A crane swings a floor on a cable. Land it dead centre and residents parachute in, your streak climbs and the tower stays plumb. Land it badly and it leans — and every floor after that is harder, because a crooked tower sways further and the block you're aiming at will not sit still.
The block falls dead straight down, keeping the angle it was hanging at. Nothing drifts, nothing cheats. The difficulty is that the thing you're aiming at is swaying — and how much it sways is entirely your own fault.
Dead centre fills the streak meter and residents parachute in. Four in a row earns a balcony floor that houses twice as many people.
An off-centre floor leans the column and shoves it sideways. The next block has less to land on, because the half hanging over nothing can't carry anything.
Stack too far over one edge and the tower does what it should. Every floor above the break tears off and lands in the street.
The campaign. Contracts with placement rules, five classes of tower, and districts that open as the board fills.
One tower, as high as you can take it. Noon to midnight, and the wind starts to matter around the fortieth floor.
Sixty seconds. A perfect drop buys two more; a miss costs five. Precision literally is the clock.
Two players on one phone. The screen splits and the top half turns around, so you can sit opposite each other.
Finished buildings get placed on a five-by-five grid, and each new contract comes with a rule about what it must be built next to. Blue residential, red commercial, green office, gold luxury — and a Mega Tower that has to be hemmed in by all four, so you'll only ever fit a couple. Fill all twenty plots and somewhere new opens up.
The blocks, the crane, the skyline, the little people under umbrellas — all generated pixel by pixel at launch. There are no image files in the app.
A small synth builds the thuds, the sparkles and an eight-bar chiptune loop when the game starts. No audio files either.
Falling blocks are hand-integrated so landings are fair; the column is a damped oscillator; only debris and collapses use a real physics engine.
Skyliner: Tower Stack City is a one-tap crane stacking game for iPhone and iPad by Novarch LLC. A crane swings a floor on a cable and you tap to drop it. Land it dead centre and the tower stays plumb; land it badly and it leans, and too far over one edge it comes down.
Skyliner is free and shows ads from Google: a banner on the map, rankings and depot, and an ad between some runs, never during a drop. Reward videos for coins or one more crane are always your choice. One optional purchase, Remove Ads, takes away the banners and the ads between runs for good.
Four: Build City, the campaign of contracts and districts; Endless, one tower as high as you can take it; Time Attack, sixty seconds where a perfect drop buys two more and a miss costs five; and Versus, two players on one phone.
Every finished tower goes on a five-by-five city grid, and each contract has a rule about what it must be built next to: blue residential, red commercial, green office, gold luxury, and a Mega Tower hemmed in by all four. Fill all twenty plots and a new district opens: Harbour Flats, Ironworks, Sandpoint, Northgate and Neon Mile.
Yes. In Versus you race to 8, 12, 16 or 20 floors on one phone, and the top half of the screen turns around so you can sit opposite each other.
iPhone and iPad with iOS 17 or later.
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