TERMS OF USE

• Agreement
• License
• Coins & purchases
• Game Center & fair play
• Acceptable use
• Intellectual property
• Updates & availability
• Disclaimer
• Liability
• Apple terms
• Governing law
• Contact

1. The agreement

These Terms of Use ("Terms") are a legal agreement between you and Geesoft ("we", "us") for the Merglings mobile game, including all updates, content, virtual items and related services (together, the "Game"). By downloading, installing or playing the Game you accept these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Game.

If you are under the age of majority where you live, a parent or legal guardian must review and accept these Terms on your behalf and is responsible for your use of the Game, including any purchases.

2. Your license

We grant you a personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to install and play the Game on Apple-branded devices that you own or control, for your own private, non-commercial entertainment, in accordance with these Terms and Apple's App Store terms.

You may not: copy, modify, reverse-engineer, decompile or create derivative works of the Game except where the law expressly permits; rent, lease, sell, sublicense or redistribute it; remove any copyright or trademark notice; or use the Game in any unlawful way.

3. Coins, virtual items and In-App Purchases

3.1 VIRTUAL CURRENCY

The Game uses a virtual currency called "coins". Coins are earned by playing and can optionally be bought in bundles through Apple's In-App Purchase system. Coins and anything bought with them (power-ups, skins, themes and other virtual items) are licensed to you for use inside the Game only. They are not your property, have no monetary value, cannot be exchanged for real money, goods or services, and cannot be transferred, sold or gifted to anyone else or between devices.

3.2 PURCHASES THROUGH APPLE

All purchases are made through Apple and are subject to Apple's terms and prices shown in the App Store. Prices are displayed before you confirm. Coin bundles are consumable items: once credited they are used up as you spend them and cannot be restored. Because each purchase is completed when the coins are credited to your device, purchases are final except where Apple's refund policy or applicable consumer law says otherwise. Refund requests must be made to Apple (for example at reportaproblem.apple.com). If Apple refunds a purchase, we may remove the corresponding coins or items from your balance.

3.3 CHANGES TO VIRTUAL ITEMS

We may adjust coin prices, rewards, drop rates, item effects, and the availability of skins or other items in future updates to keep the Game balanced and fun. We may also retire items. Where we do, we will try to give reasonable notice, and any coins you have already bought remain usable in the Game.

3.4 LOCAL PROGRESS

All progress, coins and items are stored only on your device. We do not operate accounts or servers and cannot recover progress that is lost through device loss, reset, reinstallation or the in-app "Reset Progress" option. See the Support page for backup advice.

4. Game Center and fair play

Leaderboards and achievements are provided through Apple's Game Center under Apple's terms. Participation is optional. To keep leaderboards meaningful you agree not to submit scores achieved through modified versions of the Game, memory or save-file editing, automation, clock manipulation, or any other exploit. We may ask Apple to remove scores that we reasonably believe were obtained unfairly.

5. Acceptable use

You agree not to: use cheats, bots, hacks or unauthorised third-party software that interacts with the Game; attempt to circumvent Apple's In-App Purchase system; exploit bugs for advantage (please report them instead); or use the Game to infringe anyone's rights or break any law. We may suspend or terminate your license if you materially breach these Terms.

6. Intellectual property

The Game, including its name, logo, monsters, characters (Eggu, Bloop, Puffle, Sprig, Zappy, Frostle, Ember, Mystic, Coralin, Stryx, Goldraco and all skin variants), artwork, animations, music, sound effects, text and code, is owned by Geesoft or its licensors and protected by copyright, trademark and other laws. Nothing in these Terms transfers any ownership to you.

The Game's core sliding-tile mechanic is based on the open-source game 2048 by Gabriele Cirulli (MIT License). The fonts Press Start 2P and VT323 are used under the SIL Open Font License. Full credits are listed on the How to Play page and in the Game's About screen.

You are welcome to make and share screenshots, videos and streams of the Game for personal, non-commercial purposes, including monetised streaming on platforms such as YouTube or Twitch, as long as you do not imply that we endorse you.

7. Updates, changes and availability

We may release updates that add, change or remove features. Some updates may be required to keep playing. We may also modify or discontinue the Game, in whole or in part, at any time. Because the Game is single-player and stored on your device, discontinuation does not remove a version already installed, but we cannot guarantee it will keep working on future versions of iOS.

We may update these Terms from time to time. The current version is always available at https://merglings.com/terms. Material changes will be reflected in a new effective date; continuing to play after a change means you accept the updated Terms.

8. Disclaimer of warranties

The Game is provided "as is" and "as available". To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement, and we do not warrant that the Game will be uninterrupted, error-free or compatible with every device. Nothing in this section limits any statutory consumer rights that cannot be excluded.

9. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Geesoft will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for loss of data, progress, coins or virtual items, arising from or related to your use of the Game. Our total liability for any claim relating to the Game is limited to the amount you paid to Apple for In-App Purchases in the Game in the twelve months before the claim. Nothing in these Terms excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded.

10. Apple-specific terms

The Game is distributed through Apple's App Store. The following applies in addition to Apple's Licensed Application End User License Agreement, which governs to the extent it conflicts with these Terms:

• These Terms are between you and Geesoft only, not Apple. Apple is not responsible for the Game or its content.
• Apple has no obligation to provide maintenance or support for the Game.
• If the Game fails to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple and Apple will refund the purchase price (if any) to you. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation.
• Geesoft, not Apple, is responsible for addressing any claims relating to the Game, including product liability, legal or regulatory compliance, and consumer protection claims.
• In the event of a third-party claim that the Game infringes intellectual property rights, Geesoft, not Apple, is responsible for its investigation, defence, settlement and discharge.
• You represent that you are not located in a country subject to a U.S. Government embargo or designated as a "terrorist supporting" country, and that you are not on any U.S. Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
• Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and may enforce them against you.

11. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the European Union member state in which Geesoft is established, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. If you are a consumer, you also benefit from any mandatory provisions of the law of the country in which you reside, and you may bring proceedings in your local courts. The European Commission's online dispute resolution platform is available at ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr.

If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions stay in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it.

12. Contact