Terms of Service
By creating an account or playing Lantern Lake ("the game"), you agree to these terms. If you don't agree, please don't play.
Your account
- You need an account with a name, password and email address to play. Keep your password to yourself: you're responsible for what happens on your account.
- Angler names must not be offensive, impersonate other people or staff, or contain personal information. Staff may change a name that breaks this rule.
- If you're under 13, you need a parent or guardian's permission to play and to make any purchase. If you're under 18, you need their permission to make purchases.
Playing fair and being kind
- No harassment, hate speech, threats, sharing other people's personal information, spam, or sexual content in chat, names or anywhere else in the game.
- No cheating: no bots, automation, modified game clients, exploiting bugs, or tampering with the servers. If you find a bug, please tell us instead.
- No selling or trading accounts, items, fish, coins or Lantern Tokens for real money or anything outside the game.
- Staff may warn, mute, kick, ban (including by internet address), reset or delete accounts that break these rules, at their discretion.
Lantern Tokens and in-game items
- Lantern Tokens are a virtual currency you can buy with real money and spend in the Token Shop. Coins, fish, items and everything else in the game are earned by playing.
- Tokens and in-game items have no cash value, can't be exchanged for money, and can't be transferred to other players (except items you trade in game, as the game allows). You get a license to use them in the game, not ownership of them.
- What's in the shop, and its prices, may change. Boosts last for the time shown. Cosmetic items change only how things look.
- If your account is banned or deleted for breaking these terms, any tokens and items on it are lost, without a refund.
- Purchases are subject to the Refund Policy below.
The game itself
- We work hard to keep the game running, but it's provided "as is". It may have bugs, go down for updates (we try to warn players first), change, or one day close.
- We may reset parts of the game, such as leaderboards or events, and we may roll back progress if something goes wrong or someone cheats.
- To the fullest extent the law allows, we aren't liable for indirect losses, or for more than the amount you paid us in the 6 months before a claim.
- These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Washington, USA. Nothing here takes away rights you have under consumer protection laws where you live.
- We may update these terms. If the changes are important, we'll say so in the game. Playing after an update means you accept it.
Privacy Policy
This explains what information Lantern Lake collects, why, and what you can do about it. We don't sell your information, show ads, or use tracking or analytics services.
What we collect
- Your account: your angler name, your email address, and your password (stored only as a secure scrambled hash, never as the password itself).
- Your game: your progress, fish, items, coins, Lantern Tokens, appearance, homes, friends, trades, mail and auctions, so the game works and remembers you.
- Chat: recent world chat is kept in the server's memory so new arrivals can see it; it isn't saved permanently. Staff may note messages that break the rules when they take action.
- Your internet (IP) address: the address you last played from, to protect the game: to limit abuse and so a ban can cover the address it came from.
- Purchases: what you bought, when, and its payment reference. Your card or bank details go straight to Stripe and never reach us.
- Help requests: if you use "Forgot username?" or "Forgot password?", the email, name and note you give, so staff can check it's really you. Answers are deleted after a day.
- On your device: the game saves your login and your settings (volume, map size and so on) in your browser's storage. It doesn't use cookies.
Who else is involved
- Fly.io hosts the game's servers (in the United States), where all game data is kept.
- Stripe handles token purchases. Stripe is the seller of record for those purchases and works out and collects any sales tax, under Stripe's privacy policy.
- Google Fonts provides the game's pixel font; your browser fetches it from Google, which sees your internet address when it does.
- We may share information if the law requires it, or to protect players or the game from harm or fraud.
How long we keep it
- Your account and game data are kept while your account exists. Daily backups of the game are kept for 7 days, then replaced.
- Payment records are kept as long as tax and accounting rules require, even if your account is deleted.
Your choices
- You can ask us for a copy of your information, to correct it, or to delete your account and its data: email us at the address below from the email on your account.
- Children under 13 shouldn't play without a parent's permission. If you're a parent and believe your child gave us information without your consent, contact us and we'll delete it.
- Depending on where you live (for example in the EU, UK or California), you may have more rights under local law; contact us to use them.
Refund Policy
- Unspent tokens: if you change your mind, contact us within 14 days of buying a token pack and, as long as you haven't spent any of those tokens, we'll refund it in full and remove the tokens.
- Spent tokens: tokens already spent, and items, boosts or other things bought with them, can't be refunded, except where the law requires it.
- Something went wrong: if you were charged but your tokens didn't arrive within a few minutes, contact us with the time and amount of the purchase and we'll add them or refund you.
- Chargebacks: please contact us before disputing a charge with your bank; we're happy to sort it out. Accounts with a disputed purchase may be suspended while it's looked into.
- Refunds go back to the card or payment method you used, through Stripe, and may take a few business days to appear.