Terms of Use

These Terms of Use (“Terms”) are the rules for using XQ Arena (“the app”, “the game”), a free Xiangqi (Chinese chess) game for Android and iPhone published by H&Row STUDIO (“we”, “us”). They are written to be read. Please read them.

Last updated: 25 September 2026

1. Agreeing to these Terms

By continuing past the welcome screen, or by playing XQ Arena, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, please do not use the app. Joining the community means agreeing to the community rules (section 7A).

XQ Arena is made for teens and adults. You must be at least 13 years old (16 in the EEA and the UK) to play online, join the community or play in tournaments. A younger player can still use the lessons, play against the computer or a friend on the same phone, and share cards that carry no name; the app keeps online play, the community and tournaments closed to them (Privacy Policy, section 10). If you are under 18, or under the age of majority where you live, a parent or guardian must read these Terms and agree to them for you.

2. The game, and what it costs

XQ Arena lets you learn Xiangqi, play against the computer, play other people online and in tournaments, share your games in the community, and share cards of your best moments. It is free. There are no ads and nothing to buy in the app at launch. If we ever add optional paid items, they will be sold through Google Play or the App Store, and these Terms will be updated first.

You need your own phone and internet connection. Your mobile provider may charge you for data.

3. Accounts and guest play

Everyone starts as a guest. The app creates an anonymous account for you the first time you open it. You do not have to give a name or an email.

• A guest account lives on the phone it was made on. If you remove the app, reset your phone or lose it, a guest account can be lost for good, with its handle and rating, and we cannot bring it back.
• To keep your account, secure it with Google, or with Sign in with Apple on iPhone, from Settings. You keep the same handle and rating, and you can sign back in on a new phone. You are responsible for keeping your Google or Apple account safe.
• Your learning progress (XP, trophies, rank, streaks, the Arena ladder, lessons and quests) is saved on your phone. If you have secured your account with Google or Apple, it is also backed up to your account, so it comes back when you sign in on a new phone. A guest's progress is saved only on the phone, never with us. Your phone's own backup (iCloud on iPhone, your Google account on Android) may include this copy and restore it on a new phone or after a reinstall. That backup is between you and Apple or Google; we never see it. Without it, a guest who removes the app, resets the phone or loses it loses that progress, and we cannot bring it back.
• If the Google or Apple account you sign in with already has an XQ Arena account, the app asks before switching. If you switch, the guest account you leave behind is deleted and cannot be reopened.
• One person per account. Do not share, sell, trade or give away your account. What happens on your account is your responsibility.
• We may remove guest accounts that have not been used for 12 months.

4. Fair play rules

Xiangqi is only fun when both sides play fair. In rated and online games you agree that:

• You play your own moves. No chess engines, analysis apps, opening or endgame databases, bots, or advice from another person during a game.
• You do not manipulate ratings. No losing or winning on purpose, no arranged results, no feeding rating from one account to another, and no creating extra accounts to gain rating or avoid a restriction.
• You do not spoil games on purpose. No repeatedly abandoning or aborting games, stalling to annoy your opponent, or abusing draw offers.
• You play your tournament games in time. In a tournament you play each game inside its round's time. A game nobody played is decided by the rules shown in the app (a walkover), and a player who withdraws forfeits their remaining games. If you block the player you are paired with, you lose that match, and both of you see that it was decided by a block.
• Your handle is decent. No hateful, sexual, threatening or insulting handles, and no pretending to be another player, a real person, H&Row STUDIO or a moderator.
• You do not tamper with the game. No modified apps, scripts or automated play, and no attempts to get around the referee or the limits below.

The referee service checks every move and runs the clocks. Some limits are applied automatically: repeated rated games against the same opponent in one day (in tournaments, in one week) count for less or for nothing, a player who keeps causing aborted games must wait a few minutes before the next rated game, handles can be changed only a few times a day, you can create or join only a few tournaments a week, and wrong friend and tournament code guesses are limited.

Reporting a player. We do not tolerate offensive handles or abusive players. If you see one, use Report on the player's profile, a post, a comment or in a game. You can also email handrowcahyadi@gmail.com with the handle and, if you can, the date and time of the game. We look at every report. Reports about posts, comments and how a player behaves in the community are reviewed and acted on within 24 hours. Everything else, such as handles, cheating and behaviour in games, within 3 working days. Where the rules were broken we reset the handle or restrict the account.

5. Ratings, ranks, trophies and rewards

Ratings, ranks, trophies, XP, streaks, quests, badges and any other virtual rewards are part of the game. They have no monetary value. They cannot be sold, transferred or exchanged for money or anything else, and you do not own them.

We may change how they work, and we may adjust, reset or remove them. For example to fix a bug, to rebalance the game, to start a new season, or to undo results gained by breaking the fair play rules.

6. Online play and availability

Online play depends on servers, networks and other players. We do our best, but we do not promise that the app or online play will always be available, free of errors, or quick to find you an opponent. Games can be interrupted by connection problems or maintenance. A game lost on time because of your connection still counts.

We may update, change, pause or stop the app or any feature at any time. If we ever plan to close the game for good, we will try to tell players beforehand, on this site and in the app where we can.

7. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• use the app for anything illegal, or in a way that breaks these Terms;
• harass, threaten or bully other players, through handles, posts, comments, reactions or any other feature;
• try to access other players' accounts or data, or guess other people's friend challenge codes or tournament codes;
• probe, overload, disrupt or attack the app or its servers, or send automated requests to them;
• copy, modify, decompile or reverse engineer the app, except where the law gives you that right and it cannot be waived;
• use the app, its art or its name to make something that competes with it or pretends to be it.

7A. Community rules

The community is where members post text and Xiangqi games or positions, comment, react and follow each other. You join it by tapping Join. By joining you agree to these rules and confirm that you are at least 13 years old (16 in the EEA and the UK). Players who told the app they are under 13 do not see the community at all. Guests can read, report, block, mute and hide posts. Posting, commenting, reacting and following need an account secured with Google or Apple.

There is no tolerance for objectionable content or abusive players. In posts, comments, reactions, handles and tournament names you agree not to post or do:

• harassment or bullying, or piling on someone;
• hate: attacking people for who they are, such as their race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability or age;
• sexual content of any kind;
• threats, or wishing or encouraging violence;
• anything that encourages self-harm or suicide;
• spam or scams: ads, fake offers, or the same thing again and again;
• links, email addresses, phone numbers, or ids for other apps, and anyone's private details, including your own;
• pretending to be someone else, including another player, H&Row STUDIO or a moderator;
• anything that sexualises or endangers a child. We report it to the authorities.

What you post. You are responsible for what you post. It stays yours. You give H&Row STUDIO a free, worldwide, non-exclusive licence to store it and show it to members in the app, for as long as it is there. The licence ends when you delete it or your account, except for what was already copied into a report, which is kept as the Privacy Policy says.

How moderation works. Some of it is automated:

• a filter refuses posts and comments with slurs, sexual terms, links, email addresses or phone numbers before anything is posted, and tells you which words to change;
• a post or comment reported by several members is hidden automatically until we review it;
• a player reported by many members is paused from posting, commenting, reacting and following for up to 72 hours, until we review it.

A person always reviews what the automated parts did, and undoes it where the reports were wrong. We may hide or remove content that breaks these rules or the law, and warn, suspend or ban an account. The steps, counted over 90 days, are: a warning, then 24 hours without posting, then 7 days, then a ban from the community. Serious cases, such as threats, hate or anything that endangers a child, can be banned at once. A ban also covers the Google or Apple account it was made with, so a new XQ Arena account with the same sign-in cannot join again. A suspended or banned player can still read and use Block, Mute and Report. A player found to be under 13 is different: their account is deleted from our servers (section 10).

Tournament names. These rules apply to the name of a tournament too, and it passes the same filter. A moderator may reset a name that breaks them to “Tournament”, and may close a tournament that has not started yet.

Whenever we act on your post, comment or account, the app tells you what we did and why. If you think we got it wrong, email handrowcahyadi@gmail.com and a person will look at it again.

Reporting and blocking. Every post, comment and player profile has Report, Mute and Block in its menu, and every online game and tournament match room has Report and Block. Blocking is immediate and works both ways: neither of you sees the other's posts or comments, or can follow the other. You can also email us. We review reports about community content and act on them within 24 hours, and we tell you in the app what came of your report. The player you report is never told who reported them.

8. Who owns what

Xiangqi itself belongs to everyone. It is a traditional game that is many centuries old. We claim no rights over its rules, its pieces or its positions.

The XQ Arena app is ours: its code, design, artwork, animations, lessons, puzzles, texts, sounds and music, the XQ Arena name and logo, and Pao, our red cannon mascot. They belong to H&Row STUDIO and are protected by copyright and other laws. Open source parts, such as the fonts, belong to their authors and are listed in the app under their own licences.

We give you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence, which we can withdraw, to install the app on devices you own or control and to play it for your own enjoyment, under these Terms and the usage rules of the store you downloaded it from.

9. Your handle, your posts, your games and your feedback

You choose your handle, and you are responsible for it and for your posts and comments (section 7A). You allow us to store and show your handle, avatar, rating and results, and your country flag if you choose one, to other players so the game can work. You also allow us to keep and show the record of the games you play, including after you leave, as described in the Privacy Policy.

If you send us ideas or feedback, we may use them to improve the game without owing you anything.

10. Suspension and ending

You can stop playing at any time, and you can delete your account in Settings or by following the steps at handrow.studio/xqarena/delete-account.

If you break these Terms, or if we reasonably believe you have, we may warn you, reset your handle, adjust or reset your rating and rewards, remove you from leaderboards, limit online play, hide or remove your posts and comments, put your account on hold, suspend it from the community or ban it from the community (section 7A), or suspend or close your account. For serious or repeated cases we may do this without warning. If you think we made a mistake, email us and a person will review it.

If we learn that a player is under 13, we delete their account from our servers, as the Privacy Policy explains in section 10.

Sections 5, 8, 9, 12, 13 and 16 continue to apply after your account ends.

11. Your privacy

The Privacy Policy explains what data the app collects and the choices you have. It is part of how the game works, so please read it too.

12. Disclaimers

XQ Arena is a free game, provided “as is” and “as available”. To the fullest extent the law allows, we give no warranties of any kind, whether express or implied. That includes warranties that the app will suit a particular purpose, will be uninterrupted or error free, or that ratings, lessons, hints or computer opponents are accurate. We are not responsible for how other players behave.

13. Limits on our liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, H&Row STUDIO is not liable for indirect, incidental, special or consequential losses, or for loss of data, progress, ratings or virtual rewards, arising from your use of the app or from not being able to use it.

Because the game is free, our total liability to you for all claims about the app is limited to US$10 (or the same value in your currency), or the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim if that is higher.

Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law, or takes away consumer rights that the law of your country gives you and that cannot be waived.

14. App stores

These Terms are between you and H&Row STUDIO only. Apple and Google are not parties to them. They are not responsible for the app or its content, and they have no duty to provide support or maintenance for it. Questions, complaints and claims about the app come to us. You must also follow the terms of the store you downloaded the app from. If you downloaded the app from the App Store, Apple and its subsidiaries may enforce these Terms against you as third party beneficiaries.

If someone claims that the app infringes their intellectual property rights, H&Row STUDIO, not Apple or Google, is responsible for handling that claim. You confirm that you are not located in a country that is under a U.S. Government embargo or that it has named a terrorist supporting country, and that you are not on any U.S. Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.

15. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as the game grows. When we do, we change the “Last updated” date above. For important changes we will also post a notice on this page, and in the app where we can, before they take effect. If you keep playing after a change, you accept the updated Terms. If you do not accept them, stop using the app. You can delete your account at any time.

16. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of Indonesia. Any dispute is subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of Jakarta, Indonesia. If you are a consumer, this does not remove protections that the law of the country where you live gives you and that cannot be waived. If one part of these Terms turns out to be invalid, the rest still applies.

17. Contact

Questions about these Terms:

H&Row STUDIO, Jakarta, Indonesia. handrowcahyadi@gmail.com