Privacy

Last updated 5 November 2026

Lantern is a free hobby game. It has no ads, no analytics and no tracking, and it never sells or shares anything about you. It keeps as little as it can to run the game.

Playing as a guest

Your browser gets a random ID in a cookie, used only to count your judge checks for the day. Your field journal, scores, Daily Trail results and sound setting stay in your browser's storage and never reach the server. Clearing this site's data in your browser removes them.

Signing in with Google

Lantern asks Google only for your basic profile: an account ID, your name and your profile picture. They sit in an encrypted cookie on your device for up to 30 days. The server keeps your account ID only where it needs it: on any discoveries you make, and with your judge limits (as a one-way hash).

Your answers

Answers are checked against the game's own lists first. When one isn't on them, the prompt and your answer (nothing about who you are) go to Anthropic's Claude API to be judged. The ruling is saved without your identity, so the same answer is never checked twice. To show how many explorers named an answer (“3% of explorers”), the server counts who named what using a one-way hash of your player ID, never your name.

Discoveries and your name

If you're signed in and the first explorer to log a rare answer, players who name it later see who found it. By default that's your first name. On your account page you can show just your initial or no name at all, and the change applies to your past discoveries too. (Players who saw it before may still have it in their own journal until they find that answer again.) Guests are credited as “a guest explorer”.

Limits and nonsense

To keep the judge affordable, the server counts judge checks and nonsense answers per player and per IP address. Both are stored only as salted one-way hashes, never as the raw ID or address. Only the last day's checks and the last 24 hours of strikes count, and older ones are dropped the next time you play. A pause is remembered, so a later one can be longer.

Services Lantern uses

• Vercel hosts the site. Like any web host, its servers see your IP address when you visit.
• Supabase hosts the database with the rulings, explorer counts and limits described above.
• Anthropic judges answers that aren't on the lists (the prompt and the answer only).
• Google handles sign-in, if you choose it.

Cookies

• lantern_guest: your random guest ID (one year).
• lantern_session: your encrypted sign-in (30 days), only if you sign in.
• Three short-lived cookies during Google sign-in, which expire after 10 minutes.

There are no advertising or tracking cookies.

Deleting your data

Signed in? Delete my data on your account page removes your name and ID from your discoveries, takes your answers out of the explorer counts, clears your judge limits and signs you out. Only a one-way hash stays behind, to keep your name hidden. As a guest, clearing this site's cookies and storage in your browser disconnects you from everything; what's left are counts that can't be traced back to you.

Children

Lantern isn't aimed at children under 13 and doesn't knowingly collect their information.

Changes

If this changes, this page will say so, with a new date at the top.