Legal
Terms of service
1. Who provides this service
Backgammon Duo is made and operated by Knipsoft, a sole proprietorship registered in the Netherlands, Chamber of Commerce (KvK) number 54439108, VAT number NL001383841B13. In these terms, "we" and "us" mean Knipsoft, and "you" means the person using the app.
You can reach us at support@knipsoft.com.
2. What these terms cover
These terms cover the Backgammon Duo app on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android, and the online services behind it: the relay that carries an online game between two players and the accounts service that holds accounts, ratings, season points and friends. Those services run on servers in the European Union.
By installing or using the app you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, do not use the app. Our privacy policy explains what personal data we handle and forms part of this agreement.
3. Your account
The app creates an account for you automatically the first time you use an online feature, not when you first open it: a random identifier and a secret stored on your device. It is a guest account, created without a name or e-mail address. You may give it a display name, which is shown together with a numeric tag assigned by us, for example Robin#4821.
You may optionally link the account to Sign in with Apple or to Google. Linking lets you use the same account, membership, rating and friends on another device. Without linking a sign-in provider, you can access this account only from the device where it was created. Losing the device or deleting the app's data can mean losing access to the account.
You are responsible for what happens on your account and for keeping access to your device secure. Do not use a display name that impersonates another person, that is unlawful or that is abusive; we may change or remove such a name.
4. Fair play
Online play is meant to be two people, or a person and the app, playing a game. You agree not to cheat — including by playing ranked games with the assistance of an analysis engine, by playing another account you also control, or by arranging results with an opponent — and not to interfere with the relay, the accounts service or another player's game.
You also agree not to work around the free daily game allowance, for example by resetting device identifiers or creating accounts for that purpose. Where we find that any of this has happened, we may reset a rating or season points, withdraw access to online play, or suspend or close the account. Offline play is unaffected.
5. The Club, purchases and subscriptions
Offline play is free, and so are three online games a day, one of them ranked. The Club is optional. It lifts the online limits, opens the full post-game review instead of the three largest errors, keeps your full match history instead of your recent games alone, and enables cloud save. It changes nothing about the engine, the dice or how ratings are calculated, and nothing purchasable in the app affects the outcome of a game.
The Club is offered as a yearly auto-renewing subscription of €9.99 that begins with a free 7-day trial, and as a one-off lifetime unlock of €19.99. Prices are shown in your store in your own currency and may differ with local taxes and exchange rates.
All purchases are made through Apple or Google under their own terms, and are billed and administered by them; we are not a party to the payment. A subscription renews unless you cancel it at least 24 hours before the end of the current period, and you cancel it in your Apple Account or Google Play account, not in the app. Any unused part of a free trial ends when you buy the subscription. Refunds are handled by the store you bought from, under that store's policy. We use RevenueCat to ask the stores whether a purchase entitles your account to Club membership; no card or bank details reach us, only the receipt information and the entitlement status the store issues.
Membership follows the account, not the device. A purchase made in one store does not create an entitlement in the other.
6. Availability and changes to the service
Offline play, the engine and the post-game review work without a connection and without our servers. Online play depends on our relay and accounts service, which we provide as they are and may interrupt for maintenance, change, or discontinue. We will not make a paid Club feature materially worse for the period you have already paid for without offering you a remedy.
Seasons reset monthly by design, and a reset is not a loss of something you bought: season points are earned in play and cannot be purchased.
7. Minimum age
The app itself has no age gate and contains no chat between players. To hold an online account you must be at least 13 years old, or at least 16 if you are in a country in the European Union that sets 16 as the age at which a child may consent to information society services without a parent or guardian's consent. If you are below that age, you may use the app offline but must not create an online account.
8. Intellectual property
The app, its engine, its neural network, its artwork and its text belong to Knipsoft. You get a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use the app on devices you control, for as long as these terms are respected. You may not decompile, reverse-engineer or redistribute the app or extract its neural network, except to the extent the law expressly allows.
Games you export as .mat files are yours; do what you like with them.
GNU Backgammon is used as the benchmark the engine was measured against and as a teacher during development. No GNU Backgammon code or data ships in the app. Knipsoft is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, the GNU Backgammon project. Apple, App Store and Mac App Store are trademarks of Apple Inc.; Google Play is a trademark of Google LLC.
9. Ending the agreement
You may stop using the app at any time and delete your account from within it (Account › Delete account). Deleting the account does not cancel a subscription held by Apple or Google; cancel that in your store account. We may suspend or close an account for a serious or repeated breach of section 4, and will tell you why where we can.
10. Liability
The app is provided with the care you may reasonably expect, but not with a promise that it is free of defects or that online play is uninterrupted. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or under mandatory consumer law. Beyond that, our liability towards you is limited to the amount you paid us for the app or the Club in the twelve months before the event, and we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss.
Your statutory rights as a consumer under Dutch and European law are not affected by these terms.
11. Changes to these terms
We may change these terms, for example when a feature changes or the law does. The current version always lives at this address, with its effective date at the top. If a change materially reduces your rights, we will point it out in the app before it takes effect. Continuing to use the app after that date means you accept the new version.
12. Governing law
These terms are governed by the law of the Netherlands. Disputes are for the competent Dutch court, which does not take away your right, as a consumer, to bring a case in the courts of your own country of residence where the law gives you that right.
13. Contact
Questions about these terms, about an account, or about a suspension: support@knipsoft.com.