Privacy policy

Last updated 2026-08-15

Ludo Online: Multiplayer 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 explains what the app stores, which services receive data, why they receive it, and the choices available to you.

Summary

Offline match state, settings, and offline stats are stored on your device. Core solo and local gameplay does not require a game server.
Play Nearby exchanges lobby and match data directly between participating devices over Bluetooth. Nearby game state is not stored in Firebase.
Online play uses a random Firebase user ID, Realtime Database, and Cloud Functions. The current release does not require an email or password.
The free version uses Google AdMob for limited banners and an optional rewarded Lucky Six ad. There are no interstitial ads.
A one-time Remove ads purchase is verified by RevenueCat. Apple or Google processes the payment; we do not receive your card or billing details.
Firebase Analytics records basic app usage and Firebase Crashlytics receives crash diagnostics.
On iOS the app does not request App Tracking Transparency and does not read the IDFA.

Data stored on your device

The app uses platform storage such as SharedPreferences on Android and NSUserDefaults on iOS for data needed to continue your game and remember your choices. This includes:

Profile and local stats — your chosen display name and locally calculated offline or nearby results.
Saved offline match — board state required to resume a solo or local game.
Settings — language, audio, haptics, and other preferences.
Offline rewards and items — local balances used only by offline gameplay.
Purchase cache — the most recently verified Remove ads entitlement, used to avoid ad flicker while RevenueCat refreshes.
Prompt state — whether a rating or privacy prompt was previously shown or answered.

Removing the app normally removes this local data. Platform backup behavior may vary with your device and operating-system settings.

Nearby multiplayer — Bluetooth

Play Nearby connects two to four participating Android and iOS devices directly over Bluetooth Low Energy. It exchanges the ephemeral room summary, display names, join request and approval, assigned seats, fixed reactions, gameplay commands, and complete board-state snapshots needed to run and recover the match. A host device validates dice, turns, and moves; guest devices submit requests and render the host's latest state.

Nearby room and match state is not uploaded to Firebase, and Play Nearby does not require an account, internet connection, shared Wi-Fi, system Bluetooth pairing, or a PIN. Bluetooth is initialized only after you open Play Nearby and continue past the in-app explanation. Devices in radio range may see the ephemeral game advertisement; a guest's display name becomes visible to the host when that guest asks to join. The host may approve or reject the request.

A participating device records its own result in local stats. Nearby sessions are foreground-only and are not restored after the app is closed. A briefly disconnected guest may reconnect for up to 30 seconds; if the host remains unavailable, the nearby match ends.

Online multiplayer — Firebase

When you open an online surface, Firebase Authentication creates or restores a random user ID. Online rooms and matches use Firebase Realtime Database and Cloud Functions to store and validate the room code, display name, seats, dice rolls, turn order, token positions, reactions, connection status, and match outcome. This lets all players see the same state, reconnect after an interruption, and prevents a modified client from forcing legal moves or dice values.

The current release does not require an email, password, contacts list, or social profile. Your display name and fixed in-match reactions are visible to players in the same match. There is no free-text chat.

Advertising — Google AdMob

The free version is supported by two bounded ad formats:

A passive banner may be shown on the board only while you are waiting for another player's turn, and in a reserved area that does not move the board.
A passive banner may be shown on the match-results screen.
In solo play, you may explicitly choose to watch a rewarded ad for a limited Lucky Six benefit. The ad never opens without a confirmation and the benefit is not available in online or nearby play.

The app does not show interstitial ads. Google's User Messaging Platform checks whether a consent form or privacy-options entry is required before AdMob starts requesting ads. AdMob may process IP address, device or advertising identifiers permitted by your platform and consent choices, app interactions, ad impressions, ad clicks, and diagnostics. On iOS the app does not request App Tracking Transparency and does not read the IDFA.

See Google's Privacy Policy and How Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services.

Remove ads purchase — RevenueCat

The one-time Remove ads product removes passive banners and lets the limited solo Lucky Six benefit work without its rewarded ad. RevenueCat receives an anonymous app user ID, product and entitlement status, store receipt or purchase token, and basic app/platform information needed to verify and restore the purchase. Apple App Store or Google Play processes the payment. We and RevenueCat do not receive your payment card or store-account password.

Purchases can be restored through the store account that originally completed the transaction. RevenueCat's practices are described in its Privacy Policy.

Analytics and crash diagnostics — Firebase

Firebase Analytics records basic installation, launch, session, engagement, and lifecycle events so we can understand whether the app works and is retained. Firebase Crashlytics may receive stack traces, app version, OS version, device model, memory or runtime state, and a Firebase installation identifier when the app crashes. These services are not used to store your offline board state or free-text messages.

Permissions

On Android the app declares:

INTERNET and ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE for online play, ads, purchases, and Firebase services.
VIBRATE for dice and gameplay haptics.
POST_NOTIFICATIONS on Android 13 and later. If a reminder feature offers notifications, the app asks before enabling them and you may decline.
On Android 12 and later, BLUETOOTH_SCAN, BLUETOOTH_CONNECT, and BLUETOOTH_ADVERTISE for Play Nearby. Android presents these as Nearby devices access, and scan results are marked as never used to derive physical location.
On Android 8–11, legacy Bluetooth access plus ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION for BLE discovery. Those Android versions couple Bluetooth scanning to location permission; Ludo uses the scan only to find nearby game advertisements, not to determine or store your location.

On iOS, the system asks for Bluetooth access when Play Nearby first initializes Core Bluetooth. The app does not request camera, microphone, contacts, calendar, or access to files outside its own sandbox. It does not collect or store physical location.

Children

Ludo Online: Multiplayer is intended for a general audience aged 13 and up (16 in the EU/UK). It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from children. Contact us if you believe a child provided data that should be removed.

Your choices and rights

You may play offline without creating an email-based account.
You may avoid Bluetooth access entirely by not using Play Nearby, or revoke it later in system settings.
You may decline an optional rewarded ad and continue playing normally.
You may review or change available ad privacy choices from the app's Settings screen when Google requires that control.
You may decline notifications or disable them in system settings.
You may contact us to request access, correction, or deletion of data we can associate with your anonymous account or support request.

To make a privacy request, email privacy@swtlm.com. We may need information from the app, such as an anonymous identifier, to locate the relevant record.

This website

apps.swtlm.com/ludo-board-game is a static website hosted on AWS S3 and CloudFront. It 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. That is the analytics only. This privacy policy covers Ludo Online and its pages, and nothing else — every other app on apps.swtlm.com has its own policy, because every app handles different data. It loads no advertising SDK. AWS may also process ordinary CDN request data such as IP address, timestamp, requested URL, and browser metadata for delivery, reliability, and security.

Service providers

Google Firebase — anonymous authentication, online match storage and functions, analytics, and crash reporting.
Google AdMob and User Messaging Platform — advertising, consent, and privacy options.
RevenueCat — purchase verification, entitlement status, and restore handling.
Apple App Store and Google Play — app distribution and payment processing.
Amazon Web Services — static website hosting and content delivery.

Changes to this policy

We will publish material changes on this page and update the date above.

Contact

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

TLM Software Design, Inc.
27280 Haggerty Road, Ste C-6
Farmington Hills, MI 48331
USA

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