Terms of Service

Effective 14 September 2026 · Articles version 2

This is not legal advice. It is an honest, specific description of what the game actually does, written from the database schema rather than from a template.

1. Who you are agreeing with

Broadside: Blackpowder & Iron is operated by Brad Gehrke, an individual developer. Contact: support@broadside.au

2. You must be 16 or over

By signing the Articles you confirm you are at least 16 years of age, and old enough to enter a binding agreement where you live. If you are under the age of majority where you live, you confirm a parent or guardian has read these terms and agreed to them on your behalf.

If you are not 16, you may not play, and the account will be deleted if we learn of it.

3. What you get, and what stays ours

A personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to install and play the game on devices you own or control, for your own non-commercial enjoyment. We keep every other right.

The game and everything in it — the code, the art, the ships, the names, the text, the audio, the "Iron and Paper" design — are owned by us or our licensors and protected by intellectual-property law. Nothing here transfers any ownership to you.

4. What you may not do

• Reverse-engineer, decompile or modify the game, except where the law expressly permits it.
• Cheat: a modified client, intercepted or forged network traffic, automated play, a second account kept to feed the first, or working a fault instead of reporting it.
• Buy, sell or trade accounts or in-game items for real money outside the game.
• Choose a captain's or ship's name that is abusive, hateful, impersonating, or that pretends to be us. Names are filtered, and a name that gets through the filter can still be changed by us.
• Disrupt our servers, or interfere with other players' use of the game.

If you do, the account can be suspended or removed, and in-game items are not refunded.

5. Names you choose, and other content

You are responsible for the names you type and anything else you submit, and they must be lawful and must not infringe anyone's rights. Because your captain's name and your ship's name are shown to other players, you grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to store and display them inside the game for that purpose. We may remove or change content that breaches these terms.

6. If you think something here infringes your rights

Write to support@broadside.au with enough detail to identify the content and the right you hold, and we will review it and, where appropriate, remove or disable it.

7. Your account

Your account is a revocable licence to reach the game. It is not your property and it remains ours. You are responsible for what happens on it and for keeping your sign-in secure. We may restrict, suspend or end an account where it breaches these terms or harms other players or the game.

8. Your ship can be raided while you are offline, and that is the game

Other captains hunt each other. When you are attacked, you are never actually present — they fight an immutable snapshot of your ship. What this means for you:

• Only construction resources can be taken. Progression currencies, ships, crew, officers and fittings can never be stolen. This is a design rule, not a setting.
• Losing a fight never costs you your ship, and you are not pursued again the same day by the same captain.
• Logging off is never punished. A disconnect does not void a match and never counts as a loss.

9. In-game currencies and items

Gold Doubloons, Pieces of Eight, materials, ships, guns, crew and everything else in the game are a limited licence to use them inside the game. They are not money, not property, and have no value outside the game. They cannot be cashed out, transferred between accounts, or inherited.

10. Paying real money

• Real money buys Gold Doubloons and nothing else. Nothing in this game is cash-only — everything purchasable is purchasable with in-game currency.
• Payment is handled entirely by Google Play, which is the merchant for the sale under its own terms. We never collect your card details.
• Because Doubloons are delivered immediately, purchases are generally final, except where Google's refund policy provides otherwise and where you have rights that cannot be excluded — see §14. Refund requests go through Google Play; write to the address in §1 as well and we will help rather than hide behind them.
• Crates contain random items and the odds are published in the game before you buy. If you do not want to gamble, do not buy a crate — everything in them is obtainable by playing.
• Prices and contents can change. A change never takes away something already granted.

11. Your data, and where it lives

We collect and process limited personal information — your sign-in, your captain and your game record — as described in the Privacy Policy. Our servers are in the United States, so your information is stored and handled overseas. By playing you consent to that overseas handling.

12. We may change the game

Balance will change. Numbers will be retuned, and content will be added and occasionally removed. That is what a live game is. Where a change takes something away that you paid real money for, we will say so plainly and make it right.

13. Interruptions

This is a game run by one person on modest infrastructure. It will sometimes be down for maintenance, and it can go down unexpectedly. We take daily backups and test that they restore, but no backup is a guarantee, and an account lost to a catastrophic failure may not be recoverable. Stated here rather than buried, because it is true.

14. Australian Consumer Law — and it outranks the disclaimer and the liability limit

Nothing in these terms excludes, restricts or modifies any consumer guarantee, right or remedy you have under the Australian Consumer Law (Schedule 2 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth)) or under any other law that cannot lawfully be excluded.

Where our services come with guarantees that cannot be excluded, and where the law allows us to limit our liability for a failure to meet one, our liability is limited — at our option — to re-supplying the service or paying the cost of having it re-supplied.

15. Indemnity

To the extent the law permits, you agree to reimburse us for reasonable losses arising from your breach of these terms, your misuse of the game, or your infringement of somebody else's rights.

16. Ending it

You can delete your account from inside the game at any time (see the Privacy Policy §6). We may restrict, suspend or end your access where you breach §4, or where it is reasonably necessary to protect the game or other players. If we end your access without cause and you hold Doubloons you paid for and have not spent, we will refund the unused portion to the extent the law requires.

If the game shuts down permanently we will give as much notice as we can, and we will not sell currency in the run-up to it.

What survives. Clauses that by their nature should outlast the account — ownership (§3), in-game items (§9), infringement complaints (§6), the Australian Consumer Law clause (§14), indemnity (§15), the disclaimer and liability limits (§17), and governing law (§18) — survive termination.

17. No warranty, and the limit of liability

Subject to §14, and to the maximum extent the law where you live allows: the game is provided as is and as available, without warranties of any kind, including fitness for a particular purpose, uninterrupted availability, or freedom from bugs or data loss.

Again subject to §14, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, for lost in-game items or progress, or for any amount beyond what you actually paid in the twelve months before the claim.

18. Disputes and law

These terms are governed by the laws of Queensland, Australia, and we each submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of its courts — without removing any protection your own consumer law gives you.

Before anything formal, write to support@broadside.au. We will both try to settle it that way first, and almost everything is settled that way. Nothing here limits your right to complain to a consumer-protection regulator.

19. Changes to these terms

If these terms change in any way that matters, the Articles version in the game is raised and you are asked to sign again. What you signed, and when, is recorded. Continuing to play after signing is your agreement to the version you signed.

20. General

If any clause turns out to be unenforceable, the rest stays in effect. These terms, together with the Privacy Policy and the app store's own terms, are the whole agreement between us about the game. If we do not enforce a right straight away, we have not given it up.