Terms of Service

Version draft-1 · last updated 2026-08-31

Draft. This document is being prepared for review and is not yet in force. The marked callouts are decisions still to be made.

1. The agreement

What this means: These are the rules for using the game. By playing, you agree to them.

These Terms of Service are an agreement between you and the operator of bugfu.io (“we”, “us”). They cover the game at bugfu.io, your account, and everything you buy, earn, or make inside it. The Privacy Policy and Refund Policy are part of this agreement.

This is one agreement: there is no separate end-user licence agreement, and /eula is simply another address for this page.

If we change these terms in a way that matters, we will tell you what changed and ask you to accept the new version before it applies to you. Silent updates do not bind you.

Pending decision. The legal entity that operates the service, and its jurisdiction, have not been named yet. Until they are, “we” means the operator of the domain above.

2. The service, and your licence to play

What this means: You get a personal licence to play. The game is under active development and will change.

We grant you a personal, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use bugfu.io for playing the game. That licence is the whole of what you receive: no part of the service, its software, or its content becomes your property by playing.

bugfu.io is under active development. Fights, species, balance, items, and features will change, sometimes in ways that affect a bug you have raised or an item you have bought. We tune the simulation continuously; a bug's abilities and matchups are never guaranteed to stay as they are.

3. Age and eligibility

What this means: You must be at least 13 to have an account. Younger players need a parent involved.

You must be at least 13 years old to create an account. If you are under the age at which you can consent to a contract where you live, a parent or guardian must review these terms with you and agree to them on your behalf, and they are responsible for your use of the service.

We do not knowingly sell to, or collect personal information from, children under 13. A parent or guardian who believes a child under 13 has created an account can write to support@bugfu.io and we will close it.

Pending decision. The age posture — a declaration at signup, an age gate at the store, or a mixed-audience stance with no personalized advertising — is not decided. It changes this section, the store, and the Privacy Policy’s children section together.

4. Accounts, and the anonymous owner token

What this means: You can play without an account, but that identity lives only in your browser — if it is lost, we cannot prove your bugs were yours. An account protects them, and buying requires one.

You can play bugfu.io without creating an account. When you do, your bugs are tied to an anonymous owner token stored in your browser. That token is a bearer credential: whoever holds it is the owner. If your browser storage is cleared, the device is lost, or the token is shared, we have no way to prove the bugs were yours and cannot restore them. Creating an account and claiming your bugs is the only protection against that, and it is why an account is required before any purchase.

An account is yours alone: one person, one account. Do not share, sell, or transfer an account or its credentials. You are responsible for what happens under your account; tell us promptly at support@bugfu.io if you believe it has been compromised.

Names — your display name and your bugs' names — must follow the conduct rules in section 7 and may be reset by us if they do not.

5. Amber, items, and other virtual goods

What this means: Amber and items are licences to use things inside the game, not property. They have no cash value. Items you buy belong to your account and survive your bugs.

Amber is the game's token currency. Whether you bought it or earned it by winning fights, it is the same thing: a licence to redeem items and services inside the game. It is not money, has no real-world value, cannot be cashed out, and cannot be sold, traded, or transferred between accounts. The same is true of every item, cosmetic, ceremony, accessory, species unlock, and training purchase.

What you buy binds to you, not to a bug. A bug that dies, is released, or is lost never destroys anything you purchased; items are equipped per bug but owned by the account, and can be equipped again.

Limited runs are genuinely limited. When we sell an item as a numbered or limited run, we will not reissue it after it sells out.

We may add, change, rebalance, reprice, or withdraw catalog items, and we may change the rates at which amber can be earned. A withdrawn item stays in your collection; anything that referenced a revoked or withdrawn item degrades gracefully rather than disappearing.

What happens to virtual goods if the service shuts down is covered in section 11; what happens on refunds and chargebacks in section 10 and the Refund Policy.

6. Things you make

What this means: You keep what you make, and you give us permission to store it, show it, and re-render it — including in replays and marketing. Deleting your account does not un-play matches other people were part of.

You make things in bugfu.io: bug names, display names, portrait compositions, and in time other arrangements the game lets you author. They remain yours. So that the game can work, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to store, reproduce, display, re-render, and distribute what you make — in the game, in share cards and spectator views, in replays, and in our own marketing of the game. “Re-render” is deliberate: we regenerate images from your stored arrangement when the catalog changes and when reviewing reports.

Replays are records of matches that had two participants. Deleting your account removes what you made going forward, but does not retract matches already played, recorded, or shared.

We may remove, revert, hide, or rename anything you make that breaks section 7, using the enforcement ladder in section 9. We review on report; we do not pre-screen, and something being visible does not mean we approved it.

7. Conduct

What this means: The specific list of what gets you moderated. Using names or arrangements to smuggle text is on it.

Wherever you can name, arrange, or compose something that another player will see, the following are prohibited:

Sexual or explicit content, including arrangements of game items intended to depict it.
Hate symbols, extremist iconography, and their reconstruction from game geometry.
Harassment or targeting of a specific person, including via a bug name or title.
Using a name, portrait, or arrangement to convey text: slurs, URLs, contact details, or solicitations.
Impersonating another player, our staff, or the game itself.
Advertising, and any attempt to contact minors.

This same list is what the report button offers and what our moderators apply — the player, the reporter, and the reviewer read the same sentence.

8. Fair play

What this means: No bots, no forged protocol traffic, no exploiting bugs for currency or rank, no farming your own alternate accounts.

Do not automate play, script inputs, or run bots. Do not reverse-engineer, forge, or replay game protocol traffic. Do not exploit defects for amber, items, or ladder position — found defects are reported to support@bugfu.io, not farmed. Do not use alternate accounts to farm rewards, launder rank, or evade enforcement.

The fights themselves are simulated on our servers from raw button inputs, so the honest surface of this game is the economy and the ladder — which is exactly where these rules point.

9. Enforcement and appeals

What this means: Moderation climbs a ladder, and restrictions are preferred over taking your purchases. Appeals go to a human.

Enforcement is graduated: warning → content hidden → forced revert or rename → feature restriction (for example, no public pages or brackets) → suspension → termination. Bans are the last rung, not the first, and we start as low on the ladder as the harm allows.

We prefer restrictions over confiscation. A player who loses a privilege keeps every item they bought. Moderation is not a way for us to take your money, and we have designed the ladder so it never has to be.

Every enforcement action can be appealed to a human being by writing to support@bugfu.io; we aim to answer appeals within 14 days.

Pending decision. What termination for serious, repeated violations does to purchased entitlements — retained but unusable while the account is closed, or forfeited — is not decided. Whatever is chosen will be stated here plainly; an unstated answer is not an answer.

10. Payments, refunds, and chargebacks

What this means: Refunds are covered by the Refund Policy. Charging back a purchase instead of talking to us can undo the goods it paid for.

Purchases are processed by third-party payment providers; prices are shown before you confirm. Refunds are governed by the Refund Policy, which is part of this agreement — one policy, in one place.

If a payment is reversed through a chargeback or dispute rather than through us, we may revoke the amber and items that payment bought, and if they were already spent your balance may go negative until it is made whole. Talk to us first: genuine problems are what the refund policy is for.

Where you bought something does not change what you own — one account, one ledger, whichever payment rail or platform the purchase came through.

11. Availability, change, and the end of the service

What this means: No uptime promise. If the game ever shuts down, we commit to notice, and to stopping sales first.

We do not guarantee uptime. The service may be interrupted for maintenance, by failures, or by change; the game is under active development.

If we ever decide to shut bugfu.io down, we will give notice on the site before the end, stop selling amber and paid items immediately when that notice is given, and keep the service running through the notice period so entitlements can be enjoyed for the time that remains.

Pending decision. The length of the sunset notice period, and whether any recent purchases are refunded at shutdown, are not decided. A game about a bug you raise for months owes a stronger answer here than a game you play once; the commitment above is the floor, not the final wording.

12. Third-party platforms

What this means: If you play through a portal or store, their rules apply on top of ours.

If you reach bugfu.io through a third-party portal, platform, or store, that platform's own terms, content rules, and purchase mechanics apply in addition to these terms, and for purchases made through them, their checkout and refund machinery may govern the transaction. Payment providers likewise apply their own terms to the payment itself.

13. Intellectual property

What this means: The game, its names, and its art belong to us or our licensors. Ideas you send us about the game can be used freely.

The service — its software, simulation, art, names, and branding — is protected by intellectual property law and belongs to us or to our licensors. These terms grant you no rights in it beyond the licence to play in section 2.

If you send us feedback or ideas about the game, we may use them without restriction or compensation; do not send anything you need to keep.

14. Disclaimers and liability

What this means: The game is provided as-is. Our liability to you is limited, up to what the law allows, to what you paid us in the last year.

The service is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, express or implied, to the fullest extent the law allows. We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that any bug, item, or rating will persist unchanged.

To the fullest extent the law allows, our total liability to you for all claims arising out of the service is limited to the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim arose, and neither of us is liable to the other for indirect, incidental, or consequential damages. You agree to indemnify us against claims arising from content you made or conduct that violates these terms.

Nothing in this section limits rights that your local consumer law does not allow to be limited.

15. Governing law and disputes

What this means: Where disputes are heard is not yet fixed. There is no forced-arbitration clause.

These terms contain no arbitration requirement and no class-action waiver. If we have a dispute, write to us first at support@bugfu.io; most problems are refund- or moderation-shaped and solvable in a reply.

Pending decision. Governing law and venue follow the entity and jurisdiction decision, which has not been made.

16. Contact

What this means: One address reaches us.

Questions about these terms, appeals, refund requests, and legal notices all reach us at support@bugfu.io.