do not record the amount, the price, the currency, your country, your locale, a transaction id, a card number or any part of a payment method. Payment is handled entirely by Google Play and we never see it.
Events are queued on the device and sent in batches over HTTPS to a server we run at playbrain.games, so playing offline loses nothing and nothing is sent twice.
What the game does NOT record
- your name, email address or any account, because the App has none and cannot ask,
- your advertising id or any hardware identifier,
- your location,
- anything you typed, because the App has no text input,
- your contacts, photos, files, or anything else on your device,
- your saved progress itself.
We do not collect raw exception messages or stack traces. Limited diagnostics and optional gameplay recording in updated versions are described in the notice above.
What is stored on your device
- which levels you have completed, and the level you are on,
- the words you have found on it, and any letters or words you have had revealed,
- your daily puzzle and time attack progress, and your daily streak,
- your coins, your ink, the boosters you hold, which daily gifts and rank rewards you have collected, and which board looks you own and use,
- whether sound and vibration are on, and whether zen mode is on,
- counters for the rating prompt,
- the analytics identifier and the queue of events not yet sent.
Apart from the optional Google Play Games copy described below, all of it is deleted when you uninstall the App or clear its storage in your device settings.
Every event this game records, in full
A "level" here is one crossword board. Unlike most of the fleet this game does emit level_fail, because time attack has a real lose state: the clock can run out.
| event | what it records |
|---|---|
first_open | the app was opened for the first time after install |
session_start | a play session began, and how many sessions this install has had |
session_end | a play session ended, how long it lasted and which screen it ended on |
screen_view | which screen you are on, and which screen you came from |
first_interaction | the first time you touched anything, and how long after opening |
tutorial_start | the guided first puzzle began |
tutorial_step | which step of the guide you reached |
tutorial_complete | you finished the guide |
tutorial_skip | you dismissed the guide, and at which step |
level_start | a puzzle was opened, which one, the mode, and which attempt this is |
level_complete | a puzzle was solved, how long it took, how many words, how much help was used |
level_fail | the time-attack clock ran out, and how long the board lasted |
level_abandon | a puzzle was left unfinished, how far through, and how you left it |
currency_earned | coins or ink were earned, from what, and the balance after |
currency_spent | coins or ink were spent, on what, and the balance after |
currency_blocked | something cost more than you had |
ad_offer_shown | an optional advert was offered, and what it would give |
ad_offer_hidden | an optional advert was not offered, and why |
ad_offered | you tapped an optional advert offer |
ad_load_result | whether an advert was available, and how long it took |
ad_result | how the advert ended, and how long it played |
ad_reward_granted | the reward for watching was given |
interstitial_check | you left a finished level and our rules decided whether a full-screen advert could play, and why not |
interstitial_shown | a full-screen advert played between levels, which seam, how many this session |
interstitial_result | that advert closed, how it ended, how long it was up, whether it was tapped |
iap_store_open | the shop screen was opened, from where, and how many looks are owned |
iap_offer_shown | a purchasable item was shown, as a product identifier and a price tier |
iap_purchase_start | you tapped buy |
iap_purchase_result | whether the purchase completed, was cancelled, is pending, or failed |
iap_restore_start | you asked to restore purchases |
iap_restore_result | whether the restore found anything |
iap_entitlement_changed | what you own in the game changed |
iap_unavailable | the store could not be reached |
feature_used | the daily puzzle, the time attack or the store was opened, or a board restarted |
review_prompt_shown | the rating prompt was requested |
review_prompt_skipped | the rating prompt was not shown, and why |
cross_promo_open | the More games sheet was opened |
cross_promo_click | another of our games was tapped |
Every one of these carries the device identifier described above and nothing else that could identify you.
Adverts (Google AdMob)
Most adverts in this game are rewarded adverts you choose to watch. Five things a video can buy: revealing one letter of a word you have not found, revealing a whole word, doubling the coins of a level you have just finished, putting time back on the time-attack clock, and repairing a missed day of your daily streak. Every button that costs a video is labelled AD before you press it, and restarting a board is always free.
One advert is not optional. A short full-screen advert may play when you leave a finished level. It never plays during a puzzle, never in your first few levels, and never more often than a fixed cap allows. It can be removed by a purchase (below). There are no banner adverts.
Adverts are served by Google AdMob. When an ad is requested, Google may collect:
- your device's advertising identifier,
- device information (model, operating system, language, coarse region),
- your IP address,
- interaction with the advert (views, taps).
The App requests non-personalised ads only, which limits Google to using this data for frequency capping, ad measurement and fraud prevention rather than building an advertising profile of you. Where the law requires it, including the EEA and the UK, Google's consent form is shown before the ad SDK is allowed to request anything. If you decline, no advert is loaded and an optional reveal is simply given to you free instead, so declining costs you nothing in the game.
Google's handling of this data is governed by its own policies: How Google uses advertising data and the Google Privacy Policy.
You can reset or delete your advertising identifier at any time in your device settings (Android: Settings → Privacy → Ads).
Google Play Games Services
On Android the App can use Google Play Games Services for achievements and for keeping your progress in your Google account, so that it is still there on a new phone. Signing in is handled entirely by Google inside the Play Games layer: the App never sees your Google account, your name or your email, and it does not read your Play Games profile. It reports which achievements you have unlocked and stores one saved-game slot, which Google keeps under its own privacy policy and which you can delete from the Play Games app. None of this is sent to our own server, and the game plays exactly the same without it.
Purchases
The shop sells packs of ink, a bundle of boosters, a starter kit, and the removal of the between-level advert. Nothing in the game is locked behind them: all 900 puzzles ship inside the App and open by playing, every booster is earnable from the daily gift and from your rank, and the rewarded adverts above are unchanged whether you buy anything or not. Purchases are processed by Google Play and recorded through RevenueCat, which tells the game which purchases are active and which receives an anonymous identifier it generates for the installation, never your name or your payment details. Restore Purchases is available in the shop and in the settings sheet without making a purchase and without an account. Packs of ink are consumable: once spent they are gone, and neither we nor the store can bring them back.
Rating prompt
The App may occasionally ask you to rate it using Google Play's own in-app review dialog. Google decides whether that dialog actually appears; we only ask. Any rating you leave goes to Google Play, not to us, and we cannot see who left it.
Our other games
The App has a sheet listing PlayBrain's other games. Choosing one opens its Google Play listing in your browser or in the Play app, with a campaign tag that tells us the visit came from this game. No information about you travels with it, and nothing is sent unless you tap through.
Permissions, audio and the microphone
The App plays sound and music and can vibrate. It does not record audio and has no microphone access: the RECORD_AUDIO permission that the audio library would otherwise request is explicitly blocked. Blocked in the same place: screen overlays, external storage, photos and media, and background services. What the App declares for itself is INTERNET (analytics batches and loading adverts), MODIFY_AUDIO_SETTINGS (playing sound) and VIBRATE (the small tap you feel when a word locks in), alongside the Google Play billing permission that the purchase library requires, which grants access to nothing else.
Notifications
The App sends no notifications of any kind. It contains no notification code and no push service.
Sharing
Gameplay events and purchase events are sent to servers PlayBrain operates. They are not sold, and they are not shared with anyone for advertising. They are shared only with infrastructure providers acting for PlayBrain, with Google Play for the purchase itself, with RevenueCat so that a purchase can be restored, and, for an advert, with Google.
Deleting your data
Email [email protected] with a request to delete, and say that it is for Word Crossword: Connect Puzzle. Since the only thing we hold is a random identifier we cannot connect to a person, give us that identifier if you can and we will delete its records, or, if you cannot, we will confirm what we hold. Uninstalling the App stops all collection immediately. A deletion request covers the purchase records as well as the gameplay events.
Children
The game is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect anything from them. If you believe a child has provided personal information, contact us and we will address it, though note the App has no mechanism to receive personal information in the first place.
Changes
If the App's data practices change, for example if a different ad format or another analytics tool is ever added, this page is updated before that version ships, and the date above changes with it.