Privacy policy

Privacy policy

Last updated 2026-09-28

Alchemy Combine is operated by TLM Software Design, Inc., a Michigan corporation with offices at 27280 Haggerty Road, Ste C-6, Farmington Hills, MI 48331, USA ("we", "us", "our"). This policy describes what the app collects, why, where it goes, and the choices you have.

What the app stores on your device

The following values are written to platform key-value storage (SharedPreferences on Android, NSUserDefaults on iOS). None of it is transmitted to our servers — we don't operate any — the ad network, or any third party.

• Discovered elements and recipes — your entire recipe tree and which instruments you've unlocked.
• In-progress and queued production — what's currently brewing in each instrument, including a "Combine ×N" batch and its elapsed time, so it can catch up correctly the next time you open the app.
• Achievements and Gift Box / hint / boost balances — your 17 achievement states and how many daily reward-ad grants you have left.
• Display, sort, and theme preferences — including which of the 6 visual themes you've selected.

There is no account, no cloud sync we operate, and no leaderboard. On Android and iOS, your platform's own device backup (Android Auto Backup / iCloud, when enabled on your device) may include this data as part of its normal app-data backup; we have no visibility into or control over that backup once it leaves the device.

Network behavior

Gameplay is fully offline. Combining, discovery, instrument production, achievements, and the Help book all run locally. Only two external services receive traffic:

• Google AdMob — when you choose to watch a rewarded video ad for extra Gift Boxes, an ingredient hint, or a brewing speed boost. There is no banner and no interstitial ad anywhere in the app. A debug build loads Google's test ads instead of live ones, but still contacts AdMob's ad server.
• Google Firebase — Crashlytics uploads on crash; Analytics on app-launch, lifecycle events, and three gameplay milestones (below). Release builds only; a debug build sends nothing to Firebase.

If the device is offline, the game runs normally. The rewarded-ad offer simply isn't available until connectivity returns; crash reports queue locally and upload on the next connectivity window.

Android permissions

The app itself declares one permission in its Android manifest: android.permission.VIBRATE (haptic feedback on interactions). The AdMob and Firebase SDKs additionally require standard networking permissions (Internet access, network-state checks) and com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID (the Android advertising ID, used by the ads SDK) to function, merged into the final manifest by those SDKs. No camera, microphone, location, contacts, storage, calendar, or biometric permissions are requested.

Ad network — Google AdMob

Alchemy Combine's only advertising is an optional rewarded video, offered when you tap to request extra Gift Boxes, an ingredient hint, or a brewing speed boost. You always see what the ad grants before starting it, and skipping it never blocks or slows down play — there is no banner and no interstitial.

On iOS, the app does not request App Tracking Transparency and does not read the IDFA, so iOS ads are served without that identifier, and Firebase Analytics runs in its without-ad-ID configuration. On Android, the AdMob integration uses the Android advertising ID as usual for ad serving and frequency capping. On both platforms Google may infer an approximate location from your IP address to serve and measure ads and to prevent fraud; the app itself never asks for location permission. The app does not show a consent-management (UMP) prompt; whether ads are personalized is governed by Google AdMob's own defaults, your device-level ad settings, and applicable regional rules. AdMob's data practices are governed by Google's privacy policy at policies.google.com/privacy and the AdMob & AdSense privacy and terms page at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.

In-app purchases

This release of Alchemy Combine has no in-app purchase. Every element, recipe, instrument, achievement, and theme is unlocked by playing. If a purchase is introduced in a future version, this policy will be updated first and the "Last updated" date above will change.

Crash reporting and analytics — Google Firebase

Firebase Crashlytics captures stack traces, device model, OS version, app version, and a Firebase installation ID when the app crashes. Firebase Analytics records Firebase's standard automatic events (app open, session start, engagement) plus three gameplay milestones we log ourselves: an instrument being unlocked for the first time, the opened-recipe count crossing a round number, and a reward ad being watched to completion. None of these carry your recipe tree, board state, or any personally identifying information. All of this collection is limited to release builds only — a debug build's collection is switched off at the SDK level and sends nothing.

Firebase data is governed by Google's privacy policy. Default retention is up to 14 months for Analytics; Crashlytics reports can be purged on demand from the Firebase console.

Children

Alchemy Combine is intended for a general audience aged 13 and up (16 in the EU/UK). It is not listed as a children's app and is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has interacted with the app and we have collected anything we shouldn't have, contact privacy@swtlm.com and we will delete it.

Your rights and choices

Because we hold no account data or personally identifiable information on our servers, most data-subject rights — access, portability, deletion — are satisfied by uninstalling the app, which removes all on-device storage (subject to your platform's own device backup, which you control separately). Ad-personalization preferences can be managed through your device's settings (Settings › Privacy › Ads on Android; iOS Tracking is never requested by this app). For AdMob or Firebase data held by Google, see Google's privacy controls.

To exercise any rights or raise a privacy concern, email privacy@swtlm.com and we will respond within 30 days.

This website

These pages (apps.swtlm.com/alchemy-combine-game) are static and hosted on AWS S3 + CloudFront. The site uses Google Analytics to count visits — pages viewed, session count, referral source. Analytics cookies (_ga, _ga_*) are set only after you accept via the cookie banner; decline and no analytics script loads and no cookie is set. You can withdraw consent at any time by clearing this site's local storage in your browser. apps.swtlm.com is one website: this page and every app page on it share a single analytics property and a single consent choice, so accepting or declining once applies everywhere on the domain. AWS also records standard CDN access logs (IP address, timestamp, requested URL) under their default logging policy, never joined to any in-app identifier. This privacy policy covers Alchemy Combine and its pages, and nothing else — every other app on apps.swtlm.com has its own policy, because every app handles different data.

Service providers

• Google AdMob — optional rewarded-video in-app advertising.
• Google Firebase — Crashlytics + Analytics (release builds only).
• Google Analytics (GA4) — this website's visit analytics, cookie-consent gated.
• Amazon Web Services (S3 + CloudFront) — hosts this marketing page; receives standard CDN access logs that are not joined to any in-app identifier.

Changes to this policy

We will post material changes here and update the "Last updated" date above.

Contact

Privacy questions: privacy@swtlm.com. General support: info@swtlm.com.

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