# Lantern Drift guide: steering, light and distances > How Lantern Drift works: drag to steer your lantern down the river, collect lotus and fireflies to hold your light up, and read the numbers behind rocks, bridges and the daily river. Published 2026-10-06 by Glowbox · https://glowbox.dev/guides/lantern-drift-guide [[game:lantern-drift]] Lantern Drift is a browser game about one thing: keeping a paper lantern lit while the river carries it downstream. You do not control speed, you do not tap obstacles, and there is no finish line. You drag left and right to dodge what floats in the water, and the run ends the moment your light goes out. It works on desktop and on a phone browser, and it runs with or without WebGL support. ## How to steer Your lantern always drifts forward on its own. The river is 8.4 metres wide in total, and the lantern's centre can move about 4.2 metres either side of the middle. - **Mouse or finger:** press anywhere on the river and drag. The game reads the horizontal position of your finger, not the tap location, so you can start the drag from a comfortable spot. - **Keyboard:** the left and right arrow keys nudge the target position one metre at a time. - **Precision:** a full-width drag covers roughly three times the half-width of the river. Small drags therefore give you much finer control, which is what you want around rocks. The lantern does not teleport to your finger. It eases toward the target position, so a sudden hard flip takes a moment to play out. Start moving before a rock reaches you rather than reacting to it. ## The only way to lose Light is the whole game. It starts at full, drains continuously, and is restored by what you collect. The bar along the top is your entire health system. - **Lotus light: +0.2.** The pink flowers on the water. This is the big pickup. - **Fireflies: +0.07.** Small yellow points. Useful, but they will not save you on their own. - **Rocks: −0.28.** A bump also knocks your lantern sideways, away from the rock, and blocks further hits on the same rock for about a second. Light cannot rise above full, so arriving at a lotus with 90% light wastes most of that flower. That is the single most common mistake: arriving full at a pickup you did not need. ## The numbers behind the drain The light drains at a rate that depends on how far you have already drifted. - It starts at **0.026 per second**, so a full lantern lasts about 38 seconds on its own before you collect anything. - The rate climbs with distance and tops out at **0.060 per second** (roughly 2,400 m in), where a full lantern lasts about 17 seconds. Those are the numbers in the code, and they explain everything about the game's shape. Early on you can drift almost casually. Later, a single missed lotus is a large fraction of what you have left, and rocks — at 0.28 each — are worth about ten times a second of drifting. Once you are past a few hundred metres, rocks decide your run, not the drain. ## Reading the river The river is generated in 20-metre chunks, so the water ahead follows a pattern. - **Rocks:** 1 or 2 per chunk early on, rising to as many as 4 or 5 in the deepest parts. - **Lotus:** roughly three chunks in four contain a flower, and the generator avoids placing one on top of a rock. The flowers are therefore a fair guide to a safe line. - **Fireflies:** 0 to 2 per chunk, scattered anywhere. That last point matters. Follow the flowers. If a lotus is sitting in open water a metre or two to one side, steering through it is usually the same decision as steering around the rock that forced the choice. Every **300 metres** you pass under a festival bridge and the game marks the distance. ## Your wish and the lantern poem Before the first run of a session you are offered the wish screen. You write up to **40 characters**, and the game turns it into a short poem printed on the lantern plus a name for it. You can type your own, tap one of the suggested wishes, or use the surprise button. The input is filtered before it is used. Anything containing a link, an `@`, or a run of five or more digits is rejected, as is anything shorter than 3 characters. Your original wish text is not stored locally and does not go into the shared list — only the poem is kept. If the poem cannot be written, the game falls back to a built-in poem and still lets you play, so a slow or failed connection never blocks a run. ## Distance, milestones and the daily river Runs are scored in distance bands: finishing at all is one star, **600 m** is two, **1500 m** is three. Six distances are marked worldwide — **500, 1000, 2000, 3000, 5000 and 8000 metres**. The first lantern in the world to reach each one gets its name recorded on a global board that everyone can open from the menu, and you will see a notice when you pass one yourself. Runs of **50 metres or more** are added to the River of Wishes, a shared list of other players' lanterns with their poems and distances. Shorter runs are counted locally but not released. **Today's river** is generated from the date, so everyone playing that day drifts the same river, and your best distance for that day is kept separately from your all-time best. **Free drift** uses a fresh random river every time and is the better place to test a new technique. ## Common sticking points - **Arriving at pickups already full.** Watch the light bar, not the flowers. If it is above roughly 80%, take the wide line instead. - **Drifting down the middle out of habit.** Rocks are spread across the whole width, so there is no permanently safe lane. The flowers are the better guide: they sit slightly inboard of the edge and are never placed on top of a rock. - **Reacting instead of planning.** A rock is visible long before it arrives. Decide the line when it is still small, then coast. - **Bouncing between two rocks.** After a hit you are pushed away from the rock you touched. If there is another rock on that side, you have swapped one problem for a worse one. Aim for the outer lane after a bump. ## Getting further - **Bank light in the first 300 metres.** Those metres drain slowly and usually hold a generous number of flowers. Full light at the first bridge is worth more than a slightly better line at 900 m. - **Treat a bump as a signal, not an accident.** After a hit you are pushed away from the rock you touched. Move decisively outward and hold that line for a few seconds, and check what is around you before drifting back in. - **Practise in Free drift.** The daily river is the same for everyone, which is the point, but it is not the place to experiment with a new steering rhythm. - **Use the bridges as pace markers.** If you are still near full light at 300 m but struggling by 600 m, your problem is collecting, not dodging. ## How long is a run? There is no official figure for run length. Judging from the speed formula — roughly 5 m per second, rising as you go, and capped at 11 m per second — and from the light drain, a typical run is on the order of **one to a few minutes**. That is an estimate based on the game's own numbers, not a published average. ## FAQ **Is there a timer on a run?** No. There is no countdown and no time limit. The river decides how long you last, and you can leave to the menu at any point — the distance you reached is still kept. **Do I have to write a wish to play?** No. The wish is optional. Writing one only changes the poem and name printed on your lantern; it does not change the river, the rocks or the scoring. If the poem cannot be written, the game uses one of its own and starts normally. **Why did my wish get rejected?** Links, anything containing an `@`, and runs of five or more digits are refused, as are wishes shorter than 3 characters. Remove the contact details and try again. ## FAQ **What is the only way to lose in Lantern Drift?** Your light reaching zero. Rocks are not an instant fail — each one takes 0.28 light and knocks you sideways, so you can survive several bumps. **Is there a timer on a run?** No. A run ends only when the lantern light runs out. There is no countdown and no time limit. **Do I need to write a wish to play?** You can skip straight past it. A wish is turned into a three-line poem on the lantern, but the river runs either way. **Why did my wish get rejected?** The input is checked before anything else. Anything with a link, an @ sign, or a run of five or more digits is refused, as are wishes under 3 characters. ## Games in this article - [Lantern Drift](https://glowbox.dev/game/lantern-drift): Write a wish, let AI turn it into a poem on your lantern, then steer it down a river that speeds up as you go.