Lanternfin
A little deep-sea fish with a lamp on its head swims through the wrecks of a pirate fleet. The gold down there has no owner left, so it may as well be yours.
Lanternfin
What is down there
Doubloons
Spanish gold, spilled out of split hulls and strung across the current in long curving shoals. Each one is worth a small fixed number of points. Swim through the whole arc and the count adds up fast.
Pearls
Rarer, brighter, and the only thing that really charges the lamp on your head. One pearl is worth about nine doubloons and a fifth of a flare.
Sea chests
Sunk in the sand, still locked. Swim into one and it bursts open, pays out, and scatters a handful of loose coins around you to be collected before the current takes them.
The shoal bonus
Every fourteen pieces of treasure collected without being hit raises your bonus, up to five times score. One hit and it goes back to one — so a careful diver beats a fast one.
The lantern flare
Fill the charge bar and press F. For six seconds the lamp blazes: treasure is worth double, loose gold is dragged toward you from a wide circle, and anything dangerous that touches you is simply frightened off.
The current
The water always pushes you back toward the left edge, and it pushes harder on every reef. Nothing there hurts you — the edges of the screen are water, not walls — but drifting back means the treasure passes you by.
What wakes up later
Urchins
Purple, spined, drifting slowly up and down across your path. They do not chase you. They do not have to.
Anchor hooks
Rusted iron on long chains, swinging from somewhere far above. Only the hook itself is sharp; the chain is scenery you can swim straight through.
Jellyfish
Bells of green light that rise and sink on a slow rhythm. Easy to read, easy to walk into while you are watching a coin instead.
Barracuda
The only thing in the wreck that comes for you. It lines up on your depth, marks the line it will take with a dashed streak, and then runs it. Leave the line.
The first 75 seconds cannot be lost
Difficulty runs on a clock, not on a dice roll. A new reef arrives every twenty-five seconds, and nothing that can cost you a light exists in the water before the third reef ends.
- 0:00Shallow Wrack. Slow current, wide shoals of doubloons, the first chests. The water is empty of anything dangerous.
- 0:25Doubloon Drift. The current picks up and the treasure comes thicker. Still nothing dangerous.
- 0:50Kelp Graves. Faster again, more pearls, deeper into the fleet. Still nothing dangerous.
- 1:15Urchin Shoal. The calm ends. Urchins drift in and anchor hooks begin to swing — the first two things that can cost a light.
- 1:40Jelly Bloom. Jellyfish join them, rising and falling through the coin runs.
- 2:05Barracuda Run, then the endless Deep: a stronger current, denser treasure, and everything above it at once. The dive ends when the last light goes out.
Why that is a promise, not a claim
In media/lanternfin.js the constant SAFE_SECONDS = 75 gates every hazard spawner at once, and hazards are the only way to lose a light — the screen edges, the sea bed and the current are all harmless by design. You also start with five lights and get one back every twenty seconds. The opening of a dive is unloseable by construction, not by tuning.
What Lanternfin is not
Not a slot machine, not a gambling game
There are no reels, no spins, no multipliers, no bets, no coins you buy and no balance you cash out. Treasure is worth a fixed number of points, every time. Your score comes from where you swim.
Nothing to buy, nothing to join
No account, no sign-up, no email, no in-game purchases, no premium tier, and no advertising inside the game itself. The whole product is this page.
Made for players 13 and over
Lanternfin is a general-audience arcade game. It is not designed for, marketed to, or directed at children under 13. See the terms of use and the privacy policy.