One Small Fact privacy policy
PastForward Games, an LTC Labs company · Effective 4 October 2026 · Back to the game
The short version
One Small Fact has no ads, no analytics and no trackers, and you never need an account to play. The game itself sends nothing anywhere. Your progress stays on your device. It only leaves your device if you play at pastforward.games and choose to sign in there; then the website keeps a copy for you and can put your scores on its leaderboards (see below). The website's own policy: pastforward.games/privacy.
What stays on your device
The game keeps these keys in your browser's (or the app's) local storage:
| Key | What it holds |
|---|---|
onesmallfact-save-v1 | Your points, rank, day streak, Daily Five results (the last 120 days), Mission Map stars, Fact Cards, review deck, badges, Hotter Than Venus bests and whether you've seen the tutorial. |
onesmallfact-save-v1-prev | The previous copy of the save, kept only so a broken save can be recovered. Never synced. |
onesmallfact-prefs-v1 | Settings for this device only: whether Glim's voice and Voice answers are on. Never synced. |
onesmallfact-voice-v1 (browser cache) | Only if you turn on Voice answers: the downloaded speech model. No recordings. |
Clearing this site's data, or uninstalling the app, deletes them.
Optional sign-in on pastforward.games
If you play at pastforward.games and you are signed in to a PastForward account, the website's own scripts (served by pastforward.games, not by the game) do two things:
- Sync: they keep a copy of
onesmallfact-save-v1in your account, so your progress follows you between browsers. - Leaderboards: when you finish a Daily Five or a Hotter Than Venus run, your score, the date (your local date) and a few numbers about the round (how many right, how many solo) are posted to the site's boards. Your total points may be posted too. Whether your name shows on a board is your choice in your account settings.
Nothing is copied or posted if you are not signed in, and the game never does this when it runs anywhere other than pastforward.games (for example, an app build or a local copy). The PastForward privacy policy covers your account and that copy, and you can delete it there at any time.
Links to sources
Every answer links to the page its fact came from (NASA, the Smithsonian and others). Those links only open if you tap them, and then that website's own policy applies.
Sharing
If you tap Share, your device's share sheet opens (or the result is copied to your clipboard) with a short text such as your squares and score. You choose where it goes.
Sound
Glim's voice is off until you turn it on. It plays sounds and recordings that ship with the game.
Voice answers (optional, off by default)
You can choose to say your answers instead of tapping. Nothing about it is turned on unless you switch it on in Settings and agree.
- On your device only. Speech is turned into text by a small speech model (Whisper tiny, English) that runs inside your browser. The game does not use your browser's or operating system's online speech service, and no audio or text is sent to us or to anyone else.
- The microphone is used only while you hold the "Say it" button (or hold Space, or between two taps). It is closed when you let go. The recording is kept in memory just long enough to turn it into text, then thrown away. Nothing you say is stored or sent, and what was heard is only used to pick your answer.
- The download. The first time, the game downloads the speech model and the code that runs it (about 67 MB) from pastforward.games, the same place as the game. Your browser keeps it in a cache named
onesmallfact-voice-v1so it isn't downloaded again. Settings → "Turn off and delete the speech model" removes it; so does clearing this site's data. - Your browser will ask for permission to use the microphone. You can withdraw it at any time in your browser's site settings. Tapping always works.
Children and schools
The game collects nothing from anyone, including children, and works fully without an account. An optional PastForward account is covered by the PastForward privacy policy.
Glim
Glim appears courtesy of the Cast roster (LTC Labs).
Changes
If this ever changes, this page will be updated before the change ships.
Contact
Questions: pastforward.games