Tideglass

Scope and plain-language summary

Tideglass is a self-contained aquarium simulation and cosmic-horror observation game that runs inside its Chrome extension popup. Version 1.1.0 focuses on six individually simulated residents, visible food, direct aquarium interaction, water chemistry, fictional depth instruments, and a saved local progression state. It does not inspect the websites that are open in other tabs.

The practical privacy summary is simple: the game state stays on the device. Tideglass does not send the aquarium save, resident names, care choices, pointer interactions, instrument readings, or progress to a developer server, analytics service, advertising network, or cloud account.

The strange measurements and events in Tideglass are fictional game systems. Depth readings, sonar returns, reflection mismatches, deep-ecology values, and impossible water volume are generated by bundled code and are not measurements of the player’s physical surroundings.

Chrome permissions

The production manifest for Tideglass 1.1.0 declares an empty permissions array. The extension does not request tabs, history, activeTab, scripting, storage, notifications, geolocation, camera, microphone, downloads, bookmarks, clipboard, browsingData, or host permissions.

Tideglass does not need the chrome.storage permission because its save uses localStorage that belongs to the extension page itself. It does not request optional permissions later and it does not include a content script or a background service worker for gameplay.

The absence of host permissions is intentional. The game has no declared ability to read or alter arbitrary webpages and has no reason to know which website is visible when the popup is opened.

Information created during play

Tideglass creates local game-state information while the player cares for the aquarium. This includes simulated time, light and filter state, temperature, oxygen, pH, water level, algae, detritus, measured volume, pressure factor, progression stage, instrument unlock state, recent sonar returns, recent field-note entries, and the simulated deep-ecology values used by the narrative system.

Visible food is represented as local game entities with an identifier, normalized position inside the tank, sinking velocity, age, approximate mass, and status such as settled, eaten, or below the substrate. These values exist only to make feeding visible and to let fish behavior respond to actual pellets rather than to an invisible score.

Each resident has fictional local values including identifier, chosen display name, species, position, movement, hunger, stress, energy, boldness, curiosity, gluttony, preferred water level, current behavior, food target, simulated depth, bond value, and any depth-anomaly state. These values describe simulated animals and are not biological or sensor data from real animals.

What the player provides

The player provides ordinary game interactions. A player can click a resident, choose where food is dropped in the aquarium, choose where to tap the glass, perform a water change, toggle the light or filter, use fictional instruments after they unlock, inspect the reflection, or start a new tank.

If the player chooses Rename, Tideglass asks for a short resident name. The resulting name is stored only in the local game save and can be changed again later. Players should use an ordinary pet-style nickname rather than entering sensitive personal information because Tideglass is not designed as a secure note-taking application.

Normalized tank coordinates for recent feed and tap interactions may be retained as part of the simulation state so nearby fish can react consistently. They represent positions inside a fictional 2D aquarium canvas, not physical location, screen history, cursor tracking outside the popup, or geolocation.

Local storage and save migration

Tideglass 1.1.0 stores one JSON save record under the localStorage key tideglass-v2. The save contains the current aquarium simulation, resident records, visible food state, deep-ecology state, field notes, progression values, and a timestamp used for capped offline advancement.

When version 1.1.0 finds an older Tideglass 1.0.0 save under tideglass-v1 and no v2 save exists, the game migrates compatible values such as resident positions, hunger, stress, chemistry, existing progression, and unlocked instruments into the new behavioral model. After the new v2 save is written successfully, the old v1 key is removed so a stale duplicate is not retained unnecessarily.

The save is ordinary local game data. Tideglass does not encrypt it and does not claim that localStorage is a secure vault. The game therefore does not ask for passwords, payment information, authentication tokens, private documents, or other secrets.

Retention and deletion

The local save remains in the browser profile until the player starts a New tank, clears the extension’s stored data through browser controls, removes the extension, or the browser otherwise deletes the extension storage. Tideglass does not maintain a second server-side copy.

New tank replaces the current local progression with a fresh aquarium after a confirmation prompt. Removing the extension or clearing its site data can also remove the save. Because there is no Tideglass account and no cloud save, there is no separate online deletion request required to erase a server copy.

Field notes are deliberately capped to a small recent history and visible food entities are capped as well. These limits are gameplay and performance safeguards and also prevent unbounded accumulation of local records.

Aquarium rendering and animation

The aquarium is drawn locally with the Canvas 2D API. Plants, gravel, bubbles, resident bodies, fins, tails, food pellets, selection outlines, tap ripples, and water gradients are generated by packaged JavaScript and CSS. The extension does not request photographs, camera access, external textures, or remote art assets.

Resident movement is updated continuously while the popup is open using requestAnimationFrame and a local steering model. Mid-water fish can school and forage, bottom residents favor the substrate, and individuals can flee or investigate after a glass tap according to local personality values. No movement telemetry is sent anywhere.

The animation loop stops when the extension popup is closed because the popup page itself closes. Tideglass does not create a hidden browser-wide movement tracker after the interface is dismissed.

Food, resident interaction, and behavioral simulation

Feeding in Tideglass creates visible pellet entities at the position selected by the player. Residents can choose nearby pellets as targets, move toward them, eat them, and update local hunger or energy. Bottom-dwelling species use different vertical preferences from mid-water species. A tap on the glass creates a local ripple and can cause nearby residents to scatter or investigate according to their simulated boldness.

Clicking a resident records an observation in the local field notes and displays its local behavior, hunger, and depth. Renaming a resident updates only that resident’s display name. These interactions are designed to make the aquarium feel responsive; they are not used for remote profiling, analytics, or advertising.

Food and AI processing are bounded. Tideglass limits visible pellet entities and keeps the resident population small, reducing both performance risk and unnecessary local-state growth.

Chemistry and offline progression

Temperature, oxygen, pH, algae, detritus, filter behavior, light state, and water level are fictional simulation variables. They evolve according to bundled game rules and player care. They are not readings from a real aquarium, smart-home device, sensor, Bluetooth accessory, or network service.

When the popup is reopened, Tideglass can use the locally stored last-real-time timestamp to advance the fictional chemistry by a limited amount. Offline advancement is capped and intentionally simpler than active play: visible food is resolved into local detritus rather than pretending that detailed fish animation continued while the popup was closed.

The timestamp is used only for this local catch-up calculation. It is not transmitted and is not used to create a remote activity history.

Depth, deep ecology, and cosmic-horror mechanics

Tideglass’s cosmic-horror layer grows out of the same local simulation. After enough ordinary care, a food pellet may pass below the visible substrate. That event can unlock the fictional depth probe. Deep nutrients and activity are then derived from local uneaten-food events rather than from a remote script or a fixed real-world timer.

A sufficiently curious simulated resident can follow a deep-bound pellet below the visible column. The resident then receives a fictional depth telemetry value while temporarily absent from the visible aquarium. It may later return with a recorded maximum depth. These events are entirely generated from local game state.

The deeper progression can affect fictional measured volume, pressure, acoustic returns, and reflection counts. The terms depth probe, sonar, acoustic return, pressure, and reflection refer to game interfaces only. Tideglass does not access the microphone, camera, ultrasonic hardware, Bluetooth, physical aquarium equipment, or environmental sensors.

Network behavior

Tideglass contains no gameplay feature that needs to contact an application server. The packaged extension does not use fetch, XMLHttpRequest, WebSocket, remote JavaScript modules, cloud databases, or online save APIs for its aquarium simulation.

Because the game does not transmit its save, the developer does not receive resident names, fish behavior, chemistry state, anomaly stage, play duration, feed locations, tap locations, field notes, or instrument readings from Tideglass itself.

The Chrome browser may independently contact browser-vendor infrastructure for extension installation, security checks, or update delivery. Those platform operations are separate from Tideglass game code and are not a Tideglass telemetry service.

Analytics, advertising, and monetization data

Tideglass does not contain product analytics, event analytics, attribution tracking, advertising SDKs, tracking pixels, sponsored placements, fingerprinting code, personalized advertising, or advertising identifiers. There is no remote event for opening the popup, clicking a fish, feeding, renaming a resident, seeing an anomaly, or resetting the tank.

The extension does not sell or rent aquarium data. Since the production game has no gameplay-data transmission, it does not create a developer-side dataset of player behavior to sell.

Webpage, browsing, and account access

Tideglass runs in its own extension popup. It does not inject scripts, stylesheets, overlays, or frames into the current tab. It does not read page text, page titles, links, forms, cookies, browser history, bookmarks, search queries, tab URLs, email, contacts, calendar events, or files on the device.

The extension has no sign-in feature and does not ask for a Tideglass account. Opening the popup while a sensitive webpage is visible does not grant the game access to that webpage because the required browser permissions are not requested.

User controls and failure paths

The player can choose where to feed, tap the glass, select or rename residents, change routine care controls, use unlocked fictional instruments, and reset the aquarium. The resident strip and categorized field notes are designed to expose the consequences of actions rather than hiding them behind a generic status message.

If stored JSON is missing, malformed, or fails the basic v2 save validation, Tideglass starts a new local tank instead of sending the data away for repair. Numeric simulation values are clamped to bounded ranges, food entity counts are capped, and offline catch-up is limited to reduce runaway state or performance problems.

If an old v1 save can be recognized, Tideglass migrates compatible values into the new model. Migration is local and does not require a server request.

Children and age considerations

Tideglass is a general-audience fictional aquarium game with an eerie cosmic-horror theme. It is not designed to request a child’s legal name, email address, physical location, school, contacts, photographs, payment information, or other identifying information. It has no chat, public profile, social posting, matchmaking, purchases, or advertising.

The optional resident-name field is intended for short fictional pet names. Parents or guardians who prefer not to retain local progress can reset the tank or remove the extension and its local data through the browser.

Security and third parties

The extension has a deliberately small external attack surface: it requests no Chrome permissions, declares no host access, injects nothing into websites, and does not load executable code from the Internet. Its HTML, CSS, JavaScript, icons, simulation rules, resident AI, and narrative logic are packaged with the extension.

Tideglass does not include analytics libraries, advertising SDKs, social SDKs, payment processors, cloud databases, remote fonts, remote game engines, or crash-reporting clients. Chrome and the operating system may provide platform-level services such as process isolation or update delivery, but those are not third-party data integrations added by Tideglass.

No software can guarantee protection if the browser profile, operating system, or device itself is compromised. This policy describes the extension’s own data behavior and does not claim to secure the surrounding device.

Policy changes and contact

If a future Tideglass release adds a Chrome permission, introduces network processing, changes what is stored, or materially changes retention, this policy should be updated before or with that release. Cosmetic changes that do not alter data handling may not require substantive policy changes, but version and effective-date records should remain accurate.

Questions about this policy or Tideglass behavior can be sent through the support contact associated with the extension’s official Chrome Web Store listing. A player normally does not need to send a save file, screenshot, browsing history, or device identifier when asking a privacy question; the extension version and a description of the concern are usually sufficient.