PIPE DREAM

Pipe Mania, which is the European release of LucasFilms original Pipe Dreams, came out in 1989. That may seem like a long time ago, but this addictive puzzle game has stood the test of time. Its simple gameplay and charming graphics make it a great game for any age. If you’ve never played it before, I’ll give you the rundown.

A grid of pipes starts out on screen and red dots start to appear at random points on the map. You have to connect those dots with pipes by clicking on them to rotate them and place them down. When you connect two dots with a pipe, they disappear, and the points in between each dot are added up. The goal is to collect as many points as you can before time runs out. It will take more than one try to get used to the controls, but once you do its easy to get addicted—I still play it every now and then when I’m bored because its just that fun!

In a friendly tone: It was 1988 when LucasFilm Games released their hit puzzle game Pipe Mania, which let the player lay down pieces of pipe to connect a series of faucets and fill a series of pipes in order to drain water from the pipes. The goal was to make sure that the water would flow from each faucet through its respective pipe.

It’s easy to see how this was not a new idea at all – even before video games came out, there were plenty of board games that did something similar – but what made Pipe Mania so revolutionary and appealing was its execution.