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Pipe Mania

Pipe Mania
Pipe mania cover art.jpg
Original box art
Developer(s) The Assembly Line
Publisher(s) Lucasfilm Games (NA)
Empire Interactive (EU)
Video System (Arcade)
Designer(s) Akila Redmer, Stephan L. Butler
Platform(s) Amiga (original)
Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Apple IIGS, Macintosh, Arcade, Archimedes, Atari ST, BBC Micro, C64, Game Boy, PC-88, PC-98, NES, MS-DOS, Windows 3, Psion 3a, Sam Coupé, Sharp X68000, Super Famicom, ZX Spectrum
Release date(s) June 1989 (Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS)[2]
1990 (Electron, Arcade, CPC, Apple II, BBC, C64, GB, Mac, NES, ZX)
1991 (Windows)
August 7, 1992 (Super Famicom)
Genre(s) Puzzle game
Mode(s) Single-player

Pipe Mania is a puzzle game developed in 1989 by The Assembly Line for the Amiga. It was ported to several other platforms by Lucasfilm Games, who gave it the name Pipe Dream and acted as general distributors for the US. In this game, the player must connect randomly appearing pieces of pipe on a grid to a given length within a limited time.

The Windows version of the game was included in the MS Windows Entertainment Pack. In 1990, it was released as an arcade game by Japanese manufacturer Video System Co. Ltd., though with slightly altered gameplay, giving the player the task to connect a source and drain with the random pipe pieces.

Long after its initial release, the Pipe Mania concept re-emerged as a minigame representing hacking or security system bypassing in larger video games.

Pipe Mania has similarities to Konami's 1982 arcade game Loco-Motion: objects slowly move across a grid of tiles that make up a path which the player must continually adjust.

Using a variety of pipe pieces presented randomly in a queue, the player must construct a path from the start piece for the onrushing sewer slime, or "flooz" (the 1991 Windows version's help files refer to it as "goo"), which begins flowing after a time delay from the start of the round. Pieces may not be rotated; they must be placed as presented in the queue. The player can replace a previously laid piece by clicking on it, as long as the flooz has not yet reached it; however, doing so causes a short time delay before the next piece can be laid. The flooz is required to pass through a given number of pipe pieces in order for the player to continue to the next round. Some rounds also include an end piece, which must be the end of the pipeline the player has constructed, in addition to fulfilling the minimum pipe length requirement.

Completing the sewer pipeline in the time allotted allows the player to advance to the next level, which means a shorter interval from the start of the round until the flooz starts flowing, as well as faster-flowing flooz. On higher levels, some special pipe pieces appear in the game, such as reservoirs, one-way sections, and bonus sections. Obstacles and wrap-around sections also appear on the game board on higher levels.


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Wikipedia

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