How FLINT works

Everything in the game, in one place, for phase 1: the island chain, panning and drilling, sparks, equipment, the mud buggy, the museum, and fair play. Last updated 17 September 2026.

1. The island chain

FLINT is one shared, low-poly volcanic world, and one shared community. There is a single economy behind everything: one account, one purse of sparks, one journal, one museum, one set of leaderboards.

There are eight islands, arranged in a single chain from old to young: Mosswake (gentle, where every prospector starts), Fernshadow, Driftash Flats, Basalt Row, Cinderfield, Obsidian Reach, Emberhollow, and Pyrecrown, an active crater at the far end of the chain. Age and difficulty rise together: the islands get younger, rawer and more rewarding the further out you travel.

• Getting around: walk anywhere on land, or drive a mud buggy across the mud flats that connect the islands. The first time you set foot on a new island it pays sparks.
• Day and night: the world runs a shared day and night cycle, the same for every prospector. Nights on the younger islands glow with lava veins and crater light rather than going dark.
• Chain radio: one chat channel, deliberately subtle until you open it, carrying the voices of the prospectors near you. You can mute it locally.
• Ambient wildlife: an ash hawk overhead, a mud salamander sunning on solid ground, and a crust crab picking through the flats. Spotting one up close counts as a sighting (see section 7).

2. Controls

On phones: a touch stick, tap to walk, one finger drag to look, pinch to zoom. The whole strike console is the tap target during a glint. A short intro tour covers all of this on your first visit, and you can replay it any time from the help panel.

3. The glint and the strike

Prospecting is an active moment, not a countdown. The rhythm is: dig, wait, react.

• Start at a shimmering spot with F or the pan or drill button. Sediment swirls while you work.
• The glint arrives at a random moment between 4 and 8.5 seconds in, and never at the same moment twice: a golden flash, a spark chime and a glow ring in the pan. The timing is decided (and locked) the instant you start, but nobody, including your own game client, can see it before it happens. Equipment upgrades and the Tempered Drill (section 8) shorten the wait.
• The strike: when the flash appears you have 1.6 seconds to press Space or tap. Strike it and the pan lifts to reveal your find; the faster your reaction, the more bonus sparks.
• The miss: let the window pass and the glint fades. You get one spark for trying, no mineral.
• Changing your mind: walking away, or the Stop button, ends a dig in progress. A cancelled dig pays nothing.

This is deliberately server-fair: the glint moment is committed on the server the instant you start, hidden from every client until it happens, and never adjusted mid-dig. Nothing about a live strike window is ever tuned while it is open.

4. Sparks and equipment tiers

Sparks are FLINT's soft currency: earned from finds, quick-strike bonuses, discoveries, journal activities, daily requests and the community goal. There are sixteen equipment tiers, from a humble pan up through progressively better drills. Each tier past the first is bought with lifetime finds and spent sparks, never a token, never a wallet hold of any kind. Better equipment widens which dig sites you can work and unlocks rarer minerals. The wait for the glint stays the same honest random draw at every tier.

The exact costs and unlock order for tiers 2 through 16 are still being tuned. The equipment panel in the game always shows the live requirements for your next tier, and that panel is the source of truth, not this page.

5. Minerals and the museum

A successful strike yields a mineral, and every find rolls its own carat or purity, leaning small: most finds of a kind come in near the modest end, and a handful carry a rare trophy roll that goes far past it. The common finds are basalt shard, quartz and pyrite (fool's gold). Further out the chain turns up obsidian, garnet, amethyst, opal, fire agate and geode, with the gold nugget as the rarest general find. Two minerals are site-locked to a single island: peridot and rainbow obsidian.

The museum displays your mineral collection: every kind you have found, your best carat or purity roll for each, and the trophy finds that made the day. It fills in automatically as you prospect. There is no trading and no marketplace; what you find is yours to display.

6. The mud buggy

A mud buggy carries you across the flats between islands: roll cage, fat tyres, a lamp, an ore tray. Walk to a depot, board via the ramp, choose a destination, and drive: runs are visible to other prospectors and continue if you disconnect and reconnect. Discovering a new island for the first time pays sparks once.

7. Journal, requests and the community goal

• Field journal: notebooks for each island, completed by exploring and prospecting.
• Sightings: spotting ambient wildlife up close pays sparks once per species.
• Daily community goal: the whole chain works together toward a shared daily target. Contribute a few finds yourself and collect a bonus once the chain gets there, once per day.
• Daily requests: a handful of small asks every day, worth sparks each, refreshed daily.
• Collections: mineral sets that pay a one-time bonus when completed.
• Starter goals ease you in: your first strike, a first buggy run, your first few islands, paying sparks along the way.

8. Gear versus outfits

One distinction matters everywhere and is labeled on every card:

Cosmetics arrive through free level and discovery unlocks and spark purchases, standing at a shop on an island. Nothing in phase 1 is priced in anything but sparks.

9. Accounts and recovery

• Guest first: you can play the entire game without creating an account. A random prospector name is suggested on your first visit; keep it, shuffle it, or write your own.
• Optional account: a username and password lets you sign in from another device and keep your progress. Passwords are stored properly hashed. Recovery uses a one-time code shown exactly once; keep it private, there is no email recovery service.
• Server authority: your position, finds and sparks are all decided server-side. The client sends movement intent only, so teleporting or fabricating a find is not possible.

10. Fairness and limits

• Provable draws: before each dig resolves, the server commits to a random seed by publishing its fingerprint. The mineral, the carat roll, the spark reward and the glint moment are all derived from that seed, and the seed is revealed afterward, so any settled dig can be recomputed from the proof.
• Active play required: because every strike needs a press within 1.6 seconds of a hidden random moment, unattended digging earns almost nothing.
• Connection limits: one prospector holds one world connection and one dig at a time.

11. Tournaments

The chain periodically holds a timed prospecting tournament, announced on chain radio when it opens and when it ends. The format rotates between most finds, best single carat roll, and rarest haul. Only minerals you actually strike count; misses and cancelled digs score nothing. The top prospectors win a spark bonus, credited automatically at the end. A small card beside the minimap shows the live standings and your own rank.

12. Leaderboards

Boards live on the homepage and in the game. Press L in the game or use the trophy button in the world toolbar. Boards cover most finds, best carat or purity roll, and sparks.

What a board shows about a player: a prospector display name and a number. That is all. No account names, no identifiers of any kind.

13. What is not in the game

There is also no trading between players and no marketplace. Cosmetics never change your odds: the equipment ladder is the whole progression, and the glint window and fairness proof are identical for every prospector. Seen something you would change? That is what this page is for.