Privacy & Terms

What creating an account collects

Signing up for the Game Shelf uses Supabase Auth and requires an email address and password. That's the only account-identifying information collected directly — there's no separate marketing mailing list, and your email is never shown to other users or made public.

What you enter into the tracker

Everything you log — your game collection, sessions, scores, reviews, wishlist, conventions attended, purchase history, friend links, and any photos you attach — is stored under your account and scoped to it by database-level access rules (Row Level Security), so other accounts can't read or write your data directly through the app.

If you turn on the public-profile option, the parts of your data that option covers (collection, stats, achievements — whatever the toggle describes at the time) become visible to anyone with your profile link, including people without an account. This is opt-in and can be turned back off at any time.

BoardGameGeek data

Game details (images, descriptions, player counts, weight, mechanics, and similar) are pulled live from BoardGameGeek's public API when you search for or add a game. That lookup passes the game name/ID to BoardGameGeek through this site's own server — BoardGameGeek doesn't receive any of your personal account information as part of that.

Push notifications

If you opt in, your browser generates a push subscription (no personal identifying information beyond what your browser itself sends) that's used only to deliver notifications you've asked for — friend requests, belts, game night invites, and similar. Turning the toggle off removes the subscription.

The weekly digest email

If you opt in, a weekly summary email is sent via Resend (a transactional email provider) to the address on your account. Every digest includes an unsubscribe link that turns this off immediately.

Browsing the portfolio

The portfolio, blog, and testimonials are open to browse without an account. Booking a session collects whatever contact details the booking form asks for (name, email, date/time preferences) so the booking can actually happen — this isn't used for anything beyond fulfilling that booking.

Client galleries

Private client galleries are shared by a unique access-code link rather than requiring a login. Anyone with that link can view the gallery and mark favorites; the link itself is the access control, so don't forward it anywhere you wouldn't want the gallery seen. Favoriting photos is stored against that gallery, not against a personal profile.

Data you provide is processed by a small set of infrastructure providers needed to run the site — none of them are permitted to use it for their own marketing:

• Supabase — the database, authentication, and file storage backing both halves of the site.
• Cloudflare — hosting and the server-side routes (Workers) that proxy API calls below.
• BoardGameGeek — the source of game data (public API, no personal data sent).
• OpenStreetMap / Nominatim / Overpass — free, non-key-based geocoding and "stores near me" lookups for the Game Stores tab. A location you type in for a search is sent to these services to be geocoded; nothing else about your account goes with it.
• Resend — sends the optional weekly digest email and any account-related transactional email.
• Anthropic (Claude API) — powers the two AI features described below.

Game Night Concierge

When you ask the concierge for a recommendation, your typed request and your own collection data (game names and basic details — not your account email or other personal information) are sent to Anthropic's Claude API to generate a suggestion. This happens per search, isn't stored by this site beyond what's needed to show you the answer, and isn't used to train anything.

Piece ID

An owner-only tool that identifies a board game piece from a photo using Claude's image understanding. Not available to other accounts.

"Buy" links on game pages, reviews, the wishlist, and blog posts point to Amazon and Miniature Market through each site's affiliate program. As an Amazon Associate, and as an affiliate of Miniature Market, this site earns a commission from qualifying purchases made after clicking one of those links — at no extra cost to you. These links don't set any tracking cookie beyond what Amazon's or Miniature Market's own affiliate programs use, and clicking one is never required to use any part of the site.

This site doesn't use third-party advertising or tracking cookies. It does use your browser's local storage for things like your signed-in session, dark/light mode preference, and a handful of small UI conveniences (like remembering a filter you had selected) — all of that stays on your device and isn't shared anywhere.

You can edit or delete almost anything you've logged directly from the site. If you'd like your account and everything under it fully deleted — including anything that isn't yet exposed as a self-service delete button — reach out (see Contact below) and it'll be handled promptly.

The short version

The Game Shelf is offered free, as-is, and without warranty of any kind — it's a personal project, not a commercial product with an SLA. It can change, be interrupted, or occasionally lose data, and while every reasonable effort is made to keep it reliable and to back up what matters, that possibility is worth knowing about going in.

Acceptable use

Play nice: don't use an account to harass other users, scrape the site at a rate that degrades it for others, attempt to access another account's private data, or use the AI features for anything abusive or unrelated to board gaming. Accounts that do can be suspended or removed.

Ownership of what you enter

Whatever you log — your collection, reviews, photos, and so on — remains yours. Using the site to log it doesn't transfer any rights in that content; it's stored so the tracker can function and, where you've opted in, so it can be shown on your public profile or shared with linked friends.

This site isn't directed at children under 13, and account creation isn't intended for that age group. If you believe a child has created an account or provided personal information here, reach out and it'll be removed.

This page may be updated from time to time as features change — the "last updated" note at the top reflects the most recent revision. For anything not covered here, a data-deletion request, or just a question, reach out directly to Norman through the site.

This page is a plain-language description of how the site actually works, written by its own developer rather than a law firm — it's meant to be genuinely accurate, not a substitute for formal legal advice if you need that for your own purposes.