Wishing Torches are structures you unlock at level 12, they improve your chances of breeding special monsters and you can have ten torches on each island.





You can light a friend's torch for free every 24 hours and they can do the same for you; you can't light your own torches unless you pay diamonds (2 for 24 hours, 100 for it to be lit forever).
If a friend has unlit torches on one or more islands you'll see an icon to show you can help them.





Simply put you'll want as many torches to be lit as often as possible to improve your chances to get the monsters you're aiming for.

The "unlit torches" tab in the friends section will often NOT work or will update with a long delay, as you see here I had only one notification out of 20 or so pages of friends.
(UPDATE: as of 08/05/2021 the torch tab seems to be working MUCH better, further testing is needed to see if it's fixed 100%)

This means you'll have to click through all your friends and visit them one by one to check for torch icons on their map. Annoying I know, but that's how things are now and this guide will hopefully help to make things easier for you.

You also can't currently remove friends, this means bad torch buddies will clog up your friend list until they solve this bug, again this guide provides a tip to help a bit.

Long display names will also be cut on the game friends list, which is a problem as it'll often cut away the island request you find at the end of it.
For example, this is a long display name asking for their Plant torches to be lit:

Simply put a good torch buddy will light torches daily (or close to daily) and do so in the islands their friends requested (if any).

A good torch buddy is often treasured and their friends will be more eager to help them to return the favor.

Bad torch buddies light very infrequently, some even don't light at all, some light torches every now and then but may do so in the wrong islands. This means they may become low priority for their friends or be completely ignored/ removed from friend list (when they fix that).
Be aware some buddies might fall back on their torch duties simply due to your lack of torches!

So, this sparks joy:




This one does not spark joy:

As said, being a good torch buddy means you'll try to light torches as often as possible and do it where your friends want you to, if they're providing directions.
Here's several tips that'll make you a much better one and make your life easier.

"TORCH TIME"

My first tip would be to choose a time for your torch duty and stick to it every day. This means that once a day you'll be clicking through your whole friend list and visit them to check their map view, ensuring you avoid the bug in the "torches available to be lit" tab.
Sticking to the same time means you don't have to remember when you lit a certain friend's torch and don't risk checking too early thus wasting time or forgetting to come back to it later.
If you add new friends for torch duties try to add them before your torch time, that way you don't end up with too many stragglers. Or you can simply skip one day to ensure they fall in line with the rest of your friends' torches cooldowns.
Ideally you'll also check the "torches lit" tab every now and then just to pick up torch buddies who wern't available and that finally got added to said list.

As an example, my "torch time" is in the late afternoon. I'll sit down and click through each of my 22 pages of friends (exciting uh), but I'll also look for stragglers in the morning and before going to bed.

'CHECK THEIR DISPLAY NAME FOR REQUESTS"

Quite a few players will add island names to their display name to signify they want you to light torches on that island. This means they're concentrating on a certain monsters and want all their torches to be lit before moving to others.
So before you light a torch double check their display name and, if possible, light the correct one!
Again, be aware that long names might get cut, so take a couple seconds more to check their display name while on one of their island to ensure you see it fully and don't miss a request.


"USING FAVORITES TO SORT YOUR FRIEND LIST"

It might be helpful to add great torch buddies to your favorites so that you can be sure not to miss their torches if you're in a hurry for a day and don't have the time to click through your whole list.
Favorites can also be used to sort active buddies from inactive/ bad ones since, for now, removing friends is bugged.
To add a player simply click on their name on your friend list, this will expand the section, you then click on the star to add/ remove them from your favorite list.


"BE AWARE OF MIRROR ISLANDS!"

Player at level 20+ might have spent diamonds to unlock mirror islands and put torches on them. If they ask for their mirror islands to be lit, or simply if they have no spare torches available on the standard ones, you might want to check them.
Doing so is easy, just click on the mirror button on the lower left of the map view and you're there!

"HAVE TORCHES!"

This is basic but I've seen several players, generally around lvl12 to 15 but sometimes higher, have only a couple torches on one or two islands.
This means most of their torch buddies will simply sit there being useless as they have no way to help you unless they're lucky enough to catch you with an unlit torch.
10000 coins isn't a lot once you have things going so try to invest a bit of money and ensure you have torches around your island(s).

Example: this is a buddy I can't really helps, ans they only have two torches and several friends competing for them.


"CHOOSING WHAT ISLAND YOUR FRIENDS SEE FIRST"

If you wish for a specific island to be lit be sure to quit the game while you're visiting that one. Friends visiting you will always land on your last visited island so by quitting on the one you want to be those will be the first unlit torches they see.
If you're letting the game run while idle then visit the island you want lit first, then switch to another, that way the last island you've left will be the one who'll be shown first to those who visit you.

**Thank you Mickmane for the great tip!**


"USE THE DISPLAY NAME"

Add the island you need to your username, ideally have only one so your display name isn't cut on the friends list. If needed try and shorten your username to make sure your island request won't get cut.
Also, be aware that any change you make to your display name won't register until you quit the game.
Example from my list:




"USING PUNCTUATION/ SPECIAL CHARACTERS"

I don't do this nor care much for it, but some players will add a dot or special character to the beginning of their username to be at the top of their friends list thus hoping to improve their chances.
Your with this results may vary, and will probably still depend on how good you of a torch buddy you are, but it's still worth mentioning.

If you've read this far thank you for sticking with this guide, hopefully it helped you! If it did please upvote it to make it more visible for others! If it didn't let me know what could be improved or made more clear. If you have more tips please share them in the comments!

If you want to friend me and be added to my humongous torch buddy list my friend code is:

4000004227CB

If you do add me, be proof that this guide works :P And if I end up on your friend list please visit my Plant island and leave an upvote if you think it's good! I've done a ton of work on it and would love to have more people see it :D

Last but not least, thanks to all the torch buddies who decided to send me a key or use my referral code, the game sadly doesn't say who did what but I'm very happy you thought this guide was good enough to thank me that way...it's awesome.