OUTCHARGED: what we keep about players

Outcharged is a free game in the browser. It keeps a small game save for every player, so that your callsign, your rank and your rewards are still there when you come back. And only if you say yes, it counts how you play, to find out whether the game is fun. We do both without knowing who anyone is.

[Owner: who is responsible for this data: your name, and how to reach you.]

Your game save

Every player gets one, whether or not this browser is counted (below). It holds:

A random number for the save. Our server makes it up, and your browser keeps it in this site's storage, so that the game finds your save again. Our server never stores the number itself, only a scrambled form of it that cannot be turned back. It is a different number from the one used for counting (below), and the game never combines the two or tries to match them.
Your callsign (the game makes it up, see below), your rank points and so your rank, how many matches counted and how many you won, the best rank you reached, the rank points you won this week for the board, and the rewards: the three a new rank offered, the one you picked at each rank, and what your car wears. A save from before the ranking also keeps its old points and the paint job it picked.
The day the save was first written and the day it was last used: the day only, not the time.

Nothing else: not the name you type, not your IP address, nothing about your device.

Why: so that your callsign, your rank and your rewards are still there when you come back, as in any game; and so that the "Ranks" board can show the best callsigns.

On what basis: our legitimate interest in giving players a game that remembers their progress, which is what a player expects from a game (GDPR art. 6(1)(f)). The save number in your browser's storage is needed for the save to work, and is used for nothing else, so the game does not ask for it first.

How long: until 12 months after you last played with this browser (opened the game or finished a match); then our server deletes it. A save is written only once there is something to keep: your first match that counted, or a reward. Before that, your callsign lives only in our server's memory.

How to reset it: press "Reset my progress" on the game's menu, under your rank, or the button here. Our server deletes the save straight away (its last copies leave the server's files within a day), and this browser forgets its save number; the game then gives you a new callsign at the first rank. Our server keeps only a note that this scrambled number was reset, so that no old copy can bring the save back: for 12 months, or for a week if the server had not seen that save yet (just after an update, say, or before your first match).

Checking…

Is this browser counted?

Checking…

You can change it here at any time. When you stop it, this browser forgets its counting number and our server deletes what it counted about this browser straight away. Your game save is not part of the counting: it stays, and the game works just the same either way.

What we count, while a browser is counted

A random number for counting. Our server makes up a long random number and the browser keeps it in this site's storage. It lets us tell a player who comes back from a new one. Our server never stores the number itself, only a scrambled form of it that cannot be turned back. It is not the save's number.
When: the times this browser first and last opened the game and last played, and a day-by-day log of the times it opened the game, started and finished a match, and when it left.
The kind of device: computer, phone, tablet or Chromebook. Not which one.
The time zone the browser reports, for example Europe/Prague, and how many hours it is ahead of or behind world time. It tells us roughly which country players come from, and which day it is for them.
How fast the connection is: how long a message takes to reach our server and come back.
How the game went: how many minutes were played in matches and in the test drive, and how long was spent waiting; whether a match was played and finished, and whether another one was played after it; whether the player came back to play on another day, or only opened the game; how often the connection dropped; and a few facts about the first match: did the car charge, were upgrades bought, and how did it end (won, ran out of battery, wrecked, left the game, walked away, or lost the connection).

Not your callsign, your rank or your rewards: those are in your game save, and the game never combines the save with the counting or tries to match them.

What we never keep

The name you type. The name field starts with your callsign, and you can type a name of your own instead: up to 18 characters, letters, numbers, spaces, - and _. Everyone in your match and anyone watching it sees that name while you play, and the game's public scoreboard shows it while that game runs, with two exceptions: when the name fails the game's check for rude words, and when it has letters the check cannot read (most letters of other alphabets, such as Cyrillic, Greek, Chinese or Arabic). Then they see your callsign instead, and you still see your name. Your browser remembers the name for next time. Our server does not write it down anywhere: not in your game save, not in the counting, not in its logs.
Your IP address (your internet address). Our server needs it to talk to your browser and to stop floods of requests, but it does not store it.
Your email, your home address, your exact location, or anything else from your device.
A fingerprint of your device, such as its model, its screen size or its browser version.

Where it is kept, and who sees it

The game saves and the numbers stay on our game server, which runs on Microsoft Azure in its Poland Central region (Warsaw). Nobody else gets them: no advertising networks, no trackers, no analytics companies. Only the game's author looks at the numbers, to add them up. The one exception is the "Ranks" board: it shows everyone the callsigns and ranks of the players at the top, and the rank points the week's best won (see below), and nothing else.

Why we count

To decide whether the game is worth building further: do new players start a second match, how long do they play, and do they come back another day? We only look at totals, like "40 of 100 players started a second match".

On what basis: your consent. The game asks first, counts only a browser that said yes, and you can take the yes back at any time, above.

How long we keep it

The game save: until 12 months after you last played with this browser, or until you reset it (see above).
If our server keeps no saves at the moment, a callsign and its rank last one visit: in our server's memory, never written down, forgotten 30 minutes after the visit.
The day-by-day log of the counting: 90 days, then it is deleted.
The counting record of one browser: until a year after that browser was last seen, or until it is switched off above. Then our server deletes the record straight away (its last copies are gone from the server's files within a day) and keeps only a note, for a year, that this scrambled number was switched off, so that no old copy can bring the record back. The lines already in the day-by-day log, which hold only the scrambled number and what happened in the game, stay until they are 90 days old.

Starting over, and your rights

Clearing this site's data in the browser (or playing in a private window) removes both random numbers. The game then sees a new player, with a new callsign at the first rank; the old save is deleted 12 months after it was last used, and the old counting record a year after it was last seen, because nothing links them to this browser any more.

If you think we handle this wrongly, you can complain to the Czech data protection authority, the Úřad pro ochranu osobních údajů (ÚOOÚ). [Owner: check the authority's address, and add yours for questions.]

Your callsign, your rank and your rewards

The game gives every player a callsign it makes up from two lists of friendly words, like "Swift Otter" or "Cosmic Kayak 12". Nobody types it, and it is not made from either random number or from anything about you. It is the name the other players see when you type none, when the name you typed fails the check for rude words, and when it has letters the check cannot read. After each match you drove in, you win or lose rank points, by how many cars you finished ahead of; your first five matches can only win. Rank points make your rank, from Spark I up to Storm IV.

Each rank you reach for the first time lets you pick one of three rewards for your car, like a paint job, a part, rockets, an engine sound, tracks, dust or a driver. You keep it even if your rank goes down again, and you choose what your car wears in the Garage.

All of this is kept in your game save (above), so it is still there when you come back, whether or not this browser is counted. If our server keeps no saves at the moment, you still get a callsign, a rank and rewards, but only for this visit: your browser keeps nothing of them, and our server keeps them only in its memory. You lose them when you leave the game, reload or close the page.

The "Ranks" board shows everyone, in the game and on our server's web address, the callsigns and ranks of the 50 players with the most rank points, and the callsigns, ranks and rank points won this week (since Monday, 00:00 UTC) of the 50 who won the most. Only callsigns of game saves can be on it: callsigns kept only for one visit never are. It shows nothing else: not the name you typed, not the random numbers, nothing about your browser. Resetting your progress takes your callsign off the board within two minutes.

[Owner: decide whether a player can keep a callsign off the board.]

Draft of 2 October 2026.