SparkTrailsFor families

Terms

Updated 21 October 2026. Also: SparkTrails’s privacy notice.

A few plain rules for using SparkTrails. By setting it up for your family, you agree to them.

Who it’s for

SparkTrails is for families. Children of about 4 to 13 play its trails with a grown-up, and teenagers and grown-ups can play the 14+ trails. A parent or carer sets it up and chooses the PIN, and is responsible for how it’s used and for the children using it.

Staying safe outdoors

Trails are walks for children and grown-ups to do together. A grown-up should be with children for the whole of an outdoor trail.

You’re responsible for your group’s safety on the way, as on any walk:

roads and traffic, and looking up from the phone to cross
water, cliffs, steps, edges and anything slippery
crowds, and keeping children in sight
the weather, the light, and how far little legs can go

Follow local signs, rules and opening times. If a stop isn’t safe, is closed or is too busy, skip it: every trail lets you. Respect private property, and be quiet and respectful at places of worship. Never climb on walls, fences or monuments to answer a clue.

Home hunts happen at home: only use spots that are safe for your children to go to on their own.

Trails can have mistakes

Places change: a gate gets locked, a statue is moved, a café closes, so ready-made trails can go out of date. Trails made in the app are written by Claude, an AI model, from public map information. They’re checked by rules (every stop must be a real place on the map), not read by a person first, so they can have mistakes even on the day they’re made.

Check a stop before you follow a trail to it, and use your own judgement. Distances, times and directions are a guide. If something has changed, use “Report a change” on the trail.

Free trails and the pass

You can play one ready-made trail, make one trail in the app and make one home hunt for free. Everything else needs the family pass.

The pass is sold through the App Store or Google Play, as a yearly or monthly subscription or a single payment. Prices and any free days are shown before you buy. The store takes the payment, and its rules cover refunds.

Subscriptions renew automatically until you cancel them in your App Store or Google Play settings. Deleting the app, or your family account, doesn’t cancel them.

On a new phone, “Restore purchases” in Account brings back a pass bought with the same App Store or Google Play account.

The family account

Signing in is optional. The account belongs to the grown-up whose email it uses, and it’s shared by the Sparks apps, so deleting it deletes it in all of them.

Anyone who can read your email can sign in to your family’s account. Keep your email account safe, and never share a sign-in code with anyone.

Using it fairly

SparkTrails is for your family’s own use. Don’t try to get round its limits, such as the daily limit on making trails, or to overload, copy or take apart the service. We may stop requests that look like misuse.

What’s ours

The app, its ready-made trails, stories and pictures, Glint and the other characters belong to us. Trails made in the app are for your family to play.

Your photos stay yours. We keep them only so your family can use them in SparkTrails.

No promises we can’t keep

We work to keep SparkTrails accurate and running, but we provide it as it is. Parts that need the internet, like making a trail or signing in, may sometimes be unavailable, and making trails may be paused or limited. As far as the law allows, we aren’t responsible for losses that come from relying on it. Nothing here takes away rights the law gives you.

Changes and contact

We may update these terms; the date below shows when. If you keep using the app after a change, the new terms apply.

SparkTrails is run by Studio Darling. Write to hello@sparksforkids.app. These terms follow the law of England and Wales.