PhantomBrain · Legal

Terms of Service

Version 2 · Effective 20 October 2026

Read these together with the PhantomBrain Privacy Policy.

These Terms of Service (the “Terms”) are the agreement between you and Gentle Bits SRL (“GentleBits”, “we”, “us”) for PhantomBrain: the PhantomBrain apps for iPhone and Android, their games Phantom Grid, Phantom Stack and Phantom Math, and the online service behind them (together, “PhantomBrain”). They are also the end-user licence agreement (EULA) for the apps.

You accept these Terms when you create a PhantomBrain account, or when the app asks you to accept this version. If you don’t agree with them, please don’t create an account or use PhantomBrain.

1. Who we are

PhantomBrain is published by Gentle Bits SRL, a limited liability company registered in Romania:

• Registered office: Str. Vulturilor nr. 4, 300144 Timișoara, Timiș County, Romania
• Trade Register number: J35/173/2017 (EUID ROONRC.J35/173/2017)
• Sole registration code (CUI): 36950672; VAT number: RO36950672
• Email: contact@gentlebits.net

Send any questions, complaints or claims about PhantomBrain to that email address or to our registered office.

2. Who can use PhantomBrain

• You must be at least 13 years old to create an account.
• If you’re under 18, or under the age of majority where you live, a parent or legal guardian must read and accept these Terms for you. They are responsible for your use of PhantomBrain, including any purchases.
• An account is for one person. Don’t share, sell or transfer your account, and don’t use someone else’s.

You make this agreement in the app: you sign in with Apple or Google, choose your username and name (you can correct them on that screen before you continue), and confirm. We keep a record of the version you accepted, and we’ll send you a copy of it if you ask. We don’t subscribe to any code of conduct. PhantomBrain needs an iPhone with iOS 17 or later, or an Android phone with Android 12 or later, and an internet connection.

3. Your account

3.1 Signing in

You sign in with your Apple Account (Sign in with Apple) or your Google account; PhantomBrain has no passwords of its own. The Android app offers Google only, so an account you created with Sign in with Apple can be used on iPhone only. Keep your Apple Account, your Google account and your devices secure. Tell us straight away if you think someone else is using your PhantomBrain account.

3.2 Your username

You choose a username when you create your account: 3 to 16 lowercase letters, digits or underscores. Your username is permanent: you can’t change it later. Every PhantomBrain player can see it: it’s how players find, challenge and play you. It becomes available to others again when you delete your account.

3.3 Your name

Your name (2 to 32 characters) is shown only to you and to your friends; every other player sees your username. If you are a partner (section 3.5), your name is also shown next to your username in the app’s partner search, which anyone can use. You can change your name at any time in the app.

3.4 Rules for names

Your username and name must not:

• impersonate another person, another player, a brand, or GentleBits;
• be offensive, hateful, harassing, sexually explicit or discriminatory;
• infringe anyone else’s rights, such as a trademark;
• contain personal information about someone else, such as contact details;
• advertise anything.

If your name breaks these rules, we may replace it. A username can’t be changed, so if yours breaks them we may close your account. See section 7.

3.5 Crediting a partner

Partners are people, such as creators, whom we pay for the players they bring to PhantomBrain. If a partner sent you, you can credit them in the app, when you create your account or later from the Account tab.

• You can credit one partner per account, once. Once saved, the credit can’t be changed or removed.
• Crediting a partner costs you nothing and changes nothing in your games or your Premium.
• The partner sees your username and some information about your Premium subscription on their partner page. Our Privacy Policy explains what.

Partners join by invitation from us, on terms we agree with each of them.

4. The games

4.1 How matches work

PhantomBrain has three games: Phantom Grid, Phantom Stack and Phantom Math. You play them in three ways:

• Live matches, against another player at the same time.
• Async matches, against a recording of another player’s earlier game, played back as you go.
• Solo games, when matchmaking gives you a game of your own instead of an opponent: when none is available, and now and then at random. The rating result of a ranked solo game is settled later, by the next players who play against its recording (currently five).

Ranked matches count toward your rating; casual matches don’t. Each game’s rules and scoring are explained in the app.

4.2 Your games are replayed to other players

By playing, you agree that your finished games may be served to other players as their async opponents, shown with your username, initials, rating and whether you have Premium. We only use games played through to their end, as each game’s rules define. When someone plays a recording of your game, only their rating changes, except for your ranked solo games, whose result is settled this way. When you delete your account, your games are no longer served to anyone. Our Privacy Policy explains what other players see.

4.3 Ratings, levels and standings

Each game has its own ratings, calculated from your ranked results: one for Phantom Grid, one for Phantom Math, and one per level for Phantom Stack. New ratings start at 1200 and are provisional for your first 5 ranked games. Ratings, levels and standings measure play within PhantomBrain only and have no monetary value. We may recalculate or reset them when we fix an error, when we change the rules or the rating system (we will explain such changes in the app), or when results were obtained by breaking these Terms.

4.4 No pause, and your connection

There is no pause in any game: the clock keeps running while you are away, even if you close the app.

• In a live match, leaving or losing your connection for longer than the app allows loses you the match by forfeit in Phantom Grid and Phantom Math, or locks your Phantom Stack game at its score, after which the match goes on against that score.
• A game you leave unfinished is scored as it stands, which can mean no points.
• If the result of an async or solo game hasn’t reached our servers 24 hours after the game started, for example because your phone stayed offline, the game is recorded as abandoned: a ranked async game counts as a loss, and a solo game counts for nothing.
• If our servers stop unexpectedly during a live match, the match is void and no rating changes. When we restart them on purpose, the app warns you in advance.

Results lost to your own connection, device or choices stand. If a match goes wrong because of a fault on our side, tell us and we will look into it.

4.5 Results are decided by our servers

Our servers calculate every score from what the app submits. Their result is the one that counts, unless it was caused by an error on our side.

4.6 The daily limit

Without Premium, you can lose 3 games a day, across Phantom Grid, Phantom Stack and Phantom Math together. A Grid or Math match is one game, and so is a Stack game.

• What counts is a loss in a live or async match, ranked or casual. That includes losing by forfeit, resigning, an async game abandoned as section 4.4 describes, and losing while settling another player’s solo game.
• What never counts: wins, draws, void or cancelled matches, your solo games, and any loss in a free match. A match is free when the player who started it had Premium at that moment: a challenge they sent, or a rematch they asked for. Matches found by searching are never free.
• The day resets at midnight in your account’s time zone. When you have no losses left, you can’t start a match that isn’t free until then.

We may change the number of losses a day; the app always shows how many you have left.

4.7 Friends, challenges and blocking

You can send and accept friend requests, remove friends and challenge other players. By default only friends can challenge you; you can allow challenges from anyone in Settings. If you connect Game Center on iPhone, or Play Games on Android where the app offers it, your friends there who also play PhantomBrain, and have connected it, become your PhantomBrain friends automatically; a friend you remove isn’t added back. You can also block any player (section 7.1).

4.8 Availability, updates and changes

We work to keep PhantomBrain running well, but we can’t promise it will always be available or free of errors. We may need to stop it for maintenance; when we can, the app warns you in advance. We may require you to update the app: older versions can stop working with our servers. We may change, add or remove games, levels, features and content to improve PhantomBrain, keep it secure or comply with the law. If a change affects Premium, section 5.8 applies.

4.9 PhantomBrain is a game

PhantomBrain is entertainment. It is not a medical device or treatment, and we make no claim that playing it improves your memory, intelligence or cognitive health. The quotes shown in the app are there for inspiration, not as advice.

5. Premium

5.1 What Premium includes

Premium is an optional subscription, monthly or yearly. While it is active:

• you have no daily limit, in any game;
• matches you start are free: a loss in a challenge you send, or in a rematch you ask for, doesn’t count toward anyone’s daily limit, yours or your opponent’s;
• other players can see that you have Premium.

Premium belongs to your PhantomBrain account. It covers every game and works wherever you sign in to that account, on iPhone and on Android. You manage it in the store you bought it from.

5.2 Buying Premium

You buy Premium in the app through Apple’s App Store or through Google Play. The store takes your payment and charges it to your Apple Account or your Google account, and it shows you the price, in your currency and including any taxes, before you confirm. The store’s own terms also apply to your purchase: Apple’s Media Services Terms and Conditions or the Google Play Terms of Service.

5.3 Automatic renewal and cancelling

Premium renews automatically at the end of each period (a month or a year), at the then-current price, until you cancel it.

• App Store. Your Apple Account is charged when you confirm the purchase, and for each renewal within the 24 hours before the current period ends. Turn off automatic renewal at least 24 hours before the period ends to stop the next one. Manage or cancel your subscription in your iPhone’s Settings › [your name] › Subscriptions, or through the “manage in App Store” link the app shows while Premium is active.
• Google Play. Your Google account is charged when you confirm the purchase, and again at the start of each new period. Cancel before the renewal date to stop the next one. Manage or cancel your subscription in the Google Play app (Profile › Payments & subscriptions › Subscriptions), or through the “manage in Google Play” link the app shows while Premium is active.

If you cancel, Premium stays active until the end of the period you have paid for and then doesn’t renew. If you switch between monthly and yearly, the store explains how the change is billed.

Deleting the app or your PhantomBrain account doesn’t cancel your subscription. Cancel it in the store you bought it from.

5.4 Refunds and your right of withdrawal

Because the store takes your payment, refunds go through the store, under its policies:

• App Store: request a refund from Apple at reportaproblem.apple.com.
• Google Play: follow Google Play’s refund policies, or write to us: we can refund a Google Play purchase ourselves.

If you live in the European Union or the United Kingdom, the store’s terms explain the right to withdraw from a purchase within 14 days and how to use it. None of this limits your legal rights as a consumer. If Premium doesn’t work as described, write to us: we will try to fix it and support your refund request. When a payment is refunded, the Premium it paid for ends.

5.5 Price changes

We may change Premium’s price. The store tells you about a change before it applies to you, and asks for your consent where the law or the store’s rules require it. If you don’t agree to a new price, you can cancel before it applies.

5.6 Payment problems

If a renewal payment fails, the store may keep trying for a time, and Premium may stay active during a short grace period. On Google Play, the subscription can then be put on hold, without Premium, until the payment goes through. If the payment doesn’t go through, Premium ends and your account returns to the free version.

5.7 Restoring a purchase

“Restore purchases”, which the app offers wherever it sells Premium, links a subscription bought with your Apple Account or Google account to the PhantomBrain account you are signed in to. A subscription serves one PhantomBrain account at a time; if another PhantomBrain account already uses it, sign in with that account. If you delete your account while a subscription is still running, the subscription can later be linked to a new account this way.

5.8 Changes to Premium

If we change Premium in a way that has more than a minor negative effect on your use of it, we will tell you by email at least 30 days in advance. The change won’t cost you anything extra. You can then end this agreement free of charge within 30 days of the change, and you will be entitled to a refund of the unused part of your Premium period, which we will arrange through the store or pay ourselves.

6. Fair play and acceptable use

PhantomBrain only works if everyone plays fair. You must not:

• use bots, scripts, macros, automation, or any other tool that plays for you or helps you play;
• use a modified, hacked or unofficial version of the app, or read, intercept or change the data the app exchanges with our servers, for example to see a puzzle, a piece sequence or a problem before the game shows it to you;
• exploit bugs or errors; please report them to us instead;
• manipulate ratings or results, for example by playing against your own accounts, arranging results with other players, losing on purpose, or creating several accounts;
• create accounts, reinstall the app, or buy and refund Premium to earn credit for a partner;
• harass, threaten or abuse other players, including through names or repeated unwanted challenges or friend requests;
• misuse reporting or blocking, for example with reports you know to be false;
• use a name that breaks section 3.4;
• interfere with or disrupt PhantomBrain, overload it, get around its rate limits or other protections, or access it other than through the app and the links it gives you;
• scrape, harvest or collect information about other players;
• copy, modify, distribute, sell or rent the app or its content, or decompile, reverse engineer or disassemble the app, except where the law expressly allows it;
• use PhantomBrain for anything unlawful, or for any commercial purpose without our written permission.

7. If you break these Terms, and reporting

If you break these Terms, we may take steps that are proportionate to what happened. We may:

• warn you;
• remove results or matches, and recalculate or reset ratings;
• replace your name;
• close your account, for serious or repeated breaches, or for a username that breaks section 3.4. Closing an account deletes it, as our Privacy Policy describes.

A person decides on each of these steps; we don’t use automated moderation. We will tell you by email what we did and why, unless the law prevents it. If you think we got it wrong, write to us at contact@gentlebits.net and we will review the decision. If we close your account because you broke these Terms, you are not entitled to a refund of Premium, except where the law gives you one. Closing an account doesn’t cancel a store subscription; cancel it in the store you bought it from.

7.1 Reporting and blocking in the app

From a player’s card in the app you can:

• Report them, for an offensive username or name, cheating, harassment or spam, or something else, with optional details. The player isn’t told who reported them.
• Block them. You stop being friends, open challenges and friend requests between you are withdrawn, and from then on you can’t challenge, send requests to or be matched with each other, and neither of you sees the other’s online status. They aren’t told. You can unblock them in Settings.

We keep the reports sent from the app, and we may use them when we decide on the steps above. We don’t promise to review every report sent from the app, or to tell you what happened. For anything urgent, or to tell us about illegal content, write to us as section 7.2 describes.

7.2 Notices of illegal content

Anyone can tell us about a name or other content in PhantomBrain that they believe is illegal, or that breaks these Terms, by writing to contact@gentlebits.net. Please include the player’s username, why you believe the content is illegal or breaks these Terms, your name and email address, and a statement that you believe in good faith that your notice is accurate and complete. We will confirm that we received it. A person reviews every notice sent this way, and we will tell you what we decided and how you can contest it. This address is also our point of contact for users and for authorities under the EU Digital Services Act; you can write to us in English or Romanian.

8. Intellectual property and your licence

8.1 What belongs to us

PhantomBrain belongs to us or our licensors and is protected by intellectual property laws. That includes the apps, their software, the games and their rules, puzzles, piece sequences, problems and levels, and their designs, text, graphics and sounds. “PhantomBrain”, “Phantom Grid”, “Phantom Stack” and “Phantom Math” are our names for our products. These Terms don’t give you any right to them beyond the licence below.

8.2 Your licence to use the app

Subject to these Terms, we give you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable and revocable licence to download and use the app for your own non-commercial use:

• the iPhone app on any Apple-branded product that you own or control, as permitted by the Usage Rules in Apple’s Media Services Terms and Conditions. Those rules also let other accounts linked to the purchaser use the app, through Family Sharing or volume purchasing;
• the Android app on any Android device that you own or control, as the Google Play Terms of Service permit.

The licence ends when this agreement ends.

8.3 Your game records

When you play, you create game records: your moves and answers, their timing and your results. You give us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to store, use, analyse and show these records to run PhantomBrain. That includes replaying them to other players as async opponents, calculating ratings and standings, measuring how difficult our puzzles and problems are, and showing them in other players’ match histories. The licence lasts as long as we operate PhantomBrain. What happens to your records when you delete your account is described in our Privacy Policy.

8.4 Feedback

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

9. Services from other companies

PhantomBrain relies on services from other companies that you use under their own terms:

• from Apple: Sign in with Apple, Game Center, the Apple Push Notification service and the App Store;
• from Google: Sign in with Google, Firebase Cloud Messaging (which delivers notifications on Android), Google Play and its billing, and Play Games where the app offers it.

You must comply with the terms that apply to them, and to your mobile data or internet service, when you use PhantomBrain. We are not responsible for those services. If they are unavailable, parts of PhantomBrain may not work.

10. Ending this agreement

• You can stop using PhantomBrain at any time, and delete your account in the app (Account › Delete account) or on our web page api.phantombrain.app/account-deletion. Deletion can’t be undone. Our Privacy Policy explains what happens to your data. Remember to cancel any Premium subscription in the store you bought it from.
• If you delete the Apple Account you use with PhantomBrain, Apple tells us and we delete your PhantomBrain account. If you stop using Sign in with Apple with PhantomBrain, we sign you out on every device.
• We can end this agreement and close your account as described in section 7. We can also end it if we decide to stop offering PhantomBrain, after telling you by email at least 30 days in advance, unless an emergency or the law prevents it. If you have paid for a Premium period you can no longer use, you will be entitled to a refund of that unused part, which we will arrange through the store or pay ourselves.
• Sections that by their nature should continue after this agreement ends will continue, including sections 8.3, 8.4 and 11 to 16.

11. Your legal rights and our commitments

If you are a consumer, you have legal rights when digital content or a digital service doesn’t conform to the contract. In the European Union these come from Directive (EU) 2019/770, implemented in Romania by Government Emergency Ordinance no. 141/2021, and from the law of the country where you live. Nothing in these Terms limits those rights.

Apart from those rights and the commitments in these Terms, and as far as the law allows, we provide PhantomBrain “as is” and “as available”. We don’t promise that it will always be available or free of errors, or that matchmaking, ratings or standings will meet your expectations.

12. Our liability

• We are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breaking these Terms or failing to act with reasonable care and skill.
• We don’t exclude or limit our liability where the law doesn’t allow us to. That includes death or personal injury caused by our negligence, fraud, intentional wrongdoing or gross negligence, and your rights as a consumer.
• Otherwise, we are not responsible for:
  • loss that isn’t caused by our breach;
  • indirect loss, or loss that wasn’t foreseeable;
  • business losses, since PhantomBrain is for personal, non-commercial use;
  • loss caused by events outside our reasonable control, such as failures of the internet or of Apple’s or Google’s services, or natural disasters.

13. Additional terms for the app stores

13.1 The App Store

If you downloaded the app from Apple’s App Store, the following also applies:

1. Acknowledgement. These Terms are between you and us only, not with Apple. We, not Apple, are solely responsible for the app and its content.
2. Scope of licence. Your licence to use the app is the non-transferable licence in section 8.2, limited to Apple-branded products that you own or control and to the Usage Rules in Apple’s Media Services Terms and Conditions.
3. Maintenance and support. We are solely responsible for providing maintenance and support for the app, as described in these Terms and as required by law. You and we acknowledge that Apple has no obligation whatsoever to provide any maintenance or support for the app.
4. Warranty. We are solely responsible for any product warranties, whether express or implied by law, to the extent they are not effectively disclaimed. If the app fails to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund the purchase price of the app (if any) to you. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation whatsoever with respect to the app. Any other claims, losses, liabilities, damages, costs or expenses caused by any failure to conform to a warranty are our responsibility.
5. Product claims. We, not Apple, are responsible for addressing any claims by you or any third party relating to the app or your possession or use of it. That includes product liability claims, claims that the app fails to conform to any applicable legal or regulatory requirement, and claims under consumer protection, privacy or similar legislation.
6. Intellectual property. If a third party claims that the app, or your possession and use of it, infringes their intellectual property rights, we, not Apple, are solely responsible for investigating, defending, settling and discharging that claim.
7. Legal compliance. You represent and warrant that you are not located in a country that is subject to a U.S. Government embargo, or that has been designated by the U.S. Government as a “terrorist supporting” country, and that you are not listed on any U.S. Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
8. Developer name and address. Our name, address and contact details, for any questions, complaints or claims about the app, are in section 1.
9. Third-party terms. You must comply with applicable third-party terms when using the app, such as your mobile data service agreement.
10. Third-party beneficiary. Apple and Apple’s subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms. Once you accept them, Apple has the right (and is deemed to have accepted the right) to enforce them against you as a third-party beneficiary.

13.2 Google Play

If you downloaded the app from Google Play, the following also applies:

1. These Terms are between you and us only, not with Google. We, not Google, are responsible for the app, its content, and its maintenance and support.
2. The Google Play Terms of Service and Google Play’s policies also apply to your download of the app and to Premium bought through Google Play.
3. Your licence to use the app is the licence in section 8.2, on Android devices that you own or control.

14. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms, for example when PhantomBrain changes, when the law changes, or to make them clearer. Each version has a number and an effective date, and if you ask, we’ll send you a copy of an earlier version you accepted.

If a change matters to you, we will tell you before it takes effect, in the app and, where we can, by email, and the app will ask you to accept the new version before you carry on playing. If you don’t accept it, you can delete your account; remember to cancel any Premium subscription in the store you bought it from. Changes that don’t disadvantage you, such as corrections and clarifications, may take effect when we publish them.

15. Governing law and disputes

• Law. Romanian law governs these Terms. If you are a consumer living in another country, you also keep the protection of the mandatory rules of the law of that country.
• Talk to us first. If something goes wrong, write to contact@gentlebits.net. Most problems can be solved quickly that way.
• Courts. Disputes are decided by the competent courts of Romania. If you are a consumer living in the European Union, you can also bring a claim in the courts of the country where you live, and we can bring a claim against you only in those courts.
• Out-of-court resolution. If you are a consumer, you can also turn to an alternative dispute resolution body. In Romania, the National Authority for Consumer Protection (ANPC) provides information about it at anpc.ro/ce-este-sal. We haven’t committed to use a particular alternative dispute resolution body, but we will consider any proposal in good faith.

16. General

• These Terms are the whole agreement between you and us about PhantomBrain. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle your data, and Apple’s or Google’s terms also apply to your purchases in their stores.
• If a court finds any part of these Terms invalid, the rest stays in force.
• If we don’t enforce a right straight away, we can still enforce it later.
• We may transfer this agreement to another organisation, for example if PhantomBrain is sold. We will tell you, and your rights under these Terms won’t be reduced. You may not transfer your rights or obligations under these Terms to anyone else.
• Nobody other than you, us and, under section 13.1, Apple and its subsidiaries has any right to enforce these Terms.
• These Terms are written in English.

17. Contact us