Effective date: September 2, 2026 · Version 1.7.1
This Privacy Policy explains how Nestling Studios LLC ("Nestling Studios," "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, and shares information when you play our games. Part A describes what is true of every game we publish. Part B describes each game individually, because our games do not all do the same things โ for example, Pocket Reef and Pocket Flock send push notifications on Android and Socklings does not. If Part B says a game does not have a feature, then that feature's data is not collected by that game.
Our games are rated for ages 13 and up and are not directed to children under 13 (see Section 8).
Nestling Studios LLC is a one-person independent game studio in Lafayette, Indiana, USA.
Privacy contact: privacypolicy@nestlingstudios.com
| Game | Platforms | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Pocket Reef | Android, iOS | Part B.1 |
| Pocket Flock | Android, iOS | Part B.2 |
| Socklings | Android, iOS | Part B.3 |
| Tsukumoji | Android | Part B.4 |
| Feathered Feeder | Android | Part B.5 |
| Hearthdeal Solitaire | Android | Part B.6 |
Games we are still prototyping with a small group of testers are not listed here; we add a game to this page before it is released through an app store.
Part A โ What is true of every Nestling Studios game
a. An anonymous account. When you first open one of our games it creates an account for you using Firebase Authentication (a Google service). This account is an internal identifier only. You are never asked for a name, email address, phone number, or password to play. Pocket Reef and Pocket Flock additionally let you choose to link a Google or Apple account so your progress can be restored on a new device โ see Part B. Hearthdeal Solitaire is the exception: it creates no account of any kind (Part B.6).
b. Your saved game, on our servers. Except Hearthdeal Solitaire, which has no server of ours and saves nothing off your device (Part B.6), each game saves your progress to our servers (Google Cloud, United States) so it is protected against a lost or reset phone and, where the game has them, so that gameplay outcomes can be verified server-side. Uninstalling a game removes only the copy on your device; the copy on our servers remains until you delete it (Section 6).
c. Information collected automatically when you play.
d. Purchase information. If you make an in-app purchase, payment is processed by Google Play or the Apple App Store, not by us. We receive the product purchased and a purchase token or receipt, which our server uses to confirm the purchase with Google or Apple and to record what you are entitled to. We never receive your payment card number.
e. Game engine. Our games are built with the Unity engine. Unity Technologies may collect basic, non-identifying device and hardware statistics when a Unity game starts; see Unity's privacy policy. We have Unity's own analytics, crash-reporting, and ad services switched off in all of our games.
What we do not collect: precise location, contacts, photos, camera or microphone data, messages, or your email address or real name (except as described for optional account linking in Part B, where the email is kept only on your device).
We use information to: run the game and save and sync your progress; validate purchases and restore them; provide the social features a game has; fix bugs and crashes; understand how the game is played so we can improve it; serve and measure advertising (Section 5); detect and prevent cheating, fraud, and abuse; and meet legal obligations.
Our games are free and supported in part by advertising through Google AdMob. Part B lists the ad formats each game uses; none of our games show banner ads, and Tsukumoji and Feathered Feeder show no ads at all and contain no advertising SDK (Parts B.4 and B.5). Hearthdeal Solitaire shows full-screen ads between hands and nowhere else, and its Part B.6 sets out exactly what the ad SDK collects. AdMob and its partners may use your advertising identifier and usage data to deliver and measure ads and act as independent controllers of that data โ see Google's privacy policy.
Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or receive a copy of your personal information, and to object to or restrict certain processing.
Deleting your account and data. Most of our games have an in-game deletion control; Part B says exactly where it is and what it erases (Tsukumoji does not have one yet โ its deletion is by email, Part B.4; Hearthdeal Solitaire does not need one, because we hold nothing about you at all and uninstalling it removes everything on our side - the separate step of resetting your advertising ID, which is for the data Google holds, is in Part B.6). For any game, you can also email privacypolicy@nestlingstudios.com from the device that plays the game and we will delete the server records tied to your anonymous account; because the account has no name or email, we may ask you for information from inside the game (for example your friend code or a screenshot of your save) to find the right record. Deletion is permanent. We may keep limited records where the law requires it or where needed to prevent fraud or abuse.
We keep your account and saved game until you delete them. Diagnostic log lines and crash reports are kept for a limited time by the services that receive them and are not linked back to a deleted account. Purchase records may be retained as long as required for accounting and for handling refunds or disputes.
Our games are intended for players 13 and older. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 (or the equivalent minimum age in your country). If you believe a child under 13 has provided us personal information, contact privacypolicy@nestlingstudios.com and we will delete it.
Our servers and service providers are in the United States. If you play from elsewhere, your information is transferred to and processed in the United States. Where required, we rely on appropriate safeguards (such as Standard Contractual Clauses) for these transfers.
All communication between our games and our servers is encrypted in transit (HTTPS). Saved games are stored in Google Cloud data centres and can only be read and written by the account that owns them. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.
We do not sell your personal information. We share information only with:
We update this page whenever a game starts or stops doing something described here, and before a new game is released. The effective date and version above change with every edit. For material changes we will also give notice inside the affected game.
Nestling Studios LLC โ privacypolicy@nestlingstudios.com ยท Lafayette, Indiana, USA
Part B โ Each game, specifically
Anonymous account (Section 3a). You may optionally link it with Sign in with Google (Android) or Sign in with Apple (iOS) to back up and restore your reef. We store the platform account identifier so the link works; the email address of the linked account is shown only on your device and is not stored on our servers. We never request your email from Apple.
Your saved game; your display name (optional) and an avatar built from one of your own fish (no photos); your invite/friend code; your friend list, blocked players, and gifts sent and received; your "show me as online" setting (off by default) and the time you last played; your push-notification token; your referral code and credits; and purchase entitlements.
Because friends can see it, when you choose or change a display name our server sends the name text only (no account, device, or gameplay information) to OpenAI's Moderation API to check it for offensive content. OpenAI states this endpoint does not store inputs or use them for training, and we keep no record of the check.
Friends, gifting, an opt-in "online" indicator, and the ability to block or report another player. There is no chat or free-text messaging; a report uses a fixed list of reasons and is recorded in our server logs with both players' account identifiers.
Local notifications (for example when eggs are ready) are scheduled on your device and involve no server. On Android, push notifications about friend requests and gifts use Firebase Cloud Messaging, and the push token is stored on our servers; the iOS version does not currently register for push notifications. Turn notifications off in your device settings at any time.
On Android, Firebase Analytics (gameplay events and app-instance identifier) and Firebase Crashlytics (crash reports with device model, OS, app version, and a short trail of recent in-game events). In the EEA/UK/Switzerland these follow your consent choice (Section 5). The iOS version does not currently include Firebase Analytics or Crashlytics.
The game sends recent app log lines together with your account identifier, device model, and OS version to our server so we can investigate problems. These go to our server logs, not to your account record, and are kept for a limited time.
Google AdMob rewarded ads you choose to watch and occasional interstitial ads; a one-time "Remove Ads" purchase disables interstitials. In-app purchases of in-game currency and items through Google Play or the App Store.
In the game: Settings โ Delete my data and confirm. This erases your saved game, profile, friend connections, gifts, presence, push token, referral records, and account identifiers from our servers and then deletes the anonymous account itself; if the process is interrupted our server finishes it automatically. Gifts you already sent that a friend has not yet opened remain in that friend's inbox. Or email us (Section 6).
Pocket Flock works the same way as Pocket Reef in every respect above โ account and optional Google/Apple linking, what is stored on our servers, display-name screening, social features, notifications, analytics and crash reporting, diagnostics, advertising and purchases, and in-game deletion โ with one addition:
To show a small "From Nestling" panel, Pocket Flock on Android checks whether specific other apps are installed: our own games (Pocket Reef, Socklings, Feathered Feeder, Tsukumoji, Pocket Hauntlings) and the Google Play Store app. It can only see these named apps, not your full app list. The result is recorded as an analytics event and in diagnostics. This check does not run on iOS.
In the game: Settings โ Delete my data, exactly as for Pocket Reef. Or email us (Section 6).
This section is also the data-deletion page for Socklings by Nestling Studios LLC on Google Play and the App Store.
Anonymous account only (Section 3a). There is no Google or Apple account linking. You are never asked for an email address, real name, phone number, contacts, photos, or location.
Your saved game, uploaded roughly every 90 seconds while you play; the puzzle seeds our server assigns you (so puzzles are fair and cannot be tampered with); a note if a save arrives with implausible changes, for cheat prevention; and, if you use Neighbors, the items in the next paragraph. Your anonymous account identifier is also used to place you consistently in a test group when we try out different tuning values.
Neighbors lets you connect with people you already know. If you use it, we store:
There is no chat, no messaging, and no free text between players of any kind โ the only words that ever pass from one player to another are a moderated display name and a note from the fixed list.
Socklings does not register for push notifications and collects no push token. It does not include Firebase Analytics or Crashlytics and does not send app log lines to our servers. Our server uses your device's network (IP) address only in memory, to limit how many requests a device can make per minute; it is never written to storage or logs.
Socklings includes the Google Mobile Ads SDK (AdMob). When ads are enabled they are rewarded ads only โ shown only when you choose to watch one; no interstitials and no banners. While ads are enabled, the SDK collects your advertising identifier, an approximate location inferred from your IP address, your interactions with ads, and diagnostic data, and shares them with Google for advertising, analytics, and fraud prevention (Section 5). Socklings does not yet have an in-game control to change a consent answer. One optional supporter pack purchase is planned; when it is available it is processed by Google Play or the App Store as described in Section 3d.
In the game: open the Shop, choose the Account tab, then Your data, and confirm. This erases from our servers your saved game, puzzle seeds, cheat-prevention notes, display name, portrait, and neighbour list; removes you from every neighbour's street; deletes any invite codes you generated that were not yet used; deletes any gift you sent that the recipient had not yet opened (it carried your name); and then deletes the anonymous account itself, so the identifier no longer exists. Your device's local copy is deleted at the same time.
Already uninstalled? Email privacypolicy@nestlingstudios.com. Because Socklings accounts have no name or email, we will ask you for details from your game (for example your display name and the neighbours you had) to locate the right record, then delete it as above.
What is kept: reports. If you reported another player, or another player reported you, that report is retained after either account is deleted. A report holds the reporter's account identifier, the reported player's account identifier, the reported player's display name at the time, and the reason โ nothing else. We keep it deliberately: a moderation record that a reported player could erase by deleting their account and signing up again would not be a moderation record. Reports are not shown to other players and are used only to keep Neighbors safe. This is the one exception to "deleting your account erases your data" in Socklings.
This section is also the data-deletion page for Tsukumoji by Nestling Studios LLC on Google Play. Tsukumoji is a Japanese-learning game and is the quietest of our games: it has no advertising of any kind and no advertising SDK, no analytics, no crash reporting, no social features, no display name, and no server of its own.
Anonymous account only (Section 3a). There is no Google or Apple account linking. You are never asked for an email address, real name, phone number, contacts, photos, or location.
One backup document per account, in Google Firestore: a copy of your saved game โ your review history (which characters you studied, when, and how it went), your settings, your local session statistics, and a cached note of whether you own the Kanji Village. It is uploaded when you leave the app and periodically while you play, and read back only to restore your progress on a new device. Only your own account can read or write it. If your device is offline, the game simply plays on without it.
One optional one-time purchase (the Kanji Village), processed by Google Play (Section 3d). Ownership comes from Google Play itself each time the game starts; we run no purchase server and receive no payment details.
Local notifications only โ at most one gentle reminder per day, scheduled on your device, never at night, and only when reviews are actually waiting. There are no push notifications and no push token.
None. Tsukumoji does not include Firebase Analytics, Crashlytics, or any advertising SDK, and it does not send app logs to us. The statistics on its Stats page are computed and kept on your device only.
To show a small "From Nestling" list in Settings, Tsukumoji on Android checks whether specific other apps are installed: our own games and the Google Play Store app. It can only see these named apps, not your full app list, and the result is used only to change a label on your screen โ it is never recorded, stored, or transmitted.
Uninstalling the game deletes everything on your device. To delete your cloud backup, email privacypolicy@nestlingstudios.com from the device that plays the game; because the account is anonymous, we may ask you for details from inside the game (for example the numbers on your Stats page) to find the right record. An in-game deletion control is planned.
This section is also the data-deletion page for Feathered Feeder by Nestling Studios LLC on Google Play. Feathered Feeder is a cozy bird-watching game with no advertising of any kind and no advertising SDK, no analytics, no crash reporting, no social features, and no display name.
Anonymous account only (Section 3a). There is no Google or Apple account linking. You are never asked for an email address, real name, phone number, contacts, photos, or location.
Your saved game, in Google Firestore: your coins, your Life List and journal (which bird species you have photographed and when), and how your feeders are set up. Feathered Feeder also differs from our other games in one structural way: to keep the game fair, which birds visit your feeders is decided on our server, not on your device, so starting a watching session and collecting its results requires a connection and creates short-lived session records tied to your anonymous account. Only your own account can read or write any of this. The yard and journal remain browsable offline.
One optional one-time purchase (the Gilded Yard, a cosmetic gold trim for your feeders), processed by Google Play (Section 3d). When you buy it, the game sends the purchase token Google Play issues โ an opaque receipt code โ to our server, which checks it with Google and then records two things against your anonymous account: that you own the Gilded Yard, and a one-way fingerprint of that receipt code so the same receipt cannot be replayed on another account. We never see your card, billing address, or any other payment details; Google Play handles all payment processing.
Local notifications only โ one notification per watching session, scheduled on your device, telling you the visit window has finished. There are no push notifications and no push token, and you can decline notification permission and simply check back on your own.
None. Feathered Feeder does not include Firebase Analytics, Crashlytics, or any advertising SDK, and it does not send app logs to us. Our server keeps routine operational logs of the requests it serves (identified only by anonymous account ID), retained briefly per Google Cloud defaults.
To show a small "From Nestling" list in Settings, Feathered Feeder on Android checks whether specific other apps are installed: our own games and the Google Play Store app. It can only see these named apps, not your full app list, and the result is used only to change a label on your screen โ it is never recorded, stored, or transmitted.
In the game, open Settings → "Delete my data" and confirm. This deletes your saved game and session records from our servers, deletes the anonymous account itself, and wipes the local save on your device, in one action. Uninstalling the game deletes everything on your device; the email route in Section 6 also works if you can no longer open the game. Deleting your data also deletes the record that you own the Gilded Yard; Google Play keeps its own record of the purchase under your Google account, which we do not control.
This section is also the data-deletion page for Hearthdeal Solitaire by Nestling Studios LLC on Google Play. Hearthdeal is a cozy Klondike solitaire game. We have no account system and no server for it, and nothing you do in the game is sent to Nestling Studios: your progress, your statistics and your settings live on your phone and nowhere else. What the game does do is show ads through Google AdMob and offer one optional purchase through Google Play, and both of those involve Google receiving data about your device. This section says exactly what that means.
Two things described in Part A do not apply to this game: there is no anonymous account (Section 3a) and no saved game on our servers (Section 3b). Nestling Studios holds no record of you in connection with Hearthdeal. The data described below is collected by Google, not by us.
Hearthdeal keeps a small amount of ordinary game state in the app's own private storage on your phone. There is no profile and no identifier anywhere in it โ it is your progress and your preferences, and nothing else:
None of this is sent anywhere, and none of it is readable by the ads or billing code. Uninstalling the game removes all of it permanently โ there is no copy on any server of ours, because we do not have one.
Hearthdeal is free and is supported by advertising through Google AdMob. It shows full-screen ads between hands only. There are no banner ads, no ads during play, no rewarded ads, and no ads on your first several hands.
To serve and measure those ads, the Google Mobile Ads SDK inside the app collects and shares with Google and its advertising partners, according to Google's own disclosure for this SDK:
Google uses this for advertising and measurement, analytics, and fraud prevention and security. It is sent over an encrypted connection. Google acts as an independent controller of this data โ see Google's privacy policy and Google's list of advertising partners. Nestling Studios receives only aggregate, non-identifying reports: how many ads were shown and what they earned.
Your choices. If you are in the EEA, the UK or Switzerland, a Google-certified consent screen appears before the first ad and asks what you agree to; you can decline, and the game plays normally either way. You can change that answer at any time from Ad choices in the game's Play menu. Everywhere in the world, Android's own settings let you delete or reset your advertising ID, or opt out of personalised ads, under Settings โ Privacy โ Ads.
Fewer ads without paying. Coins you earn by playing can be spent in the game's shop on a stretch of ad-free hands. Coins cannot be bought with money, and there is nothing in the game that gambles them: no wagers, no loot boxes, no randomised paid rewards.
Hearthdeal offers a single optional purchase โ a bundle of cosmetic card backs and table sets, bought once โ handled entirely by Google Play billing. Buying nothing changes no part of the game except which decorations you can pick.
We never see your payment details. Your card, address and billing information go to Google Play and are never handed to the app or to us. When the game starts it asks Google Play whether this account already owns the bundle, so a reinstall or a new phone restores it; that question and its answer are the whole of the exchange. We keep no purchase record on any server, because we have no server โ the app simply notes on your own device that the bundle is unlocked. Google Play sends us the ordinary aggregate sales and payout reports every developer receives.
Your purchase history is held by Google Play under Google's privacy policy; refunds and order history live in your Google Play account.
Hearthdeal creates no identifier of its own: no account ID, no install ID, no display name, and nothing that ties one session of play to another beyond the save file on your phone. The advertising ID described above is Android's, is shared with the game by the ad SDK, and is yours to reset or delete.
The app's Android build requests these permissions, all of them for the ads and billing code and none of them for gameplay: internet and network state (to fetch an ad and to notice when there is no connection), the advertising ID and the three Android Ad Services permissions (to request a personalised ad where you have allowed one), wake lock and foreground service (used by Google's SDK while an ad is loading), Play billing (to offer and restore the purchase), and one private permission that Android's own support libraries declare and that the app grants only to itself. There is no location, storage, contacts, camera, microphone or notification permission, and the game asks you for no runtime permission at all.
Hearthdeal shows a small "From Nestling Studios" panel listing our other games. Unlike Pocket Flock, Tsukumoji and Feathered Feeder, Hearthdeal does not check which apps are installed on your phone โ it lists every title unconditionally, so there is no answer for it to record or transmit. Tapping a title hands an ordinary Google Play web link to your phone, which opens it in the Play Store app or your browser; the game itself makes no connection, and we are not told that you tapped it.
Uninstall the game. That removes everything Hearthdeal keeps, and it is complete as far as we are concerned: there is no account to close and no record of you on our side to erase, because nothing about you was ever sent to us.
For the data Google holds: delete or reset your advertising ID in Android's Settings โ Privacy โ Ads, which breaks the link between your device and past ad activity; use Ad choices in the game to withdraw consent where that screen applies; and manage everything Google holds under your Google account at myaccount.google.com. Purchase records are held by Google Play and are subject to Google's own retention rules.
You are welcome to write to privacypolicy@nestlingstudios.com with any question about this game, and we will answer it โ but for Hearthdeal there is no personal data on our side for us to look up, provide, or delete on request.