About Pipe Connect
Pipe Connect is a rotation puzzle. Every tile holds a piece of pipe, and the water source is the large dark circle. You turn tiles until water can flow from the source through connected pipes into every tile on the board, and each level is a larger grid.
How to play
- Each tap rotates a tile a quarter turn clockwise. Tiles never move, they only rotate.
- Water flows between two neighbouring tiles only when both of them have a pipe end pointing at each other. Tiles connected to the source are drawn in blue.
- A level is solved when every tile on the board is connected to the source. The score bar shows how many are connected.
- Level 1 is a 5 x 5 grid, and each level adds one row and column up to a maximum of 9 x 9.
- On odd-sized grids the source is the exact centre tile. On even-sized grids it sits at the left edge of the middle row.
- Each puzzle is built as a network of pipes branching out from the source with no loops, then every tile is given a random rotation, so a solution always exists.
- Your score is the highest level you have solved. Rotations are counted but do not affect it.
Controls
- Mouse or touch: click or tap a tile to rotate it.
- After solving a level, Play again takes you to the next level.
- There is no keyboard control for this game.
Tips and strategy
- Start at the edges and corners. A pipe end can never point off the board in the solution, which often leaves only one possible rotation for a border tile.
- Straight pieces have only two distinct positions, so they are quick to settle once you know one neighbour.
- Dead-end pieces (one opening) must point toward a neighbour that also points back. On the border they often have just one or two options.
- Because the network has no loops, two neighbouring T or corner pieces that would form a closed square are probably wrong.
- Work outward from tiles you are sure of rather than tapping around the source and hoping for the best.
Background
Rotation puzzles like this one are often called Net or NetWalk. A well-known version, Net, is part of Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection. They are related to, but different from, pipe-laying action games such as Pipe Mania, where you place new pieces against a timer instead of rotating fixed ones.
Questions
- Is every level solvable?
- Yes. Each level starts from a complete connected network and only the tile rotations are scrambled.
- Do pipe ends that point at nothing matter?
- No. The level is solved as soon as every tile is connected to the source, whatever the leftover ends are doing.