bfs

Terms of Service

Effective date: July 5, 2026
App: BFS — a living code soup
Developer: Noble Earth Studio ("we," "us," "our")
Contact: [SUPPORT EMAIL]

By downloading, installing, or using BFS (the "App"), you agree to these Terms. If you don't agree, don't use the App.

1. The App

BFS is a self-contained simulation you run on your own device. The free version is the complete simulation — you can watch, catch, and release creatures with no restriction except a five-creature limit on your saved collection.

2. License

We grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to use BFS on devices you own or control, for your own personal entertainment. You may not redistribute, resell, reverse-engineer, or create derivative works from the App itself (the simulation engine, code, and assets), separate from your own creature collection data, which is yours as described below.

3. The Unlimited Collection unlock

BFS offers one in-app purchase, bfs.collection.unlock, currently priced at $3.99 (subject to change), which permanently removes the five-creature cap on your collection.

Who processes payment: Apple (App Store) or Google (Google Play), not us. We never receive or handle your payment details.
What you're buying: A one-time, non-consumable unlock tied to your Apple ID or Google account, restorable on any device where you're signed into that same account via the "Restore Purchase" feature.
Refunds: All refund requests go through Apple or Google, under their respective refund policies. We have no ability to issue refunds directly and no visibility into your payment method.
How the unlock works technically: Once your purchase is confirmed by the store, the App stores an unlock flag locally, on your device. There is no account system or server of ours involved in tracking your purchase — the store itself is the record of what you've bought.
A limitation worth stating plainly: because this entitlement is checked and stored on-device rather than validated against a server we run, the App has no way to detect or prevent someone from tampering with their own device's local storage to bypass the cap. We don't consider this a security promise we're making, and we're not liable for it. Using the App to circumvent your own purchase obligations is a violation of these Terms regardless of whether it's technically possible.

4. No accounts, no user content

BFS has no account system and no user-generated content shared with other users or with us. Your creature collection is data stored on your device; we have no access to it, no copy of it, and no ability to recover it if you lose your device or uninstall the App.

5. No warranty

THE APP IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE," WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT.

The simulation is a chaotic, stochastic system by design — outcomes, creature behavior, and lineage survival are not guaranteed or predictable, and that unpredictability is a feature of the App, not a defect. We do not guarantee that any particular creature will survive. They usually don't.

6. Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, NOBLE EARTH STUDIO WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR ANY LOSS OF DATA (INCLUDING YOUR CREATURE COLLECTION), ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF THE APP. OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ANY CLAIM RELATED TO THE APP WILL NOT EXCEED THE AMOUNT YOU PAID FOR THE UNLOCK, IF ANY, IN THE TWELVE MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM.

7. Intellectual property

The App, its simulation engine, name, visual design, and associated assets are the property of Noble Earth Studio. Your creature collection data is yours to keep, use, and lose as you see fit, but it exists only as data on your device and confers no rights in the underlying App or engine.

BFS is an independent work inspired by publicly available academic research (Agüera y Arcas et al., "Computational Life," arXiv:2406.19108). Noble Earth Studio makes no claim of ownership over that underlying research, and the App is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the paper's authors or their institutions.

8. Termination

We may discontinue the App or any feature of it at any time. Because there's no account or server-side data, "termination" for you simply means the App stops being updated or supported — anything already on your device remains yours to keep using, subject to normal OS compatibility.

9. Changes to these terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. Continued use of the App after an update means you accept the revised Terms. We'll update the effective date above when that happens.

10. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of [YOUR STATE], without regard to conflict-of-law principles.

11. Contact

Questions about these Terms: [SUPPORT EMAIL], or via https://discoverbfs.app.