Water Tower
Bring water to the village.
How to play
Water leaves the spring, flows downhill through the pipe and can never rise above its source. Going down into a valley the pressure builds and the pipe can burst; put a water balance tower in between and the pressure resets, and cross very deep valleys with an aqueduct. Towers and aqueducts cost akçe. Place them, press Open and watch whether the water reaches every fountain.
How to play Su Terazisi - a complete guide
Su Terazisi is a physics puzzle born from a real engineering idea of the Ottoman water lines. The land is seen from the side: a water tank on the left, dry fountains on the right, and a pipe running over hills and valleys between them. Water flows downhill on its own, but in a pipe going down into a valley the pressure builds and the pipe bursts. As Mimar Sinan's apprentice you build water balance towers on the slopes and aqueducts over deep valleys, then open the water and bring it to every fountain. The game has 4 chapters and 24 levels, ending in Istanbul. Every structure costs akçe, and the stars go to the cheapest solution.
Goal
Every level has one, two or three fountains. When you press Open, water leaves the reservoir and travels right along the pipe. If every fountain flows, the screen says The fountains are flowing and you pass the level. If even one fountain stays dry, or something goes wrong on the way, you adjust your towers and try again.
Towers save the water but also make it pay a price. So the real puzzle isn't "building towers", it's bringing the water to every fountain for the fewest akçe.
Controls
- Tap the ground: builds a tower there.
- Drag a tower: moves it along the slope; while you drag, the water line, the pipe colour and the fountain gauges change instantly.
- Tap a tower: removes it.
- Tower / Aqueduct: in levels with aqueducts, pick the tool with the switch at the top; an aqueduct is built, dragged and removed the same way.
- Remove towers: clears everything at once.
- Open: releases the water and shows the result.
- Hint: briefly shows the cheapest solution.
The strip at the top left shows the akçe you've spent, the most you can spend for 3 stars, and how many towers or aqueducts you can build.
Water line, pressure and towers
The dashed blue line in the scene is the water line: the water can't rise above it, and it loses a little height along the way. The pipe follows the ground. When the pipe enters a deep valley, the pressure builds; the dashed red pipe limit is shown in every level, and if the pipe drops below it, it bursts.
A tower solves this: the water rises to the top of the tower and the pressure resets in the open basin. But every tower loses a little height, and a tower can only be so tall. An aqueduct is a bridge over the valley; on top, the water flows without pressure and loses no height, but over a deep valley it is expensive.
You see everything in advance: while you build, the pipe turns from blue to red with the pressure, flow dots show how far the water will go, and a red mark appears where the pipe would burst. The gauge above each fountain shows whether the water is enough for the spout.
Three ways to fail
| Result | What happened | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| The pipe burst | In the valley the pressure was too much for the pipe. | Build a tower on the slope before the pipe goes down into the valley. |
| The water couldn't climb | The water line fell below the ground; the water could not get over a hill. | Use fewer towers or build the tower higher up. |
| The fountain stayed dry | The water reached the fountain but had no height left for the spout; the fountain is marked dry. | Lose less height: use fewer towers and move them higher. |
After a failed attempt, the Edit button takes you back to the scene with your towers still in place, so you do not have to start over.
Stars and hints
Stars depend on akçe. A tower costs 30 akçe; an aqueduct costs 10 akçe plus a fifth of its tallest pillar. Every level has a cheapest solution, and the 3 star limit is shown on screen. Solve within it for 3 stars, with a little more for 2, more expensively for 1. Stars only ever go up.
Hint shows the cheapest solution with dashed outlines for 6 seconds. You choose how to open it: watch a short ad and you lose no stars, or open it without an ad and you can get at most 2 stars in that level. The first level has no hint because it needs no tower.
Levels and obstacles
The 24 levels open in order and are split into 4 chapters. Each chapter brings a new element, and Mimar Sinan introduces it in a short scene at the start.
| Chapter | Levels | New element |
|---|---|---|
| Belgrade Forest | 1-6 | Towers, several fountains, village houses |
| Eğrikapı | 7-12 | Rocks, streams (no towers), old pipes (low pressure only) |
| Mağlova | 13-18 | Aqueducts, palace fountains (need more height) |
| Istanbul | 19-24 | Everything together; the last level is Istanbul |
Towers can't be too close to each other, right next to a fountain or too close to the tank. An aqueduct can pass over streams and rocks, but not over village houses.
Strategy
Build the tower on the slope down into the valley, where the ground is still close to the water line. Too high and the pressure builds again at the bottom; too low and the pipe bursts before the water reaches the tower. Then check the gauge to see if enough height is left for the distant fountain. Use an aqueduct for a valley too deep for a tower; if one tower does the job, an aqueduct only wastes akçe.
Tips
- Try without towers first: the red mark shows where the water will burst or get stuck.
- Build the tower on the upper part of the slope into the valley, not at the bottom.
- With several fountains, watch the gauge of the farthest one.
- Aqueducts are expensive: try a tower first and switch to an aqueduct only if it is not enough.
- A palace fountain needs more height; build the tower late.
- Lower the pressure before an old pipe: put the tower close to it, before it.
Su terazisi: the pressure tower of Ottoman waterways
Ottoman cities brought in water from distant springs through clay pipes and aqueducts. A su terazisi, or water-balance tower, is a tower where the pipe rises, pours into an open basin at the top and then descends again; it releases the pressure built up in valleys, keeps the pipes from bursting and helps distribute the water. They were used in Istanbul systems such as the Kırkçeşme waterway built by Mimar Sinan in the 16th century, and some still stand today.
- What it is
- A tower with an open basin on top that balances pressure in a pressurised water line
- Structure
- Usually stone or brick, tapering towards the top
- Pipes
- Fired clay pipes called künk
- Builders
- Suyolcu, the Ottoman water engineers
- Related structures
- Dam (bent), aqueduct, maksem, fountain, sebil, ablution fountain
- Principle
- Communicating vessels: water cannot rise above its source
History
Throughout its history Istanbul has had to bring its water from sources outside the city. In Byzantine times water was carried in open channels and over aqueducts such as the Aqueduct of Valens. Under the Ottomans, closed pressurised pipelines came into wide use alongside these aqueducts. In the 16th century the Kırkçeşme waterway, built by the architect Mimar Sinan, became one of the most important systems bringing water to the city from springs in the Belgrade Forest. On such lines the pipes ran over hills and through valleys, and that is where the su terazisi came in.
How a water balance tower works
A su terazisi is a tower, usually of stone or brick and tapering towards the top, built on a pressurised water line. The pipe rises up one side of the tower, pours the water into a small open basin at the top, and the water then runs down the other side. Because the basin is open to the air, the pressure in the pipe resets there. This keeps the clay pipes, called künk, from facing too much pressure in the valleys; air in the pipe escapes, and the water can be split into other lines if needed.
The name means "water balance", because the tower levels the water like a pair of scales. The principle behind it is that of communicating vessels: water cannot rise above its source and loses a little height to friction along the way.
Water engineers and fountain culture
In the Ottoman world, the craftsmen who built, measured and maintained water lines were called suyolcu (waterway men). Water was measured in its own units, the best known being the lüle, a word that also means the spout a fountain pours from. At the ends of the waterways stood neighbourhood fountains, sebils (charity drinking-water kiosks) and ablution fountains in mosque courtyards. Distribution buildings on a waterway were called maksem; Istanbul's Taksim district takes its name from the 18th-century maksem that divided water for the city there.
In the game and today
The game's rules are simplified from real physics: the dropping water line stands for friction, the pipe limit for the pressure a clay pipe could take, and the basin on top of the tower for the pressure reset. Aqueducts are real too: for the Kırkçeşme water line, Mimar Sinan built great aqueducts such as the Mağlova Aqueduct. The akçe costs, level names, village houses and streams are the game's fiction, not the map of a real line.
Water balance towers still stand in several districts of Istanbul. They no longer carry water, but they are quiet witnesses of the old city's water engineering.
How Su Terazisi was made
Su Terazisi grew out of a real piece of Ottoman engineering. Along the long waterways that carried spring water into the city, stone towers called water balances (su terazisi) kept the pressure in the pipes under control. The game moves that idea onto a landscape seen from the side: a reservoir on the left, dry fountains on the right, hills and valleys in between.
The rules come straight from that system: water can never rise above its source, every tower costs a little height, and if the pressure at the bottom of a valley grows too high, the pipe bursts. The heart of the puzzle is placing the towers in the right spots and using as few as possible. Village houses and rocks block some places, and the journey ends in Istanbul.
The first versions were Turkish only. When the game moved onto the site's shared foundation, it was translated into seven languages and the menus were reworked to fit small phones.
The most important fixes came from measurements. In Steep Slope, three stars were possible only in a very narrow range that a finger on a phone could not hit; the valley floor was raised and the range grew more than fivefold. In Village Houses, it turned out the difficulty was not precision but realising that two towers were needed. The ground was not softened, because that opened a one-tower shortcut; instead the hint was rewritten to point the way. The hint in Long Waterway suggested three towers, although a single well-placed tower was enough, so it was corrected as well.
In the next version the game became easier to read: the pipe changes colour with the pressure, the spot where it would burst is marked in advance, every fountain has a gauge, and Mimar Sinan's story was added. Then the challenge came back through thinking: stars now depend on the akçe spent instead of the number of towers, aqueducts, streams, old pipes and palace fountains were added, and the game grew to 24 levels. Letting players set the tower height was tried too, but one short tower solved every level, so it was dropped.
Before every version, a solver plays every level and checks that all 24 can be finished with three stars.
Frequently asked questions
What was a su terazisi actually for?
On Ottoman pressurised waterways it reset the pressure in the pipe, let trapped air escape and could split the water into other lines. This let clay pipes cross valleys without bursting.
How many levels are there?
24 levels in 4 chapters: Belgrade Forest, Eğrikapı, Mağlova and Istanbul. It starts with First Fountain, and the last level is Istanbul. Levels open in order.
Why does the pipe burst?
The pipe follows the ground. When the ground drops far below the water line, in a deep valley, the pressure becomes more than the pipe can take. A tower on the slope before the valley resets the pressure.
What does "The water couldn't climb" mean?
Somewhere the water line fell below the ground, so the water could not get over a hill. Water cannot rise above its source and every tower costs some height; use fewer towers or build the tower higher up.
The water reached the fountain but it did not flow. Why?
To pour from its spout, the water needs a certain height at the fountain. If you lost too much height on the way, the fountain stays dry. Use fewer towers or move them further up the slope.
How do I get 3 stars?
Solve the level within the akçe limit shown on screen. A tower costs 30 akçe, an aqueduct depends on how deep the valley is. A little more gives 2 stars, more expensive gives 1.
What happens when I use a hint?
The cheapest solution is shown with dashed outlines for 6 seconds. Open it with a short ad and you lose no stars; open it without an ad and you can get at most 2 stars in that level.
Why can't I build a tower in some places?
No towers on village houses, rocks or streams, right next to a fountain, too close to the tank or right beside another structure. The game always tells you why in a short message.
Why is water spilling from the top of my tower?
Towers have a maximum height. Built at the bottom of a valley, a tower cannot reach the water line and the extra water spills over the top, which means a big loss of height. Move the tower further up the slope.
What is the aqueduct for?
An aqueduct is a bridge over a valley; on top, the water flows without pressure and loses no height. It is needed in deep valleys where a tower is not enough, but over a deep valley it is expensive.
Is Water Tower free?
Yes. No download or account needed; it plays right in your browser. Watching an ad for a hint is always your choice.
Will I lose my progress?
Your progress is saved automatically on this device. Sign in and it moves to your account, so you can continue on any device.
Can I play on my phone?
Yes. The game opens full screen on phones; tap the X in the corner to exit. On iPhone use "Add to Home Screen" to play it like an app.
Can I play Water Tower offline?
Yes. A game you have opened once is stored on your phone or computer and opens without internet. Leaderboards and cloud saves need a connection.
Which languages are available?
Turkish, English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French and Russian.
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