Skyscraper Sightlines
Skyscraper Sightlines turns a number grid into a tiny city. You place one tower per square, and the clues around the outside describe how many rooftops a person standing at that edge would spot.
In Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection it goes by the name Towers, and it is drawn in a tidy 3D style. It runs in a regular browser window, so you can solve a board on a Chromebook or phone with nothing to download.
How to play Skyscraper Sightlines
On a 5x5 board, heights go from 1 to 5. Each row and each column uses every height exactly once, with no repeats.
Edge clues count visible towers along that line. A tall tower hides every shorter one behind it. Reading 3, 1, 5, 2, 4 from the left, you see the 3 and the 5, so that clue would be 2.
Select a square and type a digit to build. Right-click a square to enter pencil marks for heights you are still considering. Conflicts turn red, and the city flashes once every tower is right. The Type menu covers grids from 4x4 to 6x6 at several difficulty levels.
Controls
| Action | Keyboard | Mouse | Touch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Place a tower | Arrow keys, then a digit | Click a square, then type | Tap a square, then a digit button |
| Pencil mark | Enter for pencil mode, then a digit | Right-click, then type | Press and hold, then a digit |
| Clear a square | Space, Backspace or 0 | — | Clear button |
| Fill all candidates | M | — | — |
| Grey out a used clue | — | Click the clue | Tap the clue |
| New puzzle, undo, redo | N, U, R | Buttons in the menu bar | Buttons in the menu bar |
Tips
- A clue of 1 means the tallest tower sits right beside it. Those squares are free answers.
- When a clue matches the grid size, the line climbs 1, 2, 3 and so on from that side, so the whole row is solved.
- The square next to any clue c can be no taller than the grid size minus c plus 1. Use that to strike pencil marks early.
- Press M at the start to fill every square with all candidates, then erase them as rows and columns settle.
- Click clues you have fully used so they grey out. Your eye then goes to the ones still doing work.
- Mix rows and columns. Each tower you place removes that height from its whole column too, which often settles a square two lines away.
If you like Skyscraper Sightlines, try these
Undead Mirror MazeEdge counts and sightlines appear again, but mirrors bend the views and you place monsters instead of towers.
Greater-Than GridNo-repeat rows and columns carry over, with small inequality signs between cells replacing the outside clues.
Questions
How do the clues work in Skyscraper Sightlines?
Each clue is the number of towers you would see looking along that row or column from outside the grid. Shorter towers behind a taller one stay hidden.
Do the puzzles need guessing?
No. Generated boards have a single answer that you can reach through logic alone. Harder settings simply need deeper chains of reasoning.
Can I play it on a tablet?
Yes. A touch bar adds digit buttons, and pressing and holding a square switches to pencil marks.
More like this: all puzzle games · Math games · every game A–Z
