Terms of Service

These Terms govern your use of Haishoku (“the app”), operated by Back Room Strategies Ltd (“we,” “us”). By installing or using the app, you agree to these Terms. If you don’t agree, don’t use the app.

What Haishoku is

Haishoku is a daily camera-based color-finding game. Each day, the app presents three colors drawn from a century of color theory — beginning with Sanzo Wada’s A Dictionary of Colour Combinations(1933). Players use their phone’s camera to find each color in the world around them. The app reads color from the live camera feed in real time and reports how close the match is.

The app is provided as-is and as-available, with no guarantee of uptime, accuracy, or fitness for any particular purpose. Color matching is inherently affected by ambient light, your phone’s white balance, and the optical properties of the surface you’re sampling — perfect matches are not always physically possible.

No accounts

Haishoku does not require an account, and there is no sign-in. All app state — your daily progress, your color-vision preference, your settings — is stored locally on your device.

Camera and photos

The camera is used solely for live color sampling. The app does not record video, capture stills, or save anything from the camera feed to your device or to any server. See the Privacy Policy for details.

Intellectual property

The Wada source. Sanzo Wada’s A Dictionary of Colour Combinations, originally published 1933–34, is in the public domain. We use the color values and original English names from the published volume, processed through Matt DesLauriers’ freely-licensed digitization (dictionary-of-colour-combinations on npm, MIT license).

The Haishoku catalog (HSK codes), the brand, the app design. Copyright Back Room Strategies Ltd, all rights reserved. The HSK numbering scheme, the Haishoku name and wordmark, and the visual and interaction design of the app are not licensed for reuse.

Future palettes. As we add palettes from other sources (Itten, Albers, Le Corbusier, Munsell, contemporary contributors), each addition will be added under whatever license terms are appropriate to its source, with attribution as required. Public-domain sources will be noted as such.

Acceptable use

You may use the app for personal, non-commercial purposes. You may not:

• Reverse-engineer the app to bypass the daily-puzzle cadence, or to extract the future palette catalog beyond what is shipped in the public app bundle.
• Use the app to harass, stalk, or endanger anyone.
• Impersonate us or falsely claim affiliation with us.

Disclaimers

The app is provided “as-is.” We make no warranty of any kind, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, or non-infringement. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising out of your use of the app, including anything that happens at the physical location where you choose to play.

Your use of the app at physical locations is at your own risk. Looking at the world through your phone’s camera reduces your awareness of your surroundings. Use reasonable judgment — don’t play in traffic, don’t trespass, don’t ignore your environment.

Termination

You can stop using the app at any time by uninstalling it. We may suspend or terminate access if you violate these Terms.

Changes to these Terms

If we change these Terms in any material way, we’ll update the “Last updated” date and note the change in the app before the updated version ships. Continued use after a change means you accept the updated Terms.

Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Colorado, United States, without regard to conflict-of-law principles.

Contact

Questions about these Terms? Email seth@backroomstrategies.com.