Skimline tips: controls, routes, coins, upgrades and stars

Skimline is a one-touch flying game: hold to rise, let go to glide, and follow the coins through each route. This guide explains how the game works, from the controls to the store, and the tips that follow from it. It describes version 0.15 (the menu shows the version in its bottom corner). You can play Skimline in another tab while you read.

The controls #

The game pauses by itself when you switch to another tab or app.

The disc picks up speed about twice as fast going up as coming down, and it climbs a little faster than it falls. Short holds make small corrections; a long hold overshoots. Through tight openings, a few quick taps work better than one long press.

The top and bottom edges of the band are safe: the disc simply stops there. What ends a run is touching an obstacle or an enemy, and one touch is enough unless you carry a shield. The disc's hit circle is a little smaller than its drawing, and a flyer's pointed nose is not part of its hit box, so you can pass closer than it looks.

Follow the coins #

Coins mark the safe line. Each obstacle has a short trail of them leading in and running through it, so when you are not sure where to go, go where the coins go. On a route where something new appears, the menu says so ("New: flyers", for example), the newcomer is every third obstacle, and a short line on screen tells you how to deal with it the first time you meet it.

Here is everything a route can hold, with the route where it first appears:

• Walls and double walls (route 1): fly through the opening.
• Flyers (route 10): red darts that fly at you. Two red arrows at the right edge of the screen, with a warning sound, show the height a flyer will come in at, a moment before it appears. On the first routes with flyers, holding your line is enough; from about route 30 you have to get out of their way.
• Islands (route 11): blocks standing in the band. The coins show the way round, above or below.
• Movers (route 21): blocks that slide up and down. They are at the far end of their swing as you reach them; follow the coins past.
• Spinners (route 25): two blocks circling a point. They are straight above and below it as you cross, so go through the middle.
• Spikes (route 31): keep to the middle of the opening. The points are slightly forgiving.
• Moving walls (route 35): the swing ends as you arrive, so the gap settles where the coins are. Watch the gap.
• Tunnels (route 41): long walls with a slightly wider opening. Hold steady.

Routes and worlds #

Routes are numbered and never run out. Finishing a route opens the next one, and you can replay any route you have reached with the arrows in the menu.

• A route's number sets how hard it is: its speed, the size of its openings and what can appear in it. The course itself is drawn again every time you play, so there is no layout to memorise. Read the coins instead.
• Ten routes make a world, and each new world changes the colours and the key of the music. The menu marks the ninth route of each world (9, 19, 29 and so on) as hard. It is the toughest of its ten, and the tenth eases off again.
• Speed rises until route 150 and goes no higher after that. From then on, routes get harder through what is in them.
• A route takes about 20 to 40 seconds to fly from start to finish.
• A bigger screen shows no more of the route. On a wide screen the game stretches the course to fit, so every screen shows about the same few seconds ahead.

The daily route #

The Daily button opens one route a day, with the same layout for every player. A new one arrives at midnight UTC.

• The daily route keeps its layout all day, so each try teaches you the next stretch. It is the one route worth learning by heart.
• It follows a weekly cycle. On Thursdays (UTC) it plays like route 24. Each day after that is three routes harder, up to route 42 on Wednesdays, and then the cycle starts again.
• It can hold obstacles you haven't reached on the numbered routes: spinners from Friday's route on, spikes from Sunday's, moving walls from Monday's and tunnels on Wednesday.
• Its coins are worth at most your coin level (see Coins).
• Once you finish it, the button shows a check mark for the rest of the day. The number of daily routes you have finished opens free looks, the first after a single one. Stars earned on the daily route don't add to your star total.

Endless #

Endless is one long run with no finish line. It starts as easy as route 1 and gets one route harder for every 2.5 seconds of flight: after a minute you are flying at about the level of route 25, and after two minutes route 49. New obstacles turn up at the same levels as on the numbered routes, with the same short introduction if you have never met them.

Your score is the distance, in metres. A line across the course marks where your best run ended, and the bar along the top edge shows how close you are to it. Coins in Endless are worth more as the run goes on, by the world the course has reached, up to your coin level. Distance also opens free looks, the first at 80 metres.

Coins and what they are worth #

• You keep every coin you collect, even when you crash.
• A coin is worth its world's number. The menu shows "Coins worth 3 each" for a route in world 3, for example, so later routes pay more for the same flight.
• Your coin level is the highest coin worth you have reached: in Skimline, the number of the furthest world you have opened. Every coin price in the store is multiplied by it, so prices keep pace with what a run pays. Coins on early routes are never worth less than a quarter of your coin level.
• Spend before you move up a world. When you open a new world, your coin level rises and every price in the store rises with it, while the coins you saved stay the same. A shield that costs 150 coins in world 1 costs 300 once you have reached world 2.
• Coins sit in one wallet shared by every game on the site, so what you earn here carries over.

The result screen shows the coins a run earned and, when coin worth, the Coin bonus or the multiplier changed the count, how the total was worked out.

Upgrades #

Open the Store from the menu or after a run. The Upgrades tab sells these:

• Each level costs more than the last, and the next one opens as you reach new routes: a Stabilizer level every 3 routes, Magnet and Coin bonus every 5, Slim every 10.
• Only one shield protects a run, however many you carry. After it saves you, nothing can hit you for about a second and a half.
• After a crash with no shield left, Retry with a shield buys one and restarts the route in one tap, if you have the coins.
• Under Buy once, Guardian starts every run with a shield, forever, without using up the shields you bought. The coin multiplier makes every coin count double, then triple, then quadruple, in every game; each step replaces the one before.

At coin level 1, a shield costs 150 coins, the first levels of Magnet, Stabilizer, Coin bonus and Slim cost 300, 400, 500 and 1,000, Guardian costs 20,000 and the three multiplier steps 10,000, 30,000 and 80,000. If one obstacle keeps stopping you, a shield turns your next crash into a second chance. For the long run, Coin bonus and the multiplier raise every payout, and the Magnet makes the Every coin star much easier.

Looks #

The Looks tab holds 100 player shapes, 100 trails and 100 backgrounds. They change how you look, never how the game plays: every shape covers the same hit circle.

• The first of each list is yours from the start, and two more of each are on sale right away.
• New looks open as you reach new routes: a player shape, then a trail, then a background, in turn. Every fourth look that opens this way is free; the first free ones come at routes 5, 6 and 7.
• Every tenth look in each list is a free reward for play time, stars, daily routes finished or distance in Endless. The quickest to earn: 10 minutes of play, 15 stars, one daily route and 80 metres in Endless. When you finish a route, the result screen often names the next free look and what it still needs.
• Tap a look to try it on before you buy it; a lock shows what a closed one needs. Shuffle every play picks a random set from the looks you own each time you fly.

Looks cost from 200 to 6,000 coins at coin level 1 and, like everything in the store, cost more at a higher coin level.

Stars #

Each numbered route has three stars, shown next to its number in the menu:

1. Finished: reach the end of the route.
2. Every coin: finish with every coin of the route.
3. First try: finish it on your first attempt, without a retry.

Stars add up across runs, so you never need all three at once: finish a route first, then come back with a stronger Magnet for its coins. The total, at the bottom of the menu, opens free looks along the way (the first at 15 stars).

Keep your progress #

As a guest, your progress, coins and settings stay in this browser, on this device. A free player account keeps them with your account too, so they follow you to every device where you sign in. Choose Create account the first time you open the game, or go to your account page.

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