Apple Thoughts: Better Than Plumber School: Pipe Mania

The Claim: Pipe Mania is a game that needs no introduction. This hugely popular game has been ported to various platforms like PC, DS, PSP, Wii before making its way to the iPhone. In this game, the player is provided with pipes of different shapes, which he must lay onto a grid to form a connection between a tap and a drain. He must do this before the time runs out and a slimy green liquid called Flooze oozes out of the pipes.

The App: Available today, Pipe Mania is another clone of the popular Pipe Dreams game that has graced many platforms over the years. Many have tried to produce similar games on the iPhone / iPod Touch, but none of them are playable. Is Pipe Mania the one to break the mold? Read on and find out.

The Details: Game play is insanely simple. Flooze starts at the faucet and ends at the drain. It's your job to connect the pipes to the drain to make the flooze fall out into the drain. Some interesting variations on the original include a distance counter (top left) that makes sure you cover a certain amount of distance with your pipe creation, and a meter (center left) that gives you a bit of leeway if you mistakenly leave an open pipe. In the lower left is a clock that, when held, will speed up the flow of flooze through the pipes.

Tapping a square places the next pipe in the queue wherever you quick. Since you must take the pipes in order, putting a new piece over one already on the board will destroy the one that's there and replace it. As simple as that sounds, it can get really frantic as the flooze gets closer and closer to where you are and you're dying for that one last piece. It happens way more often than you think, particularly when you realize at the last second that you haven't placed enough pieces to meet the distance requirement!

The attractiveness of the "Pipe Dreams" games is that they're easy to grasp and incredibly challenging as time moves on. Pipe Mania is no different. In fact, that level you see above is level two. It's the first one where stationary pipes are built in to the board and not changeable. You'd be amazed at the amount of difficulty that brings into the equation.

The Verdict: I'm a big fan of classic game remakes, and I'm often left disappointed. Most of the time, game developers manage to capture the mechanics of a game that I like and don't manage to recapture the essence of the game. Admittedly, that's a tough thing for a developer to do, but if you're going to take on a game that everyone knows, either do it right or don't do it at all. Happily, Virtual Programming and Robosoft have pulled this one off perfectly. There's nothing about this game that fans of the classic will not like, and aside from the music getting grating after awhile, the game is excellent overall and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the originals.

Pipe Mania is available in the App Store for $4.99.

Vincent Ferrari is an Apple fan, videoblogger, blogger, writer, and all-around geek from the Bronx. He works in the IT Department of a cellular phone company that shall not be named, and lives in a very comfortable apartment with his lovely wife, two lovely cats, three Macs, two iPhones, and God-knows-how-many iPods of varying age.

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