Terms

The agreement

The Shattered Key is run by Animint, based in India. By signing in or playing you agree to these terms. If you don't agree, don't play.

Playing

The Shattered Key is free to play. You need a Discord account and must be at least 13. If you are under 18, you need a parent or guardian's permission. One captain per person: alternate accounts used to help a crew, to trade segments to yourself or to dodge a ban are not allowed.

Don't cheat. That covers modified clients, bots and automation, exploiting bugs, and working with other crews to rig the hunt. The server decides everything that happens at sea; we watch for play that no person could produce, and we may reset, suspend or ban captains and crews that cheat, including removing segments they gained by it.

Names must be your own invention: no real people, no brands, nothing hateful or sexual. We may rename or remove captains and crews that break this.

The vault

The first crew to own every unique segment of the key turns the lock and wins the vault. The vault is a smart contract that will be deployed when the hunt is ready. What it holds is part of the mystery, and it is not money unless we say so plainly, here and in the game. Nothing in the game, including gold, star-iron and segments, is money or can be exchanged for money through us.

The vault belongs to the winning crew, shared equally among the captains who are members of that crew at the moment its last segment is banked. That list is frozen in the victory record and its hash is anchored on-chain, so joining or leaving the crew afterwards changes nothing.

Every round's scatter is committed on-chain before the round starts and its seed is published when it ends, so anyone can check that nothing was moved. See rounds. A win gained by breaking these terms doesn't count.

Ads

Ads pay for the servers. Watching one in port can give a small, capped boost, such as fair winds for a while, but ads never buy segments or any other progress toward the key.

Paid parts

Some captain portrait parts are sold for real money, through Xsolla, to players 18 and over. They change how your captain looks and nothing else: never your ship, your chances, or the hunt for the key. A part is yours once the payment is confirmed. If a payment is refunded or reversed, the part is taken back and your captain goes back to the default for that slot.

Xsolla is the seller of record: it takes the payment, sends the receipt and handles refunds under its own refund policy, which is linked on its payment page and in the receipt. If a part you paid for didn't arrive, or you were charged by mistake, write to codehamsters.ch@gmail.com or ask in the official Discord server with the order number and we will put it right or help you get the refund. If the game closes or a part is withdrawn, parts already bought are not refunded for that reason alone, except where the law gives you that right.

The service

The game is new and changes often. We may change rules, tuning and these terms. When the terms change we update the date at the top and announce big changes in the official Discord server; playing on after a change means you accept it. We try to keep the sea running, but we can't promise it will always be available or free of bugs, and we may pause or close the game. See the privacy page for what we store about you.

What is ours and what is yours

The game, its code, art, names and text belong to Animint. You may play it and share your wanted poster and links to it. You may not copy, resell or take apart the game, or run your own servers for it. Your captain, crew, gold, segments and parts are a licence to use them inside the game, not property you can sell or transfer outside it. Names you invent stay yours, and you let us show them in the game, on leaderboards and on posters.

Leaving and bans

You can stop playing at any time and ask us to delete your captain. We may suspend or ban a captain or crew that breaks these terms. A banned captain loses its progress and its parts, and paid parts are not refunded for a ban.

Our responsibility

The game is provided as it is. As far as the law allows, Animint is not liable for lost progress, lost items, downtime, or indirect losses from playing, and our total liability to you is limited to what you paid us for parts in the twelve months before the claim. Nothing here takes away rights the law gives you that can't be waived.

Law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of India. Disputes go to the courts at Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan, India, unless the consumer law where you live says you may bring them there. Talk to us first: most problems are settled faster that way.

Contact

For questions about these terms, a purchase or a ban, write to codehamsters.ch@gmail.com or ask in the official Discord server.