Terms of Service

Effective Date: November 3, 2026 · Version 2026-11-03

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are an agreement between you and James Nerlinger, doing business as Deep Dark Abyss Productions ("we", "us", "our"). They apply to our apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android ("Apps"), the optional online features inside them (including DDAP Sigil), test versions of our Apps, and our website, deepdarkabyss.com.

Quick Summary

Use our Apps fairly and lawfully. Apps from the App Store are also licensed to you under Apple's Standard License Agreement, and purchases go through the App Store or Google Play. Online features are optional and follow the DDAP Sigil Rules. Our health apps do not give medical advice. Nothing in these Terms takes away rights the law gives you as a consumer. Questions: compliance@deepdarkabyss.com.

1. Agreeing to These Terms

These Terms are linked from our Apps, their store pages and our website, and the screen that offers to create a Sigil tells you that creating one means agreeing to these Terms and the DDAP Sigil Rules, with links to both; your Sigil records which version you agreed to and when. By using an App, its online features, a test version or our website, you agree to these Terms for that use. If you do not agree, please do not use them.

Our Privacy Policy explains what each App keeps and where; it is not a contract you sign, and some privacy choices (such as creating a Sigil) are made separately in the Apps. If you use online features, you also agree to the DDAP Sigil Rules, which are part of these Terms. If these documents ever disagree, the Privacy Policy controls on how we handle your data, the DDAP Sigil Rules control on conduct, gamertags and moderation in online features, and these Terms control on everything else.

2. Who We Are

James Nerlinger, doing business as Deep Dark Abyss Productions (a sole proprietorship), PO Box 58051, Cincinnati, OH 45258, United States. Phone 513-373-4649. Email compliance@deepdarkabyss.com (legal) or info@deepdarkabyss.com (everything else).

3. Our Apps and Services

We make games, educational apps, productivity tools, utilities and health and wellness apps. Every App works on your device. Some games also offer optional online features (leaderboards, Daily Challenges, friends, and progress that follows you between your devices) through DDAP Sigil, and some Apps connect to services you choose, such as your own WordPress site or your device's health store. What each App does is described on its page on our website and in its store listing.

4. Your License

Apps from the Apple App Store. Your license to use an App you get from the App Store is Apple's Licensed Application End User License Agreement (the "Standard EULA", apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula). These Terms also apply to those Apps, for everything the Standard EULA does not cover: our online features, test versions, purchases, conduct and our website. If these Terms and the Standard EULA conflict on any point, the Standard EULA controls for that App. Test versions from TestFlight are also covered by Apple's TestFlight terms.

Apps from Google Play. We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to install and use the App on devices you own or control, for its intended purpose, including in your work where the App is made for it (such as our productivity and publishing tools), subject to these Terms and Google Play's terms. We may end this license only for the reasons in section 15.

For every App, you may not:

  • Reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble it, except where the law allows it
  • Distribute, sell, lease or sublicense it
  • Use it for any illegal purpose
  • Attempt to gain unauthorized access to our servers or interfere with them
  • Remove or alter any proprietary notices

5. App Stores

You get our Apps from the Apple App Store or Google Play, and that store's terms also apply to you. The store processes payments and administers refunds; we, not the store, are responsible for the App itself and for providing support (info@deepdarkabyss.com).

6. Purchases

Most of our Apps are free. Some cost money or offer optional in-app purchases. Payments are made through the App Store or Google Play at the price shown there, and the store handles billing, taxes and its refund process. Where the law gives you rights over a purchase (for example a right to a refund or repair if something you paid for does not work), those rights still apply; you can contact the store or us. Eligible purchases can be restored on your other devices that use the same store account, through the App's restore option; purchases do not transfer between the App Store and Google Play. We may change prices for future purchases.

7. Online Features and DDAP Sigil

Online features are optional; every game plays without them. To use them you must be at least 13 years old, and older if the law where you live requires it. The DDAP Sigil Rules cover gamertags, fair play, other players, reporting, suspension and deletion. You can delete your Sigil at any time, and Sigils that go unused are deleted automatically as described in the Privacy Policy (section 11). We provide online features free of charge. If we ever retire DDAP Sigil, we will say so on our website and in the games at least 60 days ahead, and the games will keep playing offline.

8. Your Conduct

You agree not to use our Apps or online features to:

  • Harass, threaten or harm others
  • Cheat, or post results the game did not produce
  • Transmit malicious code
  • Interfere with our Apps or servers
  • Collect personal information about other users
  • Break the law

9. Test Versions

What they are. When you join our beta test, we give you test versions of our Apps through Apple's TestFlight or Google Play's testing program, whose own terms also apply. Test versions are unfinished: they may contain errors, crash, change, lose or reset your progress, and stop working when they expire. Do not rely on them for anything important.

Confidentiality. Until an App or feature is released, please do not publish or share the test build, or screenshots, recordings or descriptions of features that have not been released. This does not apply to information that is already public or that you are required by law to disclose, and it ends when the feature is released.

Feedback. You keep ownership of the bug reports and suggestions you send us. You give us a non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free license to use, change and build them into our Apps, without any obligation or payment to you. Please do not send us material you do not own, or personal information you do not want us to have.

The tester unlock. As a thank-you, a tester who sends us at least one bug report or suggestion about an App while it is in testing receives a free full unlock of that App's paid features (the App itself if it is paid, and its in-app purchases), delivered as a promo or offer code or another method the store allows. If a store limits how many codes we can give, we will say so on our beta page before you join, and codes go to qualifying testers in the order they qualify. The unlock is a license like any purchase and stays after testing ends. It never depends on leaving a review or rating.

10. Health and Wellness Apps

Our health and wellness Apps help you record and organize your own readings and share reports with people you choose. They are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, and they do not provide medical advice. Readings and reports can be incomplete, delayed, duplicated or entered incorrectly; check a report's dates, units and contents, and who it goes to, before you share it. Our Apps are not emergency monitoring or alert services. Always follow the advice of your doctor or other qualified health provider. In an emergency, call 911 or your local emergency number.

11. Other Services and Websites

Some Apps work with services we do not run, such as your own WordPress site, Apple Health or Health Connect, iCloud, or websites an App links to. Those services have their own terms and privacy policies, and we are not responsible for them.

12. Intellectual Property and Your Content

Our Apps, including their text, graphics, logos, icons, images, audio and software, belong to Deep Dark Abyss Productions, except for third-party and open-source components, which remain their owners' and are used under their own licenses (listed in each App where required). Anything you create with our Apps, such as your documents and posts, remains yours.

13. Privacy

The Privacy Policy explains what each App keeps and where, including the limited data our games' online features keep under your Sigil.

14. Updates and Changes to the Apps

We update our Apps to fix problems, keep them secure and add features. We may change or remove features. We do not remove paid features lightly: if we ever have to withdraw a feature you paid for, for example because a store, a third-party service or the law requires it, we will tell you, and any change to an App you paid for will respect the rights the law gives you. Some features may need the latest version of an App.

15. Suspension and Ending Access

We may suspend or end your access to online features if you break these Terms or the DDAP Sigil Rules, as the Rules describe. We may end your license to an App only if you materially break these Terms. You may stop using our Apps at any time by deleting them, and you may delete your Sigil from inside any game.

16. Disclaimers and Limitation of Liability

To the extent permitted by law, our Apps and online features are provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind beyond those the law requires, and we do not promise they will be uninterrupted or error-free.

To the extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for loss of profits, revenue, data, use or goodwill, resulting from your use of our Apps.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits any warranty, right or remedy that you have by law and that cannot be excluded or limited, or our liability for anything that cannot be excluded or limited by law.

17. Indemnification

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to cover the reasonable legal fees, and any damages or settlement amounts, that we incur because of a claim brought by someone else against us, to the extent the claim results from your unlawful use of our Apps, your breaking these Terms, or your infringing someone else's rights. This does not cover any claim caused by our own conduct. We will tell you about such a claim promptly. You may defend it with counsel reasonably acceptable to us, we may take part at our own cost, and neither of us will settle it in a way that makes the other liable without that person's consent.

18. Governing Law and Courts

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Ohio, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules, and disputes about them will be heard in the state or federal courts located in Hamilton County, Ohio. If you are a consumer living in the European Union, the United Kingdom or another country whose law gives you protections that cannot be waived by agreement, you keep those protections, and this section does not limit any mandatory right you have to bring a claim in another court.

19. General

If a part of these Terms is found unenforceable, it is limited or removed only as far as necessary and the rest remains in effect. Our not enforcing a provision is not a waiver of it.

20. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms. Changes apply only from their effective date, never to anything before it. When we make a material change, we will tell you on our website and, where we can, in our Apps, before it takes effect, and where the law requires it we will ask for your agreement. The previous versions remain available on request.

21. Contact