House rules & terms of use

Last updated: 14 October 2026

The festival tent is allowed to get loud. The hens take a beating, the people at the table do not. These are the rules for everyone who plays Gockel Party. The German version is the authoritative one.

1. What this is

Gockel Party is a free online browser game for 2 to 4 players, run by Benjamin Segal (see Imprint). You do not need an account. By playing you agree to these rules.

2. The festival tent rules

Player names

Your name is visible to everyone in the room and to anyone who knows the room code. Names are not allowed if they

• insult, demean or threaten, or attack people for their origin, skin colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability or age,
• are sexual, glorify violence or are extremist, or contain banned symbols or slogans,
• impersonate another real person, a moderator or Gockel Party,
• contain personal data (yours or anyone else's: full names, phone numbers, addresses) or ads and links,
• use trademarks or names you have no rights to.

When in doubt, take one of the random names. "Scrambled Steve" never offended anyone.

Play fair

• No cheats, bots, modified game versions and no automated access to servers or interfaces.
• Do not exploit bugs, report them (ideally with room code and time).
• Do not overload or attack the server and do not flood rooms.
• Emotes are for teasing, not for harassment. Anyone who deliberately drives others out of a room gets kicked.

3. Kicks

The player who creates a room (the host) can kick players from it and lock it. A kicked player cannot rejoin that room with the same player identity, and nobody new from their network can join that room for 15 minutes. The server automatically replaces names with banned words by a random name. We ourselves may end rooms, drop connections and block access when these rules are broken, without warning where that is needed to protect other players or the service. If we act against you and can reach you, we tell you why.

4. Reports and contact

A name or behaviour breaks these rules or the law? Write to us at [email protected] and, if possible, include the room code, the time and the name. We look at every report and tell you what we did. This address is also our single point of contact for authorities and users under the Digital Services Act (Art. 11 and 12 DSA); you can write to us in German or English.

5. Availability

We provide the game free of charge and as is. There is no right to it running at all times. Updates and restarts may replay a running round or end a room. Game progress is not stored permanently: an empty room disappears after a few minutes (after 30 minutes during a running match). We may change, extend or discontinue the game.

6. Rights in the game

The game, characters, graphics, 3D models, music, voices, texts and code are protected by copyright and belong to us or our licensors (see Credits). You may play the game, share invite links and show and post pictures or videos of your rounds. Copying, extracting or redistributing the game files is not allowed unless an open-source licence listed in the credits permits it.

7. Liability

Because the game is free, we are only liable for intent and gross negligence. For personal injury we are also liable for slight negligence; liability under the Austrian Product Liability Act (PHG) remains unaffected.

8. Health

The game contains fast motion, light effects, shaking and vibration. If you are sensitive to flashing lights (for example with epilepsy), talk to a doctor before playing and stop at once if you feel unwell. You can turn vibration off in the settings. And: take breaks. The hens need them too.

9. Changes and law

We may change these rules when the game or the law changes; the version published here applies. Austrian law applies, excluding its conflict-of-law rules. If you are a consumer, you keep the protection of the mandatory rules of the country where you habitually live. Claims against consumers can only be brought at the court of their domicile, habitual residence or place of employment; consumers may also sue us at their domicile in the EU. We do not take part in alternative dispute resolution proceedings (see Imprint).

How we handle data is described in the privacy policy.