Mini Pipes – A Logic Puzzle Pipes Game

I sat on this a really long time because the first grid (5x5) was super easy and there were 50 levels of them so that was pretty boring.
But, once I got to the next level it became really fun. I wish there were more!

In short: I'll be honest, I'm probably unreasonably fond of this because it reminds me of an old Flash game. Mini Pipes is a very limited time-waster with some hefty Unity jank. Lots of wasted potential, but fittingly it's also dirt cheap. A tenuous recommendation as long as you know what you're getting yourself into.

In long: The gameplay is pretty straight-forward. You get a square board of pipe pieces - straights and corners, T-junktions, an emitter (always in the center) and several end-points. Click on pipe pieces to rotate them (LMB for clockwise, RMB for counter counter-clockwise) until everything is connected in a closed system. That's it, it really never gets any deeper than that. The store page calling it a "Logic Puzzle Pipes Game" should be taken with a hefty dose of skepticism.
The content is adequate for the price. You get four different sizes of boards (4x4, 5x5, 7x7, 10x10) each with 60 levels. Within each category levels are unlocked in sequence (no skipping ahead). It took me about 4 hours to finish every level. There is no level generation or other kind of replayability, but I guess you could start from the beginning since this is more of a time-waster / clicker than something where you commit solutions to memory lessening the appeal.
I love the concept behind this game, but man-oh-man is there a metric ton of wasted potential. My fondness stems from having sunk countless hours into an old Flash game called "Colourshift". The improvement that Mini Pipes brings is using RMB for counter-clockwise rotations (something a Flash browser game couldn't do). But everything else is significantly worse. Colourshift had boards up to 25x25 that were randomly generated and could even edge-wrap for additional challenge. It had several emitters and you had to mix colours to make all the end-points happy (eg you needed to hook a green and blue emitter together to make a cyan end-point happy). But alas - Mini Pipes is not that kind of game.

The presentation is lacking and poorly thought-out. The game seemed blindingly bright, so I turned on dark-mode immediately. That made every level have white pipes on a dark blue background. Only later did I find out that levels had different pastel colours for pipes - dark-mode for some weird reason completely removes that. On the flipside, the pastel outlines for unconnected pipes are really hard to see sometimes, so maybe dark-mode was better anyway. I also wish it lingered a little on the finished boards so you could admire your solution, but it just automatically moves on after 2 seconds.
The ambient music is honestly pretty nice and subtle, as is the small level completion jingle. Unfortunately they don't match the rather jarring rotation sound effects, which you'll hear a whole lot more of.

On the technical side expect some hefty jank. Separate audio sliders are always nice to see. At least a full-screen toggle is present, but having zero resolution control makes it virtually pointless. A simple time-waster game like this would be! perfect for a small window you can put ontop of other stuff! It's a Unity game so it's pretty easy to change the resolution by editing values in the Registry, but you really shouldn't have to do that in a game released in 2022. The start-up splash screen also doesn't prevent you from clicking buttons on the main menu before you can even see it. Either the developer didn't know how to or didn't care to give this game some UI polish.

In conclusion you *really* get what you pay for with this game. It's primitive, it's janky, it's limited in scope and content. But it works and does what it's advertising. And 1 buck for about 4 hours of clicking is good enough to give it a passing grade. It's just a bit depressing that a free Flash game from 15+ years ago had so much more depth and polish than this...

A very simple yet enjoyable game with levels that vary in difficulty. Yes, there are bugs, but the developers are SUPER quick to respond and fix them as soon as they are reported. I was really impressed with their dedication! One player asked for a dark mode, and VOILA—dark mode was implemented! If only developers of higher-priced games were this committed. Totally recommend!

Very cool little puzzle games. The difficulty is well dosed, I was never frustrated even when I had to think about the solution for a while. The ambience is neat, with a soothing music and sound effects (which is rare for a puzzle game). Perfect for chill evenings in the dark :)

Relaxing, simple, nostalgic, and affordable

Really relaxing <3

PIPE PUZZLES ARE SO SILLY I LOVE THEM
:3