Prex · A Pocket Shadow Theatre
The Keeper's Charter
The house rules for a small stage, a warm lamp, and the shadows you raise upon it.
A gentle prelude. This charter is not a wall of fine print. It is a note left on the dressing-room mirror by the keeper of the theatre — what Prex is, what it asks of you, and what it promises back. Read it once, skim it forever. By opening the app and dragging the lamp across the stage, you agree to hum along with everything written here.
What This Little Theatre Is
Prex is a pocket shadow theatre. You photograph an object, Prex lifts its outline into a paper cutout — a gnomon — and you carry a warm orb of light around a stage while the cast shadow bends, stretches and softens in real time. You can freeze a beautiful arrangement into an album, browse short lore about light and darkness, and watch a whole day cross the boards in the sun-arc rehearsal. That is the whole show. There is no feed, no chat, no scoreboard — only you, an object, and the light you choose to throw.
No Ticket, No Name
You never sign up. There is no account to create, no email to hand over, no password to forget, and no profile to complete. The curtain rises the moment you tap the icon. Because there is nothing to log into, there is nothing to leak from a server — the theatre keeps no register of who you are, and it never will. If you clear the app from your device, the house forgets you entirely, and that is by design.
- No registration, no login, no "continue with…".
- No advertising, no trackers, no analytics beacons.
- No social graph, no leaderboards, no accounts to recover.
The Objects You Bring
Whatever you trace belongs to you. The photographs you pick, the contours Prex draws from them, the sunprints you press, and the names you give your figures are yours in every sense. Prex does not claim them, does not copy them to a vault, and does not show them to anyone. They are written into small files inside the app's private folder on your own device, and they live there until you decide otherwise.
You hold a simple promise in return: bring only what you are kind enough to use. Trace objects you have the right to photograph. Do not point the lamp at someone's private life without their blessing, and do not forge cutouts meant to mock, harass, deceive, or harm a real person.
House Rules for the Gallery
A theatre is a shared idea between its keeper and its guests, even when there is only one guest. These are the courtesies that keep the boards welcoming:
- Treat Prex as a personal instrument, not a weapon. No attempt to break it open, tamper with other apps, or bend it to a purpose it was never built for.
- Respect the craft of others. The hand-drawn glyphs, the palette, and the projection math are made with care — you may enjoy them freely, but please don't resell the theatre itself as your own.
- Use the camera and photo shelf honestly. When Prex asks to see your library, it is only because you tapped "choose a photo." Nothing leaves the device to satisfy that request.
- Be a good ancestor to your figures. Rename them, restage them, tear out prints you no longer love — the stage is yours to tend.
The Lamp Has Limits
Prex is offered warmly, and as-is. It is a toy for light and shadow, not a measuring instrument, a medical device, a navigation aid, or a source of certified truth. The contour it lifts from a photograph is an honest guess made of flood-fills and thresholds — sometimes it will trace your cat as a lopsided bean, and that is part of its charm. The shadow it casts is a believable imitation of physics, not physics itself.
We pour care into keeping the app running, but we cannot promise it will be flawless, uninterrupted, or suited to every device. If a particular phone, iOS version, or lighting condition makes the lamp flicker, the remedy is usually a restart, an update, or a kinder background behind your subject.
Keeping & Carrying Your Show
Your figures, sunprints, and preferences are stored locally as plain files inside the app's own sandbox. That means your work travels with the app and disappears with it. If you back up your device through your usual system backup, your theatre comes along; if you wipe the app, the troupe is released. There is no cloud to fall back on — which is also why there is no cloud that could ever be breached.
- Deleting Prex from your device removes everything it ever knew.
- Clearing an individual figure also tears out the sunprints that used it.
- Your taste in backdrops and lamp warmth is remembered only on this device.
Growing the Troupe
A living theatre gains new rooms. Future performances may add fresh backdrops, more hand-drawn glyphs, deeper tuning of the cutout pipeline, or entirely new acts. When the show changes, this charter may be re-hung with it. The newest version always lives right here; the spirit of it — no accounts, no tracking, your work stays yours — is the part we intend to keep constant.
Setting Down the Lantern
You may leave the theatre at any moment, for any reason, by simply closing it or uninstalling it. There is no subscription to cancel, no retention offer, no guilt trip. If you stop honoring the house rules above, the practical consequence is only that the app may stop being delightful to use — the enforcement here is good taste, not a tribunal. And if we ever have to change something fundamental about how Prex behaves, you'll find it reflected here first.