Terms of use

Last updated 11 September 2026

Belay is a free game made by one person. There is no company behind it, no support desk, and nothing is owed to anyone. Play it if you want it; stop if you do not. By using it you agree to what follows, which is short on purpose.

What you may do

Play it, share links to it, record and stream it, and write about it — commercially or not, without asking. You do not need our permission to make a video of a game you played.

What you may not do

• Submit scores you did not achieve by playing, including by automated means.
• Attempt to disrupt, overload or gain unauthorised access to the service.
• Use a display name that is offensive, impersonates someone, or contains another person's personal information.

We may remove any score or name, or block access, where these are broken. Scores are verified by replaying the run, so a score that did not happen will not be accepted in the first place.

Your content

You keep whatever rights you have in the name you choose and the runs you record. By posting a score you allow us to display it on the leaderboard and on its own shareable page, and to keep it there for as long as the board exists. You can delete it at any time, for as long as you still hold the recovery code you were given when you posted — see Privacy for what that means, and please do not post a run you would not want kept.

If you lose the recovery code

The code is the only thing connecting a posted run to you. Lose it and we cannot tell which runs are yours, so we cannot rename or delete them when you ask — and neither can anybody else who claims to be you, which is the same fact seen from the other side.

This is not a limitation we chose to impose on you, and it is not a right you are giving up here: it follows from collecting nothing about you in the first place, and Article 11 GDPR addresses exactly this situation. We would ask for an email address if we wanted to be able to find you, and we would rather not have one. Keep the code, or do not post a run you would mind keeping.

Who may use it

Anyone may play: playing collects nothing and asks for nothing. Posting a score is an agreement, and it rests on consent — which, under data protection law, a child below an age their own country sets cannot give alone. If you are under sixteen, check whether your country lets you agree to this yourself before you post.

Availability, and what is not owed to you

The game is provided as is and as available, with no warranty of any kind, express or implied. There is no service level, no uptime, no support and no obligation to fix anything, to answer anything, or to give notice before the game changes or ends.

We do not promise that any score, board, page or link stays available, and the leaderboard may be reset. Playing is your own choice, made at your own risk, and you can stop at any time — nothing here obliges you to keep playing and nothing obliges us to keep running it.

The single commitment on this site runs the other way: your data is deleted whenever you ask, while you hold the recovery code.

Your side of it

What you type as a display name is yours, and so is whatever follows from choosing it. Keeping your recovery code somewhere you will still have it is yours too — it cannot be reissued, by anyone.

Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we accept no responsibility and are not liable for any loss or damage of any kind arising from your use of the game or from it being unavailable, changed or discontinued — including lost scores, lost time and anything you cannot recover because you no longer hold your recovery code.

One carve-out has to stay, and it is there to keep the rest of this clause working: nothing here limits liability that the law does not allow anyone to limit, including for death or personal injury caused by negligence, and for fraud. A blanket disclaimer that tried to cover those is void in Austria and across the EU, and a court striking it can take the sentence above with it. This wording is what makes the disclaimer hold.

It is a game, and nothing else

Belay is entertainment. It is not advice of any kind, it is not a treatment, it is not offered as good for anybody, and no claim is made about what playing it does or does not do. Anything you decide to read into it is yours.

It is a game about falling, with movement, contrast and sound. If it makes you uncomfortable in any way — your eyes, your stomach, your head, your mood — stop playing. You are the only one who can judge that, and nothing here asks you to keep going.

What you post, and what follows from it

A display name is chosen by whoever typed it, and they are responsible for it. We do not check names before they appear and do not endorse any of them. Any score or name may be removed, and access may be blocked, at any time, without notice and without a reason being given.

If a claim is brought against us because of something you posted or because you broke these terms, you cover what that costs us, so far as the law allows.

Other people's sites

Links leaving this site — including the one to support the project — are other people's. We do not control them, do not check them, and are not responsible for anything on them or for what happens when you go there.

If part of this does not hold

If any part of these terms turns out to be unenforceable, only that part falls away and everything else stands, with the unenforceable part read down to whatever the law does allow. Not enforcing something once is not giving it up.

Changes to these terms

These terms may change. The date at the top says when they last did, and the current version is the one that applies. If a change does not suit you, stop using the game — that is always available and costs nothing.

Ownership

The code, the writing, the artwork, the sound and the map generator belong to their author and are protected by copyright from the moment they were made. These terms give you no rights in any of it beyond playing the game, and beyond what What you may do says above about recording, streaming and writing about it.

The idea is not owned, here or anywhere: copyright protects expression and not ideas, and rules of play are ideas. Anyone may build a game where a rope keeps you alive and stops you moving. What may not be copied is how this one was written.

Law and contact

These terms are governed by the law of Austria, and the courts there have jurisdiction. If you live in the EU or EEA, this does not deprive you of the protection of the mandatory consumer law of your own country. Reach us at hello@playbelay.com.