Terms of Service
Last Updated: September 13, 2026
These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a legal agreement between you and Rettel LLC, a limited liability company based in Nebraska, United States ("Rettel", "we", "us"), governing your use of the Rettel mobile app, the Rettel backend services, and rettelgame.com (together, the "Service").
By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.
Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle your information and is part of these Terms.
Eligibility
You must be at least 13 years old to use Rettel, or at least 16 if you are in a country in the European Economic Area that sets the digital consent age at 16. By using the Service you represent that you meet this requirement and that you have the legal capacity to enter into these Terms.
You also represent that you are not located in a country subject to a U.S. Government embargo or designated as a "terrorist supporting" country, and that you are not listed on any U.S. Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
Your Account
Rettel is multiplayer and requires an account. You may create one with an email address and password, or with Sign in with Google or Sign in with Apple.
- You are responsible for keeping your credentials secure and for activity that occurs under your account.
- Provide accurate information and keep it current.
- One account per person. Do not create accounts to evade a suspension.
- Do not share, sell, or transfer your account.
- Tell us promptly at will@rettelgame.com if you believe your account has been compromised.
You may delete your account at any time from Settings inside the app, or by emailing us. What deletion does, and what happens to matches you have already played, is described in the Privacy Policy.
Licence to Use Rettel
Subject to these Terms, we grant you a personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable licence to download and use one copy of the Rettel app on a device you own or control, and to use the Service, for your own personal, non-commercial entertainment.
This licence does not permit you to:
- Copy, modify, translate, or create derivative works of the app or the Service.
- Reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the app, or attempt to derive its source code or underlying ideas, except to the limited extent that applicable law expressly permits this notwithstanding a contractual restriction.
- Rent, lease, lend, sell, sublicense, or otherwise distribute the app or the Service.
- Remove or obscure any proprietary notices.
The Service is licensed to you, not sold. We reserve all rights not expressly granted.
Acceptable Use
Rettel is a game people play against each other. Do not:
Cheat. Do not use word solvers, dictionaries, bots, scripts, macros, automation, modified clients, or any tool that finds or plays words for you — in 2-player matches or in daily games. Daily game results are shown on your profile to other players, so this applies to them too. Do not exploit bugs to gain an advantage instead of reporting them.
Harass or abuse other players, or use a display name that is obscene, hateful, harassing, threatening, sexually explicit, impersonates another person, or is otherwise offensive. Display names are visible to strangers, and we may reset or remove one without notice.
Interfere with the Service. No probing, scanning, denial-of-service, circumventing rate limits or security controls, unauthorized access to accounts or data, or scraping.
Break the law, infringe anyone's rights, or use the Service for any unlawful purpose.
We may investigate suspected violations and may remove content, reset display names, or suspend or terminate accounts.
Reporting and Blocking
There is no tolerance for objectionable content or abusive behaviour on Rettel.If another player harasses you, uses an offensive display name, cheats, or spams you, you can report them from their profile inside the app, and you can block them.
Blocking stops that player from being matched with you, challenging you, or sending you a friend request, and ends any active match the two of you are currently playing. A game request sent before the block that hasn't been accepted or declined yet is simply left unreachable by either of you rather than actively cancelled. You can see and undo your blocks in Settings.
We review every report within 24 hours and remove content and remove or suspend the accounts of players who violate these Terms. You can also reach us at will@rettelgame.com.
Inactive Matches
A match does not stay open forever if nobody plays it. A match with no move from either player for 7 days is automatically forfeited to the player who wasn't stuck, the same outcome as forfeiting manually. If it's your turn, we send a warning notification 24 hours before that happens, if you allow notifications.
Notifications
If you allow them, Rettel sends notifications about your games and friend requests — for example when it is your turn, when your turn is about to expire, or when a match ends. These include the display name of the player who triggered them. You can turn individual categories off in Settings, or turn notifications off entirely in your device settings, and Rettel will keep working normally either way.
Your Content and Feedback
You keep ownership of what you submit — your display name, the words you play, and any feedback you send. You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, and display that content solely to operate and provide the Service. For gameplay, this necessarily includes displaying it to your opponent.
Matches are shared records. A completed match is visible to both players and remains visible to your opponent even if you delete your account. See the Privacy Policy for how your identity is removed from those records.
If you send us suggestions, ideas, or feedback, you grant us an unrestricted, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free right to use them for any purpose, with no obligation or compensation to you. Please do not send us anything you consider confidential.
Advertising
Rettel is free to play and supported by advertising. In a 2-player match, we show up to two interstitial ads from Google AdMob — one partway through the match and one when it ends. Rettel Search and Rettel Ops each show one interstitial ad when that day's puzzle starts; Zenttel shows no ads. We do not choose or control the specific content of individual ads and are not responsible for the products, services, or sites they promote. See our Privacy Policy for what advertising involves and the choices you have.
Availability and Changes to the Service
We may modify, suspend, or discontinue any part of the Service at any time. We will try to give reasonable notice of material changes, but we are not obligated to and may act without notice where necessary for security, legal, or operational reasons.
Rettel depends on network connectivity and on third-party services. Matches in progress, scores, and other data may be lost due to outages, updates, bugs, or your own connectivity.
Termination
You may stop using the Service and delete your account at any time.
We may suspend or terminate your account or access to the Service, with or without notice, if you breach these Terms, if we are required to by law, or if we discontinue the Service. Where circumstances allow, we will give notice and, for a termination that is not the result of your breach, a reasonable opportunity to obtain a copy of your data.
Termination does not entitle you to a refund except where required by law or by the store's policies. Provisions that by their nature should survive — including intellectual property, feedback, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, and governing law — survive termination.
Intellectual Property
The Service, including its code, design, graphics, artwork, text, gameplay systems, and the name and logo "Rettel", is owned by Rettel LLC and protected by copyright, trademark, and other laws. These Terms grant you no rights in any of it beyond the licence described above.
If you believe something on the Service infringes your copyright, email will@rettelgame.com with enough detail to identify the work and the material in question.
Disclaimer of Warranties
To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, express, implied, or statutory, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, or non-infringement. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free, or that defects will be corrected.
Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so some of the above may not apply to you. If you are a consumer, nothing in these Terms limits statutory rights you have that cannot be limited by contract, including under EU, UK, or U.S. state consumer law.
Limitation of Liability
To the maximum extent permitted by law, Rettel LLC will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, data, goodwill, or gameplay progress, arising out of or related to your use of or inability to use the Service, whether based in contract, tort, negligence, strict liability, or otherwise, and whether or not we were advised of the possibility of such damages.
Our total aggregate liability for all claims relating to the Service will not exceed the greater of (a) USD $100, or (b) the total amount you paid us for the Service in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim.
Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for any other liability that cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so parts of this section may not apply to you.
Indemnification
To the extent permitted by law, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless Rettel LLC from and against any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, and reasonable legal fees arising out of your breach of these Terms, your misuse of the Service, or your violation of any law or of any third party's rights. This does not apply to the extent a claim arises from our own conduct, and it does not apply to consumers where local law prohibits it.
Apple App Store — Additional Terms
The following applies if you obtained the Rettel app from the Apple App Store, and prevails over anything inconsistent elsewhere in these Terms with respect to that app:
- These Terms are between you and Rettel LLC only, not Apple. Rettel LLC, not Apple, is solely responsible for the app and its content.
- The licence granted above is limited to a non-transferable licence to use the app on Apple-branded products you own or control, as permitted by the Usage Rules in the Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions.
- Apple has no obligation to furnish any maintenance or support for the app.
- If the app fails to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund the purchase price, if any. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation with respect to the app.
- Rettel LLC, not Apple, is responsible for addressing any claims relating to the app, including product liability, failure to conform to legal requirements, and consumer protection or privacy claims.
- Rettel LLC, not Apple, is responsible for investigating and resolving any third-party claim that the app infringes intellectual property rights.
- You represent that you are not located in a country subject to a U.S. Government embargo or designated as "terrorist supporting", and that you are not on any U.S. Government prohibited or restricted parties list.
- You must comply with any applicable third-party terms when using the app.
- Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and, upon your acceptance, will have the right to enforce them against you.
Governing Law and Disputes
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Nebraska, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules, and excluding the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.
You and we agree that any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service will be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Nebraska, and you consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts.
Consumer carve-out. If you are a consumer resident in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or another jurisdiction whose law gives you a non-waivable right to the protection of your local law or to bring proceedings in your local courts, nothing in this section removes that right — you may bring proceedings in your country of residence and the mandatory consumer-protection law of that country applies to you. EU consumers may also use the European Commission's online dispute resolution platform.
Before filing anything, please email will@rettelgame.com. Nearly everything is faster to solve that way.
General
- Entire agreement. These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Service.
- Severability. If any provision is held unenforceable, it is modified to the minimum extent necessary and the rest remains in effect.
- No waiver. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it.
- Assignment. You may not assign these Terms. We may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.
- No third-party beneficiaries, except Apple as stated above.
- Force majeure. We are not liable for failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control.
Changes to These Terms
We may update these Terms. The "Last Updated" date reflects the current version, and where a change is material we will tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect. Continued use after a change takes effect means you accept the revised Terms. If you do not accept them, stop using the Service and delete your account.