Salt Cliff Capes

Besta Apps

About this app

Salt Cliff Capes is a quiet grid puzzle about coastlines. Shade the water, leave the land, and let one rule do all the work: only a circled cell is allowed to stick out.

A cape is an unshaded cell with exactly one unshaded neighbour, like a headland reaching into a flat slate sea. Every cape on a finished chart carries a circle, and every circle sits on a cape. The number inside a circle counts the straight run of unshaded cells leaving it, the circle included. A plain circle with no number is still a cape, but the length is yours to work out.

Four rules, and that is the whole game:

- A circled cell has exactly one unshaded neighbour, and its printed number gives the length of the straight run that leaves it.
- No other unshaded cell may be a cape. Anywhere else, an unshaded cell needs two or more unshaded neighbours.
- All unshaded cells join into one connected coastline.
- No two-by-two block of the grid is shaded all the way through.

That second rule is the one everyone forgets, so the app refuses to let it hide. Press Check and every accidental cape is pinned, every solid square of water is boxed, and any patch of land cut off from the rest is outlined. Nothing is scored or punished - the marks simply show you what the coast is doing.

WHAT IS INSIDE

- Three chart sizes: 8x8, 10x10 and 12x12, each with its own best time and completion count.
- Charts built fresh on your device, then run through a solver that proves there is exactly one answer before you ever see the grid.
- Tap a cell once for water, again to pencil it as land, again to clear it.
- Tap a circle to trace where its run can still reach. When only one direction is left, that run is drawn solid.
- Undo through every mark, take a hint when a chart goes cold, or wipe the board back to the printed circles.
- A survey log of solved charts, best times, total time at the drawing board and hintless runs.
- Eleven coastal awards that fill in quietly as you play.
- An illustrated explainer with a side-by-side drawing of a legal cape and an accidental one.
- Your half-finished chart, your settings and your whole log survive closing the app.

DESIGNED TO BE QUIET

Chalk white paper, a flat slate sea and gull-grey rules. Everything on screen is drawn with vector graphics, so the chart stays crisp on any display and the download stays small.

- Completely offline. The app has no internet permission and makes no connection of any kind.
- No advertising, no tracking, no analytics, no accounts, no sign-in.
- No sound at all. Nothing beeps, chimes or plays. Optional touch feedback is the only response beyond what you see.
- No purchases of any kind. Every chart size, award and tool is there from the first launch.
- Portrait only, and happy on a small screen.

Suitable for all ages. There is no violence, no gambling and no in-app currency - only a grid, a handful of circles, and the patient business of deciding where the water goes.

Bring it on a train, a plane or a long wait with no signal. The coastline is always there.