Pipe Flow

Pipe Flow is a calm logic puzzle set on small floating islands. Each board is a wooden tray of pipe pieces, all turned the wrong way. A spring well sits somewhere on the tray and flower tubs wait for water. Turn the pipes a quarter turn at a time and the water follows your connections, so you can always see how far it gets. Tubs bloom when they fill.

A board is solved when every tub has water and the network leaks nowhere: every open pipe end has to connect to another pipe, a spring, a tub or a closed valve. A leak shows up as a dripping puddle, which makes it easy to spot what is wrong. Your moves are counted against a par, the smallest number of turns needed from the scrambled start. Finishing close to par earns three stars, a looser finish two, and any finish one.

The campaign has 120 boards in eight worlds of fifteen, and each world adds a new piece: rocks that shape the board and bolted pipes that never turn, bridges that carry two separate streams over and under each other, valves that open and close to keep haystacks dry, twin springs with blue and pink water that must never mix, gear pipes that turn together when they share a badge, frozen pipes that only thaw once water runs beside them, and finally three springs on one board. The fifteenth board of every world is a larger challenge board. Every board is generated from a finished network, so each one has a real solution.

Some tips: start from pieces that cannot move, such as bolted pipes, rocks and the edges of the tray, because they limit what the pipes around them can do. Follow the puddle when a board will not clear; it points to the open end. Cross pieces never need turning. On gear boards, remember that one turn changes every pipe with the same badge, so settle those groups early. Frozen pipes thaw in order outward from the spring, so work along the water path.

You start with three hints and earn one more for every world you clear, and you can undo moves or restart at any time. Drops earned from stars buy new pipe finishes such as brass, jade or oak barrel, water colours and hint packs in the Workshop. A daily board is the same for everyone and keeps a streak.

The game plays with mouse, touch or keyboard, in portrait or landscape, and suits short sessions of a board or two as well as longer runs through a world.

Turn the pipes to build an unbroken path from the spring to every tub, and leave no open ends. A par move count tells you how close you got, and each board gives one to three stars.

The daily board is the same for everyone. Drops you earn buy new pipe finishes and water colours, and hint and undo are there if you get stuck.