Privacy Policy

Hatchling: Grow Your Monster (iOS) · Last updated: 27 October 2026

Who we are

Hatchling is made by Ilya Moskovkin, an independent developer, who is responsible for the data described here (“we”, “us”). Questions or requests: support@phosphene.cc.

What we collect and why

• Sign-in ID. To save your creatures you sign in with Apple or Google. We keep the account ID that Apple or Google gives us so we can find your game again. With Sign in with Apple we do not ask for your name or email. Google may include your name, email address and profile picture when you sign in; we only check the sign-in and do not save them. For Apple accounts we also keep an encrypted Apple token so we can cancel Hatchling’s access when you delete your account.
• Your creatures and progress. The names you give your creatures, their pictures, the choices you made when hatching, growing and breeding them, their family history, your stardust, items and moon finds, and which creature is at home. We need these to run the game and restore it on another device.
• Anonymous play statistics. Simple events such as “an egg hatched”, “a level finished” or “a daily limit was reached”, plus the app build. They are sent with a scrambled code instead of your account, to our own analytics server. They help us understand whether the game is fun and where it is confusing.
• Connection information. Like any online service, our server sees your device’s internet (IP) address when the app connects. We use it only to deliver the connection and to stop abuse. We do not save it with your account; it may be kept briefly in standard server logs for security.
• App updates. When the app starts it asks Expo, the service we use to deliver small game updates without a new App Store version, whether a newer version of the game code is available. The request includes the app version and a random install code, and Expo sees your device's internet (IP) address. The install code is not linked to your account or creatures.
• Error and crash reports. When our server hits an unexpected error, or the app crashes, a technical report is recorded: which part failed, the error message, the app version, and for the app the device model and iOS version. Before a report is stored we remove account numbers, IP addresses, email addresses and sign-in tokens, and it never contains your creatures, pictures, screenshots or what you tapped. Reports go to Sentry, an error-monitoring service, so we can find and fix problems; the app includes Sentry's code only for this.

What we do not collect

• Your real name, email address, phone number, birthday or age.
• Location, contacts, photos from your library, camera or microphone.
• Advertising identifiers or tracking across other companies’ apps and websites.
• Any data for advertising. There are no ads, no in-app purchases and no third-party advertising or analytics tools in the app.

There is no chat and no public profile. Your creatures are private to your account, unless you choose to share a picture yourself with the iOS share sheet.

How creature pictures are made

When you hatch, grow or breed a creature, our server turns your choices into a short picture description. It sends that description, and pictures of the parent creatures when needed, to Phosphene, an image-generation service we use, which uses an OpenAI image model to draw the picture. They receive a random account number from us, never your name, email, or your Apple or Google ID. You cannot type free text into these requests.

The image service keeps request data for up to 30 days. OpenAI may keep requests for up to 30 days to check for abuse. These providers may use the data only to make the picture and keep their service safe, not for advertising. When you keep a creature, we save its picture in our own database for you.

Notifications

If you allow it, the app sets reminders on your own device (for example, when your creature is hungry or a new creature is ready). They are scheduled on the device, not sent by our server. You can turn them off at any time with the Reminders switch in the game’s Settings, or in iOS Settings.

What stays on your device

Some care progress, game settings, saved pictures for faster loading and your sign-in session are stored only on your device. Deleting the app removes them.

Where data is stored

Our game server, its database and our analytics server run on servers we rent from Hetzner in Germany. Database backups are stored with Cloudflare in the EU. The image service and OpenAI may process requests in other countries. Error reports are stored by Sentry in the United States.

How long we keep it

• Your account, creatures and progress: until you delete your account.
• Sign-in sessions: they expire after 30 days or when you sign out.
• Image requests at the image service: up to 30 days (see above).
• Error and crash reports: up to 90 days.
• Anonymous play statistics: kept to understand play over time; they are not tied to your account.
• Backups: we make daily backups to recover from failures. Backup copies are replaced on a rolling schedule, normally within about 30 days for game data and about 6 months for the analytics server. We use them only to restore the service, not to bring back deleted accounts.

Deleting your account

Open Settings → Account → Delete account and confirm. This immediately and permanently removes your account, creatures, pictures and game progress from our game server and signs you out everywhere. Then:

• We ask the image service to delete your pictures and cancel Hatchling’s access to your Apple ID. This usually happens within minutes; if Apple or the service is unreachable, we keep retrying for several days.
• For Google, we do not store a Google token. You can also remove Hatchling from your Google Account’s third-party access settings.
• We keep a few anonymous technical records with no link to you (for example, that a sign-in ID already received its starting stardust, or the cost of very recent picture requests) to prevent abuse and double charges. They cannot be used to restore your account or see your creatures.
• If you sign in again later, you start a brand-new game.

If you cannot use the app, email support@phosphene.cc. Because we do not store names or emails, tell us whether you used Apple or Google, roughly when you started playing and some of your creatures’ names, and we will help find and delete the account.

Children and parents

Hatchling is rated 9+. We do not ask for age and we built the game to collect as little as possible: no ads, no tracking, no chat and no public profiles. Signing in uses the child’s or family’s Apple or Google account, and we keep only its account ID.

Parents and guardians can delete the account in the app as described above, or email support@phosphene.cc to ask what we hold about their child or to have it deleted.

Your choices and rights

You can ask us for a copy of your data, to correct it, or to delete it by emailing support@phosphene.cc. We may ask a few questions to make sure the account is yours. We aim to reply within 30 days. Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to complain to your local data-protection authority.

Changes

If we change how we handle data, we will update this page and the date at the top.

Contact

Ilya Moskovkin · support@phosphene.cc