Pipe Mania

Way back in 1989 a fast-paced puzzle game called Pipe Mania came out for Amiga. It was popular enough that it was renamed Pipe Dream and republished for other platforms by none other than LucasArts. This game restores the original title but updates the graphics and gameplay for a sometimes frustrating but ultimately rewarding puzzler that will appeal to casual gamers.

Like most of the best puzzle games, Pipe Mania is based on a simple premise, adding complexity as the player progresses to keep the game challenging. The object is to build a pipeline from a start point to a finish point before the "flooze" drains out. Pipe pieces are available in random order and points are lost for every piece not used or built over. Some of the levels are timed not just by the flow of the flooze through the pipes, but also by a countdown timer that limits the time you have to get the flooze to the endpoint.

The random pieces and time limits form the essential challenge of the game, but instead of just decreasing the time you have to make each level harder, new obstacles and objectives are added. Some levels have new types of pipe pieces, specific pre-installed sections that have to be used, minimum distances for the flooze to travel, or splitters and joiners that change the color of the flooze and so must be navigated in a specific order. And if that's not enough, the final board of each level features attacks by your opponent that require you to mend or replace pipe sections before the flooze leaks out.

Visually, Pipe Mania is cartoony with bright snappy colors that work well with the feel of the game. You can choose to play as various characters, but changing your character doesn't have any effect on gameplay--you just get a different character portrait on the results screen.

The different levels look different enough to keep them interesting, and some of the level concepts are pretty clever. The theme for each level changes not just what the levels look like, but also how the flooze behaves and the way you play through each board. For example, the electricity-themed level has flooze that zaps from place to place at high speed like an electrical current and requires the use of special pieces to keep it contained long enough to build the pipeline. The factory level has flooze like a stream of rubber duckies that have to be painted before shipping off to stores.

The music and sound effects are unobtrusive for the most part, though when I had to replay the same board over and over again, I usually turned the sound off. That extra level of repetition was just a little too much when my frustration level got a too high. And frustration is definitely part of this game.

The controls are simplicity itself. You move the pipe pieces where you need them to be with the d-pad or the analog stick (I found the d-pad easier to use with accuracy), and press x to place them. If you need to repair a pipe section, you just move the cursor over that section and it repairs automatically.

The frustration stems instead from a couple of other factors. Sometimes there just didn't seem to be enough time to get the pipe from start to finish, and sometimes the attacks in the final level were a little too much. And worst of all, sometimes the game seems to know exactly which single piece you need to finish a board and won't give it you, meaning a whole lot of wasted pieces. Of course, frustrations like these are only to be expected in a face-paced game, and though some boards may need to be played over and over and over to get through them, none of them are impossible to complete.

If I have one real criticism of the game, it's that the increasing difficulty was not an even slope. At times the difficulty seemed to jump exponentially, and at others it seemed to drop down to extra-easy. I though this might simply be my imagination until I started to play through the original game, included on the UMD as a bonus. The difficulty there has a nice, even increase compared to the new version.

Pipe Mania isn't a long game, by any means, so if you're the type to play through a puzzle game once and then abandon it, this one might not be the best value. However, the ability to increase your score by creating longer and more elaborate pipelines at quicker times means that some players will revisit Pipe Mania again and again.

In addition to the main game, or "World Mode", Pipe Mania also includes other modes to extend the gameplay. Arcade mode challenges you to play through as many levels as you can without saving. Once your flooze leaks, you lose. The levels are different from the World Mode levels, so you won't be repeating yourself, and you can play at normal or hard settings.

Bonus adds extra levels in which you have to correctly place missing pieces on a preconstructed board or rotate pieces to their correct orientation, Versus mode lets you play against another player, and Classic mode is essentially the original game with updated graphics (Classic mode can also be played at regular or hard settings).

I can't say that Pipe Mania is the best puzzler or casual game I've ever played, but despite occasional bouts of frustration, I had a great deal of fun with it. If your thing is puzzles, or you're looking for a casual game to take on the road, Pipe Mania is a decent choice.