Terms of Service and End User License Agreement

1. Eligibility and your account

• You must be at least 13 to make an account (16 in the European Economic Area and the UK, unless a parent or guardian consents and accepts these terms for you).
• One account per person. Keep your password and authenticator to yourself; you are responsible for what happens on your account.
• Give accurate information and keep your email address current.
• Accounts are personal and may not be sold, shared or transferred.

2. Your license to the game and the launcher

We grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to install and use the launcher and the builds of Colony made available to your account, on devices you own or control, for your own non-commercial entertainment. The software is licensed, not sold. We and our licensors keep all rights not expressly granted.

You may not:

• Copy, redistribute, sell, rent or share the game files, builds or your access to them.
• Reverse engineer, decompile or modify the software, except where the law expressly allows it despite this term.
• Bypass access tiers, update checks, account security or any other technical protection.
• Use cheats, bots or exploits that affect other players or our services, or interfere with or overload our servers.
• Use the Services to break the law or to infringe anyone's rights.

The game includes open-source components under their own licenses; their notices are distributed with the game in THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES, and those licenses govern those components.

3. A free test program

Colony is not for sale. Access is free, by invitation, and given only so that you can test the game and tell us what you find. Taking part is voluntary, and you can stop at any time.

Test builds are unfinished software provided for testing: they may crash, lose or corrupt saves, change or remove features, behave unexpectedly, and stop working. You take part at your own risk and are responsible for backing up anything you care about. We are not obliged to release any feature, version or final game, to keep any build available, or to continue the test, and we may end it at any time without notice.

Unless we tell you otherwise for a particular build, you may share screenshots and videos of the game, including streaming and monetised videos, provided you do not imply that we endorse you and you remove content we ask you to remove.

4. Updates

The launcher keeps the game up to date and may install updates automatically. Some updates are required to keep playing or to stay on the Services.

5. Your content and feedback

You own what you create and send us: worlds, bug reports, messages, screenshots and videos. You give us a worldwide, royalty-free license to host, copy and use that content to operate, support and improve the Services. We will ask before using your content in our marketing.

If you send us ideas or feedback, we may use them without any obligation to you.

6. Conduct

Be decent to other people in our community, including on Discord. No harassment, hate speech, threats, sexual content involving minors, spam, impersonation, or sharing other people's personal information. We may remove content and restrict or end access for breaking these terms.

7. Traveler, our AI assistant

Traveler's answers are generated automatically and can be wrong. They are for help with the game only and are not professional advice of any kind.

8. Support payments

Nothing is for sale yet. Contributions through Ko-fi are voluntary support for development: they are not purchases and do not buy the game, a feature or any in-game item. Ko-fi's terms apply to those payments. If we sell anything later, the terms of that sale will be shown before you pay, and your statutory consumer rights are not affected.

9. Our intellectual property

The Services, including Colony, Lustre, the Acris launcher, their code, art, music, text and names, belong to Acris Software or its licensors and are protected by law. "Colony", "Lustre" and "Acris Software" are our names and marks; do not use them in a way that suggests we endorse you.

10. Ending this agreement

You can stop using the Services and ask us to delete your account at any time. We may suspend or end your access if you break these terms, if the law requires it, or if we stop offering the Services. When access ends, your license ends and you must uninstall the software. Sections 5, 9, 11, 12, 13 and 14 continue to apply.

11. Disclaimer

THE SERVICES ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE", WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT, TO THE FULLEST EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS. We do not promise that the Services will be uninterrupted, error-free or keep your saves.

12. Limitation of liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS, ACRIS SOFTWARE IS NOT LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST DATA, SAVES OR PROFITS, AND OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ANY CLAIM IS LIMITED TO THE GREATER OF THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM AND US$50. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law, or your mandatory rights as a consumer where you live.

13. Indemnity

If you break these terms or the law while using the Services, you agree to cover our reasonable costs of claims brought against us by others as a result, to the extent the law allows.

14. Law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas and applicable US federal law, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Disputes go to the state or federal courts in Harris County, Texas, and you and we consent to their jurisdiction. If you are a consumer in the EU or UK, you also keep the protection of the mandatory laws of your country and may bring claims in your local courts. Before bringing a claim, please contact us so we can try to resolve it.

15. General

• These terms and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between us about the Services.
• If part of these terms cannot be enforced, the rest still applies. Not enforcing a term is not a waiver of it.
• We may transfer these terms as part of a sale or merger of the company; you may not transfer them.
• You must comply with export and sanctions laws that apply to you.
• When we change these terms, we update the version and date below. If a change is material, we tell you by email or in the launcher and ask you to accept the new terms before you continue.