Daily Brains · a scope is on you. Read range and height from the view, then find his window.
Sightline is the map-logic puzzle in Daily Brains (/daily). Every day the whole world gets the same small misty city, built from the puzzle number. You stand on a round paving stone in a park, a plaza or on a street corner, and you see yourself the way the shooter does: through his scope, crosshairs on your chest. There is no range readout. Four windows on the map could be his, each a building and a floor. Work out how far away he is and how high he sits from the picture alone, then take your shot. You get two.
STORY & LORE
Where it comes from
The idea is borrowed from the 'where is the shooter?' map puzzles that do the rounds on social media: a scope view and a street map, and a handful of windows to choose from. Sightline makes one every day, procedurally, and makes it fair: everything you need is in the view, and the generator proves the answer is the only window that fits.
The city
A 7 × 7 grid of 72 m blocks and 20 m streets on an island in a river: buildings of 2 to 48 floors that rise towards a downtown, a park with a fountain and trees, small paved plazas, parked cars, lamp posts, benches, bins and a few grey figures who are not looking at you. The scope view is a real 3D render (three.js) from the true window, with fog, shadows and a mil reticle; the map is the same city drawn from above, buildings shaded by height.
HOW IT PLAYS
Reading the scope
The paving stone you stand on is exactly 4 m across, so it is a ruler. Drag on the scope to draw a box: the readout gives its width (W) and height (H) in mils, plus H/W. Range in metres = 4000 ÷ W. A flat circle squashes as you look down on it, and H/W is the sine of the angle you are seen from, so height = H/W × range and the floor is height ÷ 3.5 m. Three zooms (6×, 12×, 24×) are a first-focal-plane scope: the reticle scales with the picture, so mils stay true at every zoom. You (1.8 m), the benches, bins and lamp posts beside you are extra yardsticks.
Calling it, then shooting
First you may call the range and the floor on two sliders, for bonus points; or skip. Only then do the four windows appear on the map, labelled with their floors. Range rings mark every 100 m from Monday to Friday; at the weekend you only get the scale bar. Pick a window and take the shot. A miss marks that window with the reason it was wrong and leaves you one more shot.
How the decoys are built
Every decoy fails at least one check by a margin you can see. A range decoy looks just as steep but sits too near or too far (the stone would be a different width). A height decoy is the same distance away but too high or too low (the stone would squash differently). Some decoys are wrong on both. On Saturday and Sunday one decoy matches both range and height but looks from the wrong direction: the ground or the wall behind you, or the way the kerbs run across the view, gives it away. Every decoy has a clear line of sight to you, so 'that window is blocked' is never the answer. scripts/test-sightline.mjs re-checks 400 days of puzzles in CI.
Scoring, streaks and sharing
Hit on the first shot: 700. Second shot: 350. A range call within 10% adds 150 (within 20%: 75); a floor call within two floors (or 12% on tall towers) adds 150 (within four floors or 25%: 75). 1000 is a perfect day. Any hit keeps the streak. The share card says which shot hit and how close your calls were, never which window it was.
Intro and rules
The first time you open the puzzle each day a short skippable intro plays: a glint, the breathing sway of a scope settling on you, then the title. The rules never open by themselves; the How to play button opens a five-page illustrated deck.
WEEKDAYS
| Day | Level | Decoys | Range tolerance | Squash tolerance | Map |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | Easy | range, height, both | 42% | 0.15 | rings |
| Tuesday | Steady | range, height, both | 36% | 0.13 | rings |
| Wednesday | Medium | range, two height | 31% | 0.11 | rings |
| Thursday | Tricky | two range (one near, one far), height | 27% | 0.095 | rings |
| Friday | Hard | range, height, both | 24% | 0.08 | rings |
| Saturday | Sharp | range, height, wrong direction | 22% | 0.07 | scale bar |
| Sunday | Fiendish | range, height, wrong direction | 20% | 0.06 | scale bar |
REWARDS
| Event | Reward |
|---|---|
| Find him (any hit) | 15 Tickets (daily_solve) |
| Perfect day (1000) | 25 Tickets (daily_perfect) |
ACHIEVEMENTS
| Badge | How |
|---|---|
| Found Him | Hit the right window |
| One Round | Hit with your first shot |
| Rangefinder | Range call within 10% |
| Plumb Line | Floor call within two floors |
| Dead On | Score 1000 |
| High Ground (secret) | Find a shooter on floor 30 or higher |
| Weekend Marksman | First-shot hit on a Saturday or Sunday |
| Three Days Watching | 3-day streak |
| Counter-Sniper | 7-day streak |
| Nothing Gets Past You | 30-day streak |
VERSION HISTORY
- Launch version in Daily Brains.
- Procedural island city per day; three.js scope view from the true window with fog, shadows and a first-focal-plane mil reticle at 6×, 12× and 24×; drag-to-measure caliper.
- No range readout: range from the 4 m paving stone's width in mils, height from how squashed it looks.
- Optional range and floor call for up to 300 bonus points, then four windows and two shots; reveal animates the sightline and labels why each decoy fails.
- Weekday ladder Monday Easy to Sunday Fiendish, with wrong-direction decoys at the weekend; generator + validator proven over 400 days in CI.
- Skippable once-a-day intro, centred controls, rules only on request, no emoji anywhere.