Background play, permissions & spending controls

Some games are built to keep living while you're away — a farm that grows, a pet that gets hungry, a story that moves on without you. That's background play: after you leave the site (or lock your phone), the game keeps running on our servers for up to 48 hours, and picks up seamlessly when you come back.

Background play never happens without your say-so.

Permission

The first time you open a game that wants background play, it asks — a banner inside the game: "Keep playing while you're away?" Nothing runs in the background until you choose Allow. Your answer is per-game and remembered; change it any time in the game's menu under Settings → Permissions → Background play.

If you choose Don't allow (or never answer), the game simply pauses whenever you leave and resumes when you return — exactly like a game with no background behavior. You lose nothing except the away-time activity.

Spending

A game acting in the background spends credits the same way it does while you play — each action it takes is billed normally. Two controls bound that:

• Spending limit (Settings → Spending): a per-game cap. When the game's total spend reaches the limit, it pauses — foreground or background — until you raise the limit or reset its usage. If you allow background play, setting a limit is a good habit: it turns "what did it spend while I was away?" into "at most this much".
• Your balance: when your credits run out, the game pauses — foreground or background — until you top up.

You can also Pause any game from its menu — a paused game does nothing, background permission or not, until you resume it.

Notifications

Background play pairs naturally with notifications — the game reaching out when something needs you ("your farm needs water"). That's a separate permission, asked the same way (a banner in-game) and controlled per device under Settings → Permissions → Notifications. Every notification also lands in the bell inbox in the site navigation, whether or not you enable push.

On iPhone, push notifications require the game to be installed on your home screen first — Settings → App → Add to Home Screen.

When you come back

Reopening a backgrounded game replays what happened while you were away — the story beats, the state changes — and the session continues live from there.