Skyplinth strategy guide

Every landscape can be beaten. Here's how to think about it.

The how to play page covers the rules and controls. This guide is about winning: how to read a landscape before you spend anything, how to count energy, how to climb without being seen, and how to finish with enough energy left to jump further ahead.

1. Your first ten seconds

You start every landscape low down with 10 energy, and nothing happens until you act. Use that calm. Before you absorb or build anything, look around a full circle and answer three questions:

1. Where is the Warden, and which way is it facing? The radar wedge tells you. Your first moves should happen in the part of the landscape it isn't looking at.
2. What can I absorb from here? Count the trees and boulders whose base square you can see. That number is your real starting budget, not the 10 on the counter.
3. Where is high, flat, visible ground? You can only build on a flat square you can see. A good first target is a raised flat square close to you, ideally on the side away from the Warden.

A landscape is usually won or lost in how well you plan the first two or three transfers.

2. Energy maths

Everything in Skyplinth costs exactly what it gives back. A tree costs 1 to build and gives 1 when absorbed. A boulder costs 2 and gives 2. A robot costs 3 and gives 3. That symmetry is the key to the whole game: building never destroys energy as long as you absorb it again later.

So the only energy you truly lose is to Hyper and to the Warden. Everything else is a loan. Good play means building freely and paying it all back, while giving the Warden nothing.

A simple climb (robot, transfer, absorb the old shell) costs nothing overall. A taller climb (boulder, robot, transfer) gets you higher but leaves 2 energy in a boulder you may not be able to see from your new body. Before you stack, check whether you'll still have a view of that square.

3. Climbing safely

Look before you leap

Before you transfer, look from where the new robot will stand. Ask what it will be able to see. A higher body that can't see any trees or boulders around it leaves you stuck, with only the energy you carried in.

Absorb the shell, every time

After each transfer, turn and absorb the robot you just left. It's 3 energy, and leaving it behind is the most common way players run dry halfway up.

Climb in short hops

Several small climbs across visible ground are safer than one big stack. Each hop gives you a new view, new things to absorb, and a fresh look at where the Warden is facing.

Use U-turn after every move

U-turn spins you 180° instantly. After every transfer, use it to check behind you. Trees and boulders behind you are energy you haven't counted yet, and the Warden may have turned to face you.

4. Staying out of the Warden's gaze

The Warden turns slowly on its tower. If it can see the square you stand on, it drains your energy. You can't stop it turning, but you can choose where you are when it arrives.

• Watch the wedge. The radar shows where the gaze points. Work on the side it has just passed, which gives you the longest time before it comes back.
• Hide behind height. A hill or ridge between you and the Warden blocks its view of your square. Low hollows are often safer than they look.
• Block with a tree. A tree between you and the Warden can block its line of sight for just 1 energy, and you can absorb it again later.
• Move before it arrives. If the wedge is about to sweep over you and there's nowhere to hide, transfer to a robot it can't see, even if that robot is lower. Height can wait; energy can't be recovered.

5. Dealing with Gazers

If the Warden glimpses you but can't see the square you stand on, it turns a nearby tree into a Gazer. A Gazer will shove you into hyperspace if you leave it watching you.

• Absorb it if you can see its base. That removes the threat and gives you energy.
• Break its line of sight if you can't: transfer to a robot it can't see.
• Prevention is cheaper. Gazers appear when you're half-visible. If you stay fully hidden behind terrain, the Warden has nothing to work with.

6. The endgame

The CLIMB counter tells you how much higher you need to be. Once you're above the Warden's platform:

1. Absorb the Warden. You need to be higher than its platform and able to see it.
2. Build a robot on the platform. This costs 3.
3. Transfer into it.
4. Hyper to finish the landscape. This costs 3.

So you need at least 6 energy once you're high enough: 3 for the robot and 3 for the Hyper. Arrive with a buffer rather than the bare minimum, because a single unexpected turn of the Warden can cost you the landscape.

7. Making longer jumps

When you Hyper out of a landscape, the energy you have left decides how far ahead you jump. Finishing with more energy skips you further through the thousands of landscapes.

• Before the final climb, sweep the area for anything left to absorb: shells, spare boulders, trees.
• Absorb the trees you planted to block sightlines once you no longer need them.
• Don't over-stack. Every boulder you can't reclaim is 2 energy off your jump.
• Note your codes. Each landscape has a four-digit code, and you can type any one you've unlocked on the title screen to go back.

8. Playing the daily landscape

The daily landscape is the same for everyone, it changes every day and it has its own leaderboard. Because everyone gets the same layout, careful play pays off more than speed.

• Spend longer on your first look-around than usual. You only get one fresh view of each daily.
• Count every absorbable object before your first build.
• Play for energy left at the end, not just for winning. That's what separates players on the same landscape.

9. Common mistakes