Privacy Policy

Effective 29 September 2026

Head of State is made by [PUBLISHER NAME]. This policy explains what the game and its website, headofstategame.com, collect, why, and what you can do about it. Questions go to privacy@headofstategame.com.

The short version

• There are no accounts and the game never asks your name.
• Your saved game and settings stay in your browser.
• Play statistics are sent without cookies, and your IP address is not kept. You can turn them off in Settings.
• Bug reports and the survey are sent only when you press Send. The survey's email field is optional and only used to reply to you.
• The website has no cookies or analytics of its own. Its host, Cloudflare, sees your IP address, as any web host does.

Play statistics

What: the map, country, mode and difficulty you choose; the decisions you make in the game, such as how you answer a demand or a dispute; how long you play; your approval and legacy numbers; how far you got in the guide; game errors; and the technical details every web request carries: browser, operating system, device type, screen size, language, the page address and the site that sent you.

How: sent to PostHog, Inc., on servers in the United States. The game uses PostHog's cookieless mode, so nothing is stored in your browser. To count visits, PostHog briefly uses your IP address and browser details to make a code that changes every day. The IP address itself is not stored; at most, PostHog keeps the country and city it estimates from it.

Why: to see which parts of the game work, which confuse people, and where it breaks. In the EU and UK the legal basis is a legitimate interest in improving the game, and you can object at any time by switching statistics off.

Kept: up to one year, then deleted by PostHog.

Turning it off: Settings, Privacy, Play statistics: Off. Nothing more is sent from that moment. If your browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track, statistics start off and stay off unless you turn them on.

Before 29 September 2026 (version 0.9.13 and earlier), play statistics used a cookie, kept IP addresses and approximate location, and could record the game screen. Those recordings are deleted after 30 days and the rest after one year.

Bug reports and crash reports

What: what you type, plus a report the game adds: the build number, the time, your browser's name and version, your screen size, the match settings and the last 25 events of your game. Nothing is sent unless you press Send, and you can copy the report instead.

How and why: sent through Web3Forms (web3forms.com), a service that forwards it to the developer by email, so the problem can be fixed.

Kept: deleted once the problem is dealt with, and at the latest 12 months after it arrives.

The end-of-game survey

What: your two answers, what you type, the country and mode you played, and your email address if you choose to give it. It is sent the same way as bug reports, only when you press Send.

Your email is used only to reply to you. It is never added to a mailing list, sold or shared. The legal basis is your consent, given by typing it in; you can withdraw it by writing to privacy@headofstategame.com. Survey emails are deleted within 12 months of the reply.

What stays on your device

The game keeps your saved game, your settings, sound volumes and a few markers (whether you finished the guide or answered the survey) in your browser's local storage, because the game needs them to work. None of it is sent anywhere. Each site keeps its own copy, so a game saved on itch.io does not appear at headofstategame.com. Abandon in the game menu deletes the save; your browser's site data settings clear the rest.

The website and its host

headofstategame.com, including the game at headofstategame.com/play, is hosted by Cloudflare, Inc. When you visit, Cloudflare receives your IP address and the details every web request carries (the page asked for, the time, your browser and operating system, and the site that sent you) so it can deliver the page and protect the site from attacks. Cloudflare keeps these in its server logs for a limited time under its own privacy policy (cloudflare.com/privacypolicy). The site sets no cookies of its own and uses no Cloudflare analytics. If Cloudflare needs to check that a visitor is not a bot, it may set a short-lived security cookie for that purpose only.

Email you send to an address on headofstategame.com passes through Cloudflare, which forwards it to the developer's inbox.

Everything else

Fonts and images are built into the game and the website, so they make no other requests. If you play on itch.io, itch.io hosts the game there, and its own privacy policy covers what it collects when you visit.

Who handles the data

• PostHog, Inc. (play statistics, United States)
• Web3Forms (forwards reports and survey answers)
• Cloudflare, Inc. (hosts the website and forwards email to the developer)
• The developer's email provider, where reports, survey answers and your emails arrive

No data is sold. There is no advertising in the game. If ads are ever added, this policy will be updated first and will name the ad partners.

Children

The game is not made for children under 13 and does not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you think a child has sent an email through the survey, write to privacy@headofstategame.com and it will be deleted.

Your rights

You can ask what data about you is held, and ask for it to be corrected or deleted, by writing to privacy@headofstategame.com. Play statistics carry no name, cookie or IP address, so they usually can't be linked back to you; reports and survey answers can be found by the email or text you sent. In the EU and UK you can also complain to your data protection authority.

Where the data goes

The developer is in the United States, and the services above store data there. Cloudflare delivers pages from the data centre nearest to you, which may be outside the United States.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version will be in the game and at headofstategame.com/privacy with a new effective date.