Privacy policy

Last updated November 5, 2026

What Willowmere keeps about you, why, and for how long. We collect what the game needs to run and keep the town safe, and no more. We never sell your data.

Who's responsible

PixelStory Studio, a one-person studio in Ontario, Canada, runs Willowmere Online. Questions about your data go to [email protected].

What we collect

• From Google or Discord, when you sign in: your account id there, your display name, and your email address if Google or Discord tells us it's verified. We never see your password.
• Your game: your characters (names, looks, jobs, levels, progress), items, gil and gems, friends and blocks, mail, Auction House listings and sales, and a history of item, gil and gem changes (so nothing is lost or created by mistake).
• Chat: chat isn't saved to our database. The server keeps the most recent lines in memory for a short while (a few hundred lines in all, gone when the server restarts) so that a report can show what was said. When someone sends a report, up to 20 recent lines from the two players are saved with it.
• Safety: reports you send or that are made about you, gil-seller adverts stopped by the chat filter, suspensions and their evidence, and special requests (your message, and an email if you give one).
• Two-step sign-in: its secret (encrypted), your backup codes (only as scrambled hashes), and sign-in events like wrong codes (never the code itself).
• Feedback you send from the game, and in a closed beta, the email and note you sign up with.
• Your IP address: used while you're connected for security and rate limits (for example, how many tries or connections come from one address). The game keeps it in memory only and doesn't save it to its database.
• Payments: Stripe handles your payment details. We only get an order record: which pack, the amount and currency, Stripe's reference numbers and whether it was paid, refunded or disputed. We never see your card number.

Why we use it

• To run the game: sign you in, save your characters and items, deliver gems.
• To keep it fair and safe: stop cheating and gil selling, look into reports, protect accounts.
• To answer you when you write to us, and to keep records the law asks for (like payments).

We don't show ads, we don't use tracking or analytics services, and we never sell your data.

Who else is involved

We share only what each one needs to do its job: Google and Discord (signing in), Stripe (payments), our hosting provider Railway (where the game and its database run), and Cloudflare (which helps deliver the game's files). The game's page also loads its fonts from Google Fonts, which means your browser asks Google for them. Some of these companies store data outside Canada, for example in the United States. We'd also share information if the law requires it.

How long we keep it

• Your account and game data: for as long as your account exists. Deleting a character frees its name, but we keep its record for a while for support.
• Sign-in: a session lasts 30 days, unless you sign out sooner.
• Recent chat: only in memory, as above.
• Reports, suspensions and their evidence: as long as needed to keep the town safe and to handle special requests.
• Payment records: as long as tax and accounting law requires.

Cookies

Willowmere only uses cookies it needs to work. There are no advertising or tracking cookies.

• Sign-in (tt_sid): keeps you signed in, for up to 30 days.
• Sign-in step (tt_oauth): links your trip to Google or Discord back to this page, for 10 minutes.
• Two-step pending (tt_2fa): remembers you passed Google or Discord while you type your code, for 10 minutes.
• Appeal (tt_appeal): lets a suspended account see its page and send a special request, for 30 minutes.

Your settings, window layout, muted names, mods and photo album are kept in your own browser's storage. They stay on your device and aren't sent to us.

Your choices

You can ask to see the data we have about you, to correct it, or to delete your account. Write to [email protected], ideally from the email on your Google or Discord account, with your account number (it's on your Account page), so we know it's really you. When we delete an account, a few records may be kept where the law or safety needs them (like payment records, or the evidence of a suspension).

If you're not happy with how we've handled your data, please tell us. You can also contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

Children

Willowmere isn't made for children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect data from them. If you're under 13, please don't make an account. If you're a parent and think your child has signed up, write to [email protected] and we'll delete the account.

Changes

If we change this policy, we'll update the date at the top, and tell you in the game when it's a big change.