Cairnheim is an online colony-building game. Your colony lives on our server: the game saves it there every few seconds while you play, and the server keeps it running while you are away. This policy explains what that requires us to store, what other players can see, how long we keep it, and what you can ask of us.
We have deliberately built the game to need very little: no account, no email address, no password, no real name, no payment details, no advertising, no analytics and no tracking cookies.
The game is developed and operated by Halvard, an independent developer based in France (“we”, “us”), who is responsible for the personal data described here. Contact for any privacy question or request: cairnheim_admin@proton.me.
When you first start the game, our server creates a colony and gives your computer a random device token and a recovery code. We never store either of them in readable form: the server keeps only a one-way fingerprint (SHA-256 hash) of each. Anyone holding the token or the recovery code controls the colony, so keep the recovery code private.
On your computer, the token, the recovery code and the colony identifier are kept in a file named
identite.json in your Windows application data folder. If you play the game through Steam
and Steam Cloud is enabled, Steam synchronises this one file between your computers so that you find
your colony again after reinstalling; otherwise the file stays on that computer, and your recovery code
is what brings the colony back elsewhere.
We store the state of your game world (map, buildings, stocks, settlers, progress), a short summary of it (number of colonists and buildings, its Strike score, and whether the ending has been reached), and technical dates: when the colony was created, last saved, and last opened by your game. We also keep recent earlier versions of your world so that a bug or a mistake can be undone.
You choose a player name. It is public: it signs your messages, appears in the colony directory and when other players visit you. You cannot change it yourself once it is set. If you need it changed, write to us; we may also change a name that breaks the rules (see the Terms of Use).
logs). It stays on your computer unless you choose to send it to us.Our server sees the IP address of each connection. We use it to limit abuse (for example how many colonies can be created, or how many messages sent, from one address) and to investigate attacks. We store the last IP address that saved each colony, and delete it 30 days after your game last opened the colony. Rate-limiting counters are kept in memory only, for about a day at most. Our server logs do not record your IP address.
Your settings (sound volumes, alerts, interface preferences), the window size and position, and the log file are stored locally and are never sent to us automatically.
Cairnheim is a shared world. Every colony that has been played appears in the public colony directory (player name, summary, date of last activity) and can be visited by any player, who then sees your whole world in read-only mode. Your channel messages are public. Other players cannot see your token, recovery code, IP address, mute list, reports or bug reports.
| Use | Legal basis (EU GDPR) |
|---|---|
| Storing and running your colony, your name, versions, visits and the directory | Performance of the contract: it is the online game you bought |
| Chat, mutes, reports, moderation | Performance of the contract, and our legitimate interest in a safe community |
| IP addresses, rate limits, crash reports, bug reports | Legitimate interest in keeping the service secure and working |
| Backups | Legitimate interest in not losing players’ colonies |
| Data | Kept |
|---|---|
| Colony, player name, mute list, token and recovery-code fingerprints | As long as the colony exists, until it is deleted at your request (section 6) |
| Colony created but never saved | Deleted automatically after 7 days, with everything it left |
| Earlier versions of your world | The last 5 saves, one every 10 minutes for the last 6 hours, and one per hour for the last 72 hours |
| Channel messages | The most recent 500 messages of the whole channel; older ones are deleted |
| Reports | 180 days |
| Bug reports | 12 months; the technical details sent with them (version, window size) are removed after 90 days |
| Crash reports | 90 days |
| Last IP address of a colony | 30 days after your game last opened the colony |
| Backup copies of the whole database | 30 days at most (nightly copies on the server: 14 days) — deleted data can therefore survive in a backup for up to 30 days |
If your game has not opened your colony for 14 days, the server stops simulating it: the colony goes to sleep and waits for you. It is not deleted, and it remains visible in the directory.
There is no delete button in the game yet. To have your colony deleted, send a bug report from the game (Report a bug) saying that you want your colony deleted: the report comes from your colony itself, which shows us the request is yours. You can also write to cairnheim_admin@proton.me; we will then ask you to confirm from the game. We act on deletion requests within one month.
Deleting a colony removes from our live database: the colony and its world, its earlier versions, its identity fingerprints and player name, its channel messages, its mute list and the mutes other players placed on its name, the reports it made, and its bug and crash reports. Reports that other players made about its messages are kept for their normal 180 days, because they belong to the players who reported. Copies may remain in backups for up to 30 days.
We do not sell or rent your data, and we do not share it with advertisers.
Depending on where you live, you can ask to access your data, correct it, delete it, receive a copy of it, restrict or object to its use. Because we have no email address or account for you, we will ask you to confirm the request from the game (a bug report sent from your colony), so that nobody can make a request about a colony that is not theirs. Write to cairnheim_admin@proton.me. You can also complain to a data protection authority: in France, the CNIL (www.cnil.fr), or the authority of the country where you live.
Cairnheim includes a public chat and is not intended for children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 is playing, tell us and we will delete the colony.
Traffic to our server is encrypted (HTTPS). Tokens and recovery codes are stored only as fingerprints. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects your data, we will inform you and the authorities as the law requires.
If this policy changes in a way that matters, we will say so in the game before the change applies.
This policy is about the game. Our website, cairnheim.com, has no account, no forms and no advertising. It is hosted by Vercel Inc., which receives each visitor’s IP address in order to deliver the pages. We count visits with Vercel Web Analytics: it sets no cookies and recognises a visitor only by a code derived from the request and discarded after 24 hours, so we see anonymous totals only — pages viewed, the site you came from, country, browser and type of device.