News Tower Beginner’s Guide | Gameplay Tips & Tricks

In News Tower, you begin with an almost empty high-rise and the goal of turning it into a busy newspaper headquarters. You should quickly build two or three floors, even if you do not fill all of them right away. 

There is no rent or monthly cost for floors, so creating enough vertical space early makes later expansion simple. Use the Building Tool to place rooms around the central staircase and keep hallways clear so staff can move easily. Think of one floor as your Reporting area, another as Production, and leave space for Utility and comfort rooms.

Setting Up Your Reporting Floor

Reporting always starts at the Telegraph and then moves to a Reporter Desk. Place one Telegraph and several Reporter Desks in the same room so your Telegrapher and Reporters work close together. 

Four Reporter Desks are a strong early setup, because that number lets you cover several news topics at once. Use Walls and a Wall With Door to divide this floor into a clean corridor and a newsroom on each side of the stairs. A tidy layout keeps walking times short and makes your early newspaper much more efficient.

Creating The Production And Printing Floor

On another floor, set up your Typesetting Desk and Assembly Table. These two workplaces prepare the pages that go into the printer. 

Nearby, build a Printer Input Module, a Printer Output Module, and enough Printer Page Modules between them to match how many pages you want in the paper. Connect everything to the Printing Machine so pages flow from input to output in order. 

Keep Page 1 closest to the Printer Input Module and leave room to add more Printer Page Modules later. Place a Storage Rack or Storage Cabinet close to the printer so staff can keep Paper handy for fast printing.

Utility Rooms, Toilets, And Comfort

A separate utility room is vital for keeping the tower running. In this room, place a Resupply Desk, Washing Station, Sweeping Station, and Workbench. 

The Resupply Desk brings in new Paper and Food, the Washing Station keeps the Toilets clean, the Sweeping Station removes trash, and the Workbench repairs broken machines. 

Add a small Toilet room with a Toilet, Sink, and Trash Can, then put a Water Cooler in a shared space so staff can grab snacks. 

Comfort items matter too, so improve rooms with a Clock, Paintings, Wallpaper, Lamps, and, where needed, a Small Fan, Air Vent, or Acoustic Panel. When you hover these items in build mode, watch the orange and green comfort bars and aim for as much green as possible.

Hiring Staff And Covering Every Topic

Use the Staff Board to hire a Telegrapher and Reporters with useful skills. It is better to focus on skill levels first and treat traits as a bonus. Try to get at least one Reporter for each key topic, such as Crime, Entertainment, Sports, and Economy, and later also Politics and Society. 

Do not worry if some desks stay empty on day one, as long as every important topic is covered by at least one person. Never send a Reporter to a Crime story if they have no Crime tag at all, because story quality will drop. 

Staff gain skill through a learning-by-doing system, so the more they work in their tagged topics, the faster they improve.

Turning Stories Into Printed Pages

When you unpause the game, the Telegrapher starts to receive stories at the Telegraph. Each Telegrapher can hold one active story, and stories appear on the Globe icon. 

Click the Globe to see all stories for the week, then pick one and assign a suitable Reporter with the right tag. Many stories use a small tree of steps, so you may need different Reporters to cover all branches. 

Once a story is fully reported, it moves through the Typesetting Desk and Assembly Table, and then you can drag it onto a Printer Page Module. Put the story with the most tags or highest value on Page 1, because the front page sells the paper. 

Old stories can be kept for next week, but they slowly lose impact, so use fresh pieces while they are strong.

Growing Subscribers, Money, And Resources

After printing, you see the map of New York with different neighborhoods. Each neighborhood shows a mix of tags it wants, like one Politics story plus one Economy story. 

If your printed paper includes the tags a neighborhood asks for, the people there can turn into Subscribers. Subscribers pay you regularly, so the more areas you satisfy, the more stable your income becomes. 

It is normal to lose some money in the first few weeks while you build floors, hire staff, and set up your Printing Machine, but steady Subscribers will turn that around. 

Keep an eye on Paper and Food at the top of the screen and order more before stocks get low, because these resources never spoil and their prices never change. 

Watch the Battery Icon for power use; early on you have enough capacity without a Generator, and only need to build one when the tower grows large and energy demands rise.

Also, check our News Tower Review.