Pipe Mania is a remake of Empire Imperative’s title Pipe Dream, published in 1989 — with more game modes, more themes and a story to go through. The goal is simple. Lay a network of pipes to direct the flow of sewage ... er ... flooze, an amalgamation of fluid and ooze, from the source to the drain. Master plumber Alfonso Senior, is retired now and living like a fat cat on his private island, the Isle of Ducts. Life should be hunky-dory, but no ... cowboy plumbers are on the loose, and the baddest of them all, Buffalo Bonzo is wreaking havoc on the island’s plumbing. It is up to Alfonso’s children Junior and Fawcett to end these shenanigans and put the plumbing back in order. Thus, your journey begins.

The most elegant puzzles are the simplest. Pipe Mania is simple to learn. Mastering it — ah, therein lies the difficulty. Essentially, I’ve provided the gist of the game. Lay down lengths of pipes to direct the flow and do it quickly, before it leaks all over the place. Game controls are simple. You have a pattern of squares with obstacles in them where you can’t lay pipes, some bonus pipe pieces, a directional source and a drain. Pipe pieces are dispensed one at a time, with a queue of five that are visible. The joystick or directional key moves the pipe pieces, and any of the symbol buttons lays the pipe piece down.

A piece that is already laid but has no flooze in it yet can be smashed by laying another piece on top — for a penalty, of course — and the right button speeds up the flooze for extra points if you’ve got your pipeline complete. Bonus points also can be gained for length of pipeline and how convoluted it is, with loop bonuses — pipe pieces that are cross pieces, bridges, etc. help with this.

Everyone starts with the World game, which is the story game — starting with basic pipe pieces and working your way up to more complex games, unlocking new areas on the island as well as other game modes. As you move along in the World game, you unlock new pipe pieces and new game boards with more complex obstacles and some bonuses, and eventually, enemies flash across your screen and damage your pipes, causing flooze to leak out. To repair them, you merely move your cursor over them, but that costs you precious time, and flooze is leaking constantly. Every level is timed. You are given a 30 second head start, and once flooze starts leaking, your leak meter indicates the amount of leakage. If that fills, you lose the level.

Flooze moves rather slowly, and there are pieces that can slow it down even further — like the reservoir piece. As you advance in the game, more complex pieces are available, such as control points, which can be switched to direct the flow of flooze as long as it’s not already flowing through it, and the Teleport piece also is worth note. They come in numbered pairs, and the flooze is beamed from the In piece to its matching Out piece.

Flooze comes in more than one variety. There is the normal stuff that is a continuous flow, and there’s the Pulse type that moves along the pipes. The length can be grown as a Grow pipe piece; as it moves, the pipe pieces it passs can be reused by replacing one with another. The third variety is the Jump Flooze. It charges at a Reservoir section then gushes forward, jumping through several sections of pipe at once.

As you play along, you unlock Treasure Chests, and every five levels completed in any theme or area of the island unlocks the next. Just playing through the basic levels unlocked also the Bonus and Classic game modes, and I did not note when the Arcade game mode was unlocked. I was having too much fun in the World game.

The Bonus mode provides you a Match game and a Spin game. This spin game is the only game in which the pieces can be rotated, and that’s all you have to do, rotate the pieces to complete the ready laid pipeline. It’s a neat little twist to what you’ve been doing so far, laying set pieces.

Fans of puzzles will love this incarnation of Pipe Dream, and parents shouldn’t think twice about letting their kids play this game. It’s entertaining, requires logic, forward and strategic thinking, spatial awareness, and good hand-eye coordination. It’s almost like playing a round of speed chess. How quickly can you think on your feet?