Terms of use

1. What this service is

KathaaVerse is an interactive-fiction game. You pick a title from its library, choose how far the story may depart from the original, optionally describe a character, and then play through an adventure that a large language model writes one beat at a time in response to what you do. If you turn illustrations on, a second model draws scenes as you go.

It is pre-launch. It is offered free of charge, it is incomplete, and parts of it change from week to week.

2. This document is a draft

These terms have not been reviewed by a lawyer and are not in effect. They are published at a URL you have to know, so that the shape of the eventual agreement can be read and corrected — not so that anyone can be held to them. Nothing here is a binding contract today, and nothing here should be relied on as a statement of your legal position.

3. There is no payment, and nothing is for sale

There is no subscription, no purchase, no credit, no stored payment method and no checkout anywhere in this product. If a page ever asks you for payment details, it is not this service.

The app runs the AI on a shared key with a daily spending ceiling. When that ceiling is reached — or when the owner flips the maintenance switch — the built-in AI goes offline for the rest of the day and the app says so. That is a deliberate cost control, and it can happen at any time.

4. Who may use it

There is no site-wide minimum age, the same way a video site does not card you at the front door and only asks when a specific video warrants it. Most of the library is general-audience. Some titles are not, and for those the plan is a title-level flag with an age check prompted only when you open that title — not built yet, so today it does not run. Until it does, the stories are model-generated and unmoderated: use your judgement about what you open, and a parent or guardian’s judgement about what a minor opens.

5. The stories and pictures are AI-generated

This is the part most worth reading, so it is spelled out rather than summarised.

• Nothing the model writes is a statement of fact. It invents people, places, events, quotations and details. Treat none of it as accurate, and none of it as advice — medical, legal, financial or otherwise.
• It will not match the source faithfully. Even at the most conservative setting the story is a new text generated in the neighbourhood of an existing one. It is not a retelling, a summary or a substitute for reading the original.
• Output can be unexpected, wrong, repetitive or unwelcome. A model can produce something upsetting or in poor taste despite instructions not to, and it can refuse to draw a scene for reasons of its own. Neither is a malfunction you should be surprised by.
• Two identical runs will not produce identical results. There is no guarantee that a story can be reproduced, continued, or ended the way it ended before.
• Similarity is possible. Generated text and generated pictures may resemble existing works, the way anything a model writes might. The model does the writing and the drawing; we do not claim ownership of what it produces, and we cannot grant rights we do not have. Keep a run’s text and pictures for yourself, the way you would keep the output of any AI chatbot — we are not going to come looking for it, and neither, realistically, is anyone else.

6. The library titles

The library lists existing books and films, with their titles, descriptions and cover images, as reference points for what you can play — the same way a streaming service lists a film to tell you what you are about to watch. A run is described as based on a title, not as that title: the model does not have the book’s text in front of it and is not reproducing it, it is writing a new story in the neighbourhood of one, from what it already knows about it. No affiliation with, or endorsement by, the rights holder of any listed title is claimed or implied.

7. What you contribute

You may type a character name, a personality, a free-form goal, your actions during a run, and a message in the feedback box. That is everything you can contribute; there is no way to upload a file, publish a page, or send anything to another player.

You keep whatever rights you have in what you write. Permission for the service to store it, send it to the AI providers described in the privacy notice, and show it back to you is inherent in using the thing — that is how the game runs. Beyond that, no licence is taken and none is asked for: we are not building a library of your prompts. You are responsible for what you type, the same way you would be for a prompt typed into any other AI chatbot — we cannot check it and do not promise to.

Do not enter anything you would not want stored, sent to a third-party model, or read by the owner while debugging. Do not enter other people’s personal information.

8. Using your own API key

You may supply your own Google Gemini API key so that your turns are billed to your own Google project rather than to the shared one. If you do:

• The key is kept in your browser and is sent to the server only with your own turn requests, to make those calls. It is deliberately never written to our database — see the privacy notice for exactly how that is enforced.
• The key, its quota and any charges on it are yours. Your use of it is also subject to Google’s own terms, and this service cannot and does not limit what Google charges you.
• Keeping the key safe on your own machine is your responsibility, as is revoking it if you think it has been exposed.
• Only supply a key you are entitled to use. Do not use someone else’s.

9. Acceptable use

While using KathaaVerse, please do not:

• try to get around the rate limits, the shared-key budget, or the maintenance switch — including by scripting the app, running it automatically, or spreading your use across many browser ids to take more than your share of a shared, metered resource;
• attempt to reach another player’s saved games, guess identifiers, or probe the service for weaknesses without being asked to;
• deliberately steer the model towards content that is unlawful, or that sexualises children, or that is designed to harass or defame a real person;
• use the service to generate material you then present as factual, as a real person’s words, or as the authentic text of an existing work;
• scrape, resell, or rebuild the service’s library or its output as a product of your own;
• interfere with the service for anyone else.

If any of this happens, access may be limited or removed. There is no formal appeal process and no promise of notice; at this size, it is one person making a judgement.

10. Availability, saved games and no warranty

The service is provided as it is, free, with no warranty of any kind — not of availability, not of fitness for any purpose, not of accuracy, and not of uninterrupted or error-free operation.

• It can be taken offline, changed, or discontinued at any time, without notice, in whole or in part.
• Saved games are not a backup. They are deleted automatically on the schedule in the privacy notice — 45 days for an anonymous run, a year from the last time you open a run tied to an account. If a story matters to you, copy the text out.
• Data loss is possible. This is a pre-launch product on free-tier infrastructure and the database has no restore procedure you should count on.

To the fullest extent the law where you live allows: the service is used at your own risk, and there is no liability here for indirect, incidental or consequential loss — a lost saved game, a story you wish you had copied out, or anything else arising from using or being unable to use it. This is a free, one-person, pre-launch product; nothing about how it is offered supports liability beyond that. In turn, nothing is asked of you beyond using the service lawfully and within section 9 — there is no indemnity clause here demanding you cover our costs, because a solo project has no lawyers on retainer to make that worth writing.

11. Stopping

You can stop at any time. Deleting a playthrough, clearing this browser’s data, or deleting your account are all available in the app and are described in the privacy notice. Nothing needs to be cancelled, because nothing is being charged.

12. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of India, where the service is operated from. If something goes wrong, write to the email below first — for a one-person project, an email that gets read is a faster remedy than a filing. No specific court or arbitration venue is named yet; that will be settled alongside the rest of this document’s review.

13. Changes and contact

This draft can change at any time while the product is pre-launch, and changes take effect on this page as soon as they are made. When a reviewed version replaces this draft, the page will say so and carry its own date.

Anything to raise about this document goes to [email protected].