Frequently Asked Questions
Everything about playing Hardwood Empire, how your saves work, and how purchases work.
Hardwood Empire is a deep college basketball dynasty simulation. You take over a program and build it across decades — recruiting high-school prospects and transfer-portal players, setting your rotation and game plan, playing a full season of live, possession-by-possession games, chasing your conference and national tournaments, then developing your roster and doing it all again the next year. It simulates 365 teams across 23 conferences, tracks records and history, and lets a single dynasty run 20+ seasons.
Open play.empiresportsapps.com in any modern browser on desktop or mobile — no download, no sign-up. It's the full game, running entirely in your browser.
Play Hardwood Empire Free on Web →Yes. The full game is free to play on web, iOS, and Android. There are optional one-time purchases (like Remove Ads) but nothing is paywalled behind them — they're conveniences, not gates.
The web version at play.empiresportsapps.com, plus native apps on the Apple App Store and Google Play.
Hardwood Empire is local-first. Your dynasties are saved in your browser's storage on your own device (or locally on your phone in the apps). Nothing is uploaded to our servers, and there's no account to log into. That means your progress is private to you — and also that it stays with that browser/device unless you move it yourself.
Your save persists between sessions on the same browser. It can be lost if you clear your browser data, use private/incognito mode, or switch devices — because there's no server backup. To be safe, use Export Save to download a backup file you keep. See Saves & Purchases.
Yes. Use Export Save on the first device to download a save file, then Import Save on the second device to load it. It's a manual, offline transfer — no cloud, no account needed.
On the web, optional purchases (like Remove Ads) are handled by Stripe. We never see or store your card details. Because there are no accounts or passwords, a purchase is tied to the email you enter at Stripe checkout — you can restore it later using that same email. On iOS and Android, purchases go through the App Store or Google Play as usual. Details on Saves & Purchases.
The mobile apps show occasional ads, which Remove Ads turns off. Ads are not currently enabled on the web version. If web ads are enabled in the future, they'll follow Google's policies, and EU/UK users will see a consent prompt first.
We don't run accounts or collect personal profiles. Game data lives on your device. Payments are handled by Stripe (web) or the app stores (mobile); hosting and security are handled by Cloudflare. Full details are in our Privacy Policy.
Hardwood Empire is built by Finn Keating, a solo developer, under Empire Sports Apps LLC in Rhode Island. Home Run Empire, a college baseball sim in the same engine, is also live on mobile.
Email empiresportsapps@gmail.com or visit the Contact page for community links.