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Terms of use

The short version: Palm Court is free to play, so play fair, play safely, keep your leaderboard name clean, and understand that the game comes as it is.

Effective date: 3 October 2026

Agreeing to these terms

These terms of use (the “Terms”) apply to the Palm Court website, the browser game, the phone racket page and any related online features (together, “Palm Court”). Palm Court is made and run by its independent developer (“we”, “us”). By opening or playing Palm Court you agree to these Terms and to our privacy policy and cookie policy. If you don’t agree, please don’t use Palm Court.

Who can play

Palm Court is intended for players aged 13 and over. It is not directed at children under 13, and you must not use the online features (online backup, leaderboards, online matches) if you are under 13. If you are under the age of majority where you live, a parent or guardian must read and agree to these Terms for you and should supervise your play, especially the motion controls.

Your licence to play

We give you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to play Palm Court for your own non-commercial entertainment, as long as you follow these Terms. You may not:

  • copy, modify, resell, rent, sublicense or redistribute the game or its content, or host it on another website or portal, without our written permission;
  • reverse-engineer, decompile or extract the game’s code or assets to build a competing product, except as far as the law expressly allows or an open-source licence covers that part (see Credits);
  • use bots, scripts, modified clients or any exploit to cheat, manipulate leaderboards or rewards, or overload or attack our services or the services we rely on.

You may stream, record and share videos and screenshots of yourself playing, including on monetised channels, as long as you don’t suggest we endorse you.

Play safely

Palm Court is played with real movement, and you are responsible for your own safety and your surroundings.

  • Clear the space. Make sure there is enough room to swing in every direction, with no people, pets, furniture, screens, windows, lamps or ceiling fans within reach.
  • Hold on. When you use a phone as the racket, hold it firmly, use a wrist strap or a grippy case, and don’t let go mid-swing. Dry your hands if they get sweaty.
  • Know your limits. Warm up, take regular breaks, and stop immediately if you feel pain, dizziness, numbness or discomfort. Ask a doctor before playing if you have a medical condition, an injury or are pregnant.
  • Supervise children who play with the motion controls.

To the extent the law allows, we are not responsible for injury, or for damage to phones, screens or other property, that happens while you play.

Photosensitivity and health warning

A very small number of people may have a seizure when exposed to certain visual images, including flashing lights or patterns that can appear in video games. People with no history of seizures or epilepsy may still have an undiagnosed condition. If you or anyone in your family has epilepsy or has had seizures, consult a doctor before playing.

Stop playing immediately and consult a doctor if you experience light-headedness, altered vision, eye or muscle twitching, loss of awareness, disorientation, involuntary movements or convulsions. Parents should watch for these symptoms in children. To reduce the risk, play in a well-lit room, sit or stand a comfortable distance from the screen, avoid playing when tired, and take a break every hour. Settings offers a reduced-motion option.

Online play, conduct and names

Online matches are peer-to-peer: they are set up only between people who share a match link or code, and there is no public matchmaking or chat. Only share your link with people you know and trust. We don’t monitor or moderate online matches and aren’t responsible for how other players behave; as with any direct connection, the other player’s device can see your IP address (see the privacy policy).

When you play online or choose a leaderboard name, you agree not to:

  • use a name that is offensive, hateful, sexual, threatening, impersonates someone else, infringes someone’s rights, advertises something, or contains personal information (yours or anyone else’s);
  • harass, threaten or abuse other players;
  • cheat, submit false scores, or interfere with the game, the leaderboards or other players’ connections.

Leaderboard names and scores are public. We may filter, change or remove any name or score, reset leaderboards, and block a player from the online features at any time, without notice, if we believe these Terms have been broken or to protect players or the service.

Your names and content

The only content you can put into Palm Court is your display name and leaderboard name. You keep whatever rights you have in them, and you give us a worldwide, royalty-free licence to store, display and remove them as needed to run the game. You are responsible for what you enter.

Progress, Fuzz and unlocks

Levels, XP, Fuzz, unlocks, cosmetics, rankings and other in-game items are part of the game, not property. They are earned only by playing, can’t be bought, sold, transferred or exchanged for money or anything of value, and have no monetary value. Progress is stored in your browser (and, if you leave online backup on, as a copy with our database provider); we can’t guarantee it will never be lost and we can’t restore it if it is deleted. We may rebalance, change or reset rewards, prices, items and leaderboards as the game develops.

Ads and third-party services

The free web version shows ads served by Google and, on game portals, by the portal and its partners. Palm Court also relies on third-party services, such as its hosting provider, content networks, the PeerJS connection service for online play and Supabase for online backup and leaderboards. Those services, the ads, and any website an ad or link takes you to are provided by others under their own terms and privacy policies; we don’t control them and aren’t responsible for them. How data is used is explained in the privacy policy and the cookie policy.

Intellectual property

Palm Court, including its code, graphics, sounds, text, the name “Palm Court” and its logo, belongs to us or our licensors and is protected by copyright, trademark and other laws. Open-source components are used under their own licences, listed on the Credits page. Apart from the licence above, these Terms don’t give you any rights in Palm Court. If you send us ideas or feedback, we may use them freely without owing you anything.

Fictional characters and parody

The players in Palm Court are fictional characters. Their names are playful parodies inspired by real-world tennis stars, and the tournaments, sponsors and brands shown are fictional. Palm Court is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by any real player, tour, tournament, federation, league or brand, and no real person’s name, image or likeness is used.

We respect the rights of others. If you believe something in Palm Court (including a leaderboard name) infringes your copyright or trademark, email palmcourt.game@gmail.com with the subject “Copyright notice” and include:

  1. your name and contact details (postal address, phone number and email);
  2. a description of the work you say is infringed;
  3. where the material is in Palm Court, in enough detail for us to find it;
  4. a statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use is not authorised by the owner, its agent or the law;
  5. a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in your notice is accurate and that you are the owner or authorised to act for the owner; and
  6. your physical or electronic signature.

This follows the notice requirements of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 512). We will remove or disable material that we reasonably believe infringes, and may block players who infringe repeatedly. If your material was removed and you believe it was a mistake, you can send us a counter-notice with the information that law requires. Knowingly false notices may make you liable for damages.

Availability, changes and ending access

We may change, update, suspend or stop Palm Court, or any feature of it (including online play, online backup and leaderboards), at any time, temporarily or permanently, with or without notice. We may suspend or end your access to the online features if you break these Terms or if we need to for legal or security reasons. You can stop using Palm Court at any time; to delete your data, see the privacy policy. Sections that by their nature should survive (including intellectual property, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnity and governing law) continue to apply after your use ends.

No warranty

Palm Court is a free game provided “as is” and “as available”. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, and that Palm Court will be available, secure, error-free, compatible with your device, or that progress or scores will be kept. Hand tracking and motion controls depend on your device, camera, sensors and surroundings, and may not always work as expected.

Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, progress, profits or goodwill, arising from or related to Palm Court or these Terms, even if we were told such damages were possible. Our total liability for any claim relating to Palm Court is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us to use Palm Court in the 12 months before the claim (for the free web version, nothing) or USD 50.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded or limited by law, such as liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud, and nothing affects your statutory rights as a consumer. If you live in the EU or the UK, you have the benefit of any mandatory consumer protections of the country you live in.

Indemnity

To the extent the law allows, you agree to defend, indemnify and hold us harmless from any claims, damages, losses and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) that arise from your breach of these Terms, your misuse of Palm Court, or your violation of anyone else’s rights.

Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Quebec and the federal laws of Canada that apply there, and any dispute about them or about Palm Court will be heard by the courts of Quebec, Canada, except where the law of the place you live gives you the right to bring a claim in your local courts or to rely on its mandatory consumer protections (including, for consumers in Quebec, the Consumer Protection Act).

Before starting any formal claim, please contact us first so we can try to resolve the problem informally.

General

These Terms, together with the privacy and cookie policies, are the whole agreement between you and us about Palm Court. If any part of them is found unenforceable, the rest stays in effect. If we don’t enforce a right straight away, we can still enforce it later. You may not transfer your rights under these Terms; we may transfer ours, for example if the game changes hands. Portals and stores that carry Palm Court (such as Steam) may have their own terms, which also apply when you play there.

Changes and contact

We may update these Terms as Palm Court changes. The current version is always on this page with its effective date, and for significant changes we will try to give notice on the website or in the game. Continuing to play after a change takes effect means you accept the new Terms.

Questions about these Terms: palmcourt.game@gmail.com, or see the contact page.