ℹ️ Tutorial

Every stone travels through a few stages, and the status labels you'll see on My Profile map directly onto them:

1. Waiting for approval — just submitted, an admin hasn't looked at it yet. Not shown on any map, nobody can find or claim it.
2. "Not deployed" — approved, but still sitting with whoever created it. It's either waiting to be placed, or currently listed on the Marketplace.
3. "Hidden" — out in the world right now, waiting for someone to find it.
4. "Taken" — currently being carried around by a player.

A player who finds a "Hidden" stone can either keep it where it is for the next person, or take it with them ("Taken") and place it somewhere new later on — flipping the stone back and forth between "Hidden" and "Taken" is basically the whole game loop.

Each stone also has a short mission or description — check it out on Search a stone or Stone Overview before you take one with you, it might ask you to do something fun along the way.

Painted a new stone? Head to Submit a Stone to register it. You'll fill in:

• Name — up to 100 characters.
• Type — pick the category that fits its design (flowers, animals, holidays, and so on).
• Weight — in grams. This is what decides its Light/Medium/Big/Heavy category everywhere else in the app.
• Mission — up to 2000 characters, whatever you'd like the next finder to do or think about.
• Code — pick one of three suggestions, e.g. 26A001XQF. This is the year, a series letter, a running number and three random letters (never O, 0, I or 1, since those look alike when handwritten). Don't like any of the three? Tap "🔀 New suggestions" for a fresh set. Once submitted, the code can't be changed — write it clearly on the physical stone before it goes anywhere.

Behind the scenes, the stone also gets a random protection value between 1 and 99 credits right from the start — so it's never trivially free for someone to adopt the moment it's placed.

Your submission then waits for an admin to approve it — there's nothing more for you to do, and nothing to lose if it takes a while. Once approved, you're paid 15 credits as a creation bonus, and the stone is ready to go. (If an admin rejects it instead, no harm done — you never spent any credits submitting it in the first place.)

From there you have two options: place it yourself on Stone Found? using its code and earn another 10 credits once it's actually out in the world — or list it on the Marketplace instead and let someone else place it for you (more on that below). Changed your mind about the mission text before it's placed? You can still edit it any time under "My submitted stones" on My Profile.

Stone Overview is the read-only map of every stone that's currently out in the world (stones still waiting for placement, sitting on the Marketplace, or waiting on admin approval don't show up here). Tap the "☰ Places" list or a pin on the map to open a stone's detail card with its description, weight and coordinates.

Use the filter chips (🏛️ Light, 🌿 Medium, 🍴 Big, 📡 Heavy) to narrow the list down by a stone's weight — handy if you're only looking for something you can carry easily. The cutoffs are:

• Light — under 25 g
• Medium — 25 to 50 g
• Big — 50 to 100 g
• Heavy — 100 g and up

Search a stone looks the same as Stone Overview, but adds one thing: your own live position. Tap the 📍 button bottom-right to start tracking — the app will follow your movement and show how far away each stone is, both on the list and in a stone's detail card.

Once you're close enough to a stone, extra buttons appear on its detail card:

• Take 🎒 — shows up within 100 m of a stone. Use it once you've physically picked the stone up; same effect as "I take the stone with me!" on Stone Found?, just without typing in the code.
• Keep 📌 — shows up within 50 m. Confirms the stone is still exactly where it should be, refreshing its "last confirmed" timestamp so it doesn't look abandoned.
• Lost ⚠️ — also within 50 m. Use this if you were expecting a stone here but can't actually find it. It disappears from Stone Overview and Search a stone until someone eventually picks it back up and places it again.

A fourth button, Diary 📖, is always available regardless of distance — it opens the stone's diary of notes and photos left by previous finders (see below).

Every stone carries a short code painted on it, e.g. 26A001XQF. If you'd rather type that code in by hand than tap through the map, Stone Found? is the page for that. Enter it and hit "Search!" — codes aren't case-sensitive, but double-check easily confused characters like O/0 or I/1 if it says "unknown".

1. Brand new stone ("Not deployed"): if it's freshly approved and nobody has ever placed it out in the world yet, the page walks you through setting its very first location — tap "Find me!" and confirm your position to activate it. This is also the moment its creator earns the 10-credit placement bonus.
2. Stone lying somewhere ("Hidden"): if the stone is currently out in nature, you'll see its name and mission, plus a button "I take the stone with me!" — tap it and the stone is now marked as carried by you ("Taken").
3. Stone you're carrying ("Taken"): once you're ready to let it travel on, come back to Stone Found?, enter the same code again. Since you're now carrying it, you'll see "Re put me into nature!" instead — tap it, confirm your current position, and the stone is placed back out in the world at its new spot for the next player to find. This is also when any distance credits it has earned get paid out (see below).

If the stone happens to be unclaimed (no owner yet) and you're logged in, you'll also see the option to adopt it right here — more on that below.

Every time you take a stone or place it again, you can leave a short note — and an optional photo — for whoever looks at the stone's diary later. Both are completely optional; leave them blank and nothing gets recorded.

You'll find the note field right on Stone Found?, underneath the "I take the stone with me!" and "Re put me!" buttons. Tap "📖 View stone diary" any time to read everything written about a stone so far, oldest entry first — or reach the same page from a stone's detail card on Search a stone via the "Diary 📖" button.

Right at the top of the diary, above the entries, you'll also see where the stone was first ever placed — a "🚩 First placed" line with a Google Maps link — so you can always trace a stone back to where its journey began, no matter how far it's traveled since.

My Created is a separate menu item, right next to My Profile, that lists every stone you've ever submitted and that's now actually out in the world — hidden somewhere, or currently carried by another player. It doesn't matter whether you still own it: once you've created a stone, it stays listed here for as long as it's in play.

For each stone you'll see its current status (including Lost ⚠️ if someone has reported it missing), a Google Maps link to where it currently is, and how far it has traveled in total. You can also open its full Stone Diary or leave a new diary note of your own right from this page — no need to find and take the stone first.

Photos work the same way: you can always view a stone's photo gallery here, but adding or removing photos is still limited to whoever currently owns the stone (see "Fotos verwalten" logic elsewhere) — makes sense, since only they have it in hand to photograph.

Not every stone gets placed by the person who painted it. On My Profile, any approved stone you haven't placed yet can be listed on the Marketplace instead — just set an asking price in credits.

Other players browse the Marketplace and bid on stones they like. The first bid that meets or beats the asking price wins immediately, and the credits go straight to you as the seller — a real sale, unlike taking over someone's placed stone (see below), where the credits just disappear instead.

Changed your mind? As long as nobody has bought it yet, you can withdraw a listing any time from My Profile.

Once someone buys your stone, arrange to get them the physical stone — from that point on, they'll earn the 10 credits placement bonus once they place it, not you, since they're the one doing the work.

Every new account starts with 1000 credits. On top of that, your first login of each day pays out a small random bonus between 1 and 22 credits — logging in again later the same day won't pay out a second one, only the first login of a calendar day counts.

Beyond that, there are several ways to earn more as you play, each covered in its own section below:

• Submitting a stone — 15 credits once an admin approves it.
• Placing a stone for the first time — 10 credits, paid to whoever created it (or bought it on the Marketplace).
• Selling on the Marketplace — whatever price a buyer's bid clears, paid straight to you.
• Distance traveled — 1 credit for every full 100 km one of your stones covers.
• Weekly holding reward — 1 credit for every full week you keep one of your stones moving, paid out the next time you log in (see below).
• Creator reward — 1 credit for every full month one of your created stones stays active, no matter who currently owns it, paid out the next time you log in (see below).
• Creator royalty — 10% of what someone else pays to adopt or take over one of your created stones, credited straight to you.

And there are ways to spend it, too: adopting an unclaimed stone, protecting your own stones against takeover, or bidding to take over someone else's.

You'll see your current balance any time on My Profile.

Stones without an owner show up as unclaimed when you find them on Stone Found?. You can adopt one to make it yours — the cost is whatever the stone's own protection value happens to be at that moment, and unlike an offer (see below), this price is shown to you upfront.

Once adopted, the stone shows up under "My adopted stones" on My Profile, together with its current protection value — and if it had already traveled any distance before you adopted it, that earlier distance counts toward your first payout too (see "Distance credits" below).

Owning a stone can earn you 1 credit per full week — but only for weeks where that stone actually got (re-)placed at least once. Just leaving it sitting somewhere doesn't count, no matter how long you technically own it: someone has to take it, place it, take it again, place it somewhere else, and so on, to keep the reward flowing. It's not paid out automatically in the background either — it only gets credited to your account the next time you log in.

That means if you haven't logged in for 10 weeks, your next login checks each of those 10 weeks for every stone you still own, and pays out 1 credit for every week that had at least one placement — all at once.

The clock resets to zero whenever a stone gets a new owner — through adoption or a successful takeover offer. So you only ever earn this reward for weeks you personally owned the stone, not for time it spent with a previous owner.

This one belongs to you as the creator (the person who submitted the stone), not whoever currently owns it — and it starts from your very first stone, no minimum required. For every stone you've made that's actively out in the world (hidden somewhere, or currently carried by another player — see My Created), you earn 1 credit per full month it stays that way.

Just like the weekly holding reward, it's not paid out in the background — it lands on your account the next time you log in, covering every full month that passed for each of your active stones since the last payout. If one of your stones gets reported lost, its clock simply pauses until it's found again; a stone that's never been placed yet doesn't start earning until it actually goes out into the world.

Every stone you own shows its last known spot right on My Profile — tap "Open in Google Maps" under a stone to see exactly where it currently sits.

You can also rewrite a stone's mission any time, up to 2000 characters. Open "✏️ Edit mission" under the stone, type a new description, and save it. Whoever finds the stone next will see your updated text — handy if the original mission ran its course and you want to send the stone off on a new one.

This works the same way for stones you haven't placed yet — under "My submitted stones" on My Profile, every stone still waiting to go out (or currently on the Marketplace) has its own "✏️ Edit mission" option too, so you can fix a placeholder description before anyone ever sees it.

Every stone quietly keeps track of the total distance it has ever covered between placements. You'll see it as "🚶 X km traveled" under each of your stones on My Profile.

For every full 100 km a stone racks up, its current owner is paid 1 credit — automatically, no action needed on your part.

Adopting a stone that already wandered around before anyone claimed it? That earlier distance counts too — you'll pick up any credits it had already earned the moment it becomes yours.

Taking over someone else's stone with an offer works differently: any distance the stone racked up under its previous owner is left behind. You only start earning credits for kilometers the stone covers after it becomes yours.

On My Profile, every stone you own shows a "Protect" option. Spending your own credits there raises that stone's protection value — the higher it is, the harder it becomes for another player to take the stone away from you (see "Taking over another player's stone" below).

Protection can go up to a maximum of 127 credits per stone. Once a stone is fully protected, the option disappears — there's nothing more to add.

Found a stone that already belongs to someone else? You can make an offer of your own credits to try and take it. On purpose, you won't be shown how well the stone is protected — that's part of the risk.

• Offer more than the stone's protection and it becomes yours. The stone keeps its existing protection value — it doesn't reset.
• Offer too little and the stone stays with its owner — but your credits are spent either way.

If someone successfully takes one of your stones while you're away, you'll see a short message the next time you log in, letting you know which stone you lost. No surprises — just check back in occasionally to defend what's yours.

You'll also get a message when one of your Marketplace listings sells, telling you which stone and for how many credits — that way you know it's time to arrange handing over the physical stone to its buyer.

The Statistics page ranks every player by Score — credits multiplied by how many stones they currently own — highest first, so both your credit balance and how many stones you're actively holding matter for your rank. Owning zero stones means a score of zero, no matter how many credits you've saved up.

Alongside the score you'll see three more figures per player: Credits (your current balance), Owned (stones they currently hold as currentowner — adopted, placed, or taken over) and Created (stones they originally submitted into the game, whether or not they still own them).

Your own row is highlighted, so you can always spot yourself in the list. Since credits and ownership both move constantly — daily bonuses, submissions, sales, distance payouts, offers won and lost, adoptions — the ranking reflects everyone's score at the exact moment you load the page.

My Profile shows your personal badges — private to you, nobody else can see them. There are six tracks, each with a few tiers to work toward:

• 🖐️ Finder — stones you've found: First Find (1), Explorer (10), Adventurer (50), Legend Finder (100), Master Finder (500), Stone Whisperer (1000).
• 🔁 Placer — stones you've placed or re-placed: First Placement (1), Wanderer (10), Trailblazer (50), Master Placer (250), Wayfinder Legend (1000).
• 🪨 Creator — stones you've submitted: First Stone (1), Stone Smith (10).
• 🏷️ Owner — stones you currently own: Collector (5), Curator (20).
• 📖 Storyteller — diary entries you've left (see above): Storyteller (5), Chronicler (20).
• 🎟️ Voucher — QR-voucher codes redeemed: Treasure Hunter (1).

Each badge card shows a small progress bar toward its next tier (including the very first one) — a quick way to see what's within reach.