Why a garden tap?

Most pipe puzzles only tell you when you’ve won. We wanted to see the water. So in Pipe Garden the tap is always on. Turn a pipe and the water runs as far as the joins let it. Full pipes turn blue, and any pot it reaches bursts into a flower.

A garden tap felt right. Kids already know what a hose does. They know a leak makes a puddle and a dry pot means a sad plant. That’s the whole rule set. The blue drips show where a pipe leaks, so you can see what to fix.

A bit of real pipe puzzle history

The best-known pipe game is Pipe Mania. A studio in Bristol, England, called The Assembly Line made it for the Amiga, and it came out in 1989 through the publisher Empire. Looking back in 2015, Edge magazine said the team set out to make a puzzle game that could stand up to Tetris. In that game you lay pipe pieces from a queue before a green slime called “flooz” starts to flow through them.

Lucasfilm Games ported it to other machines and sold it in the US as Pipe Dream. Edge reports that Lucasfilm also suggested letting players keep laying pipe while the flooz was already flowing.

Our game is closer to a quieter cousin, where every piece is already on the board and you only turn it. Simon Tatham’s Portable Puzzle Collection calls its version Net. Tatham writes that he first saw it as a Flash game called FreeNet by Pavils Jurjans, and that other versions go by NetWalk. In Net, the computer builds a network, then scrambles it by turning every tile at random. Tiles joined to the center light up as you go, which is the job our blue water does. In 2012, Marzio De Biasi wrote a paper proving that Net is NP-complete, which puts big boards in a family of problems computers find very hard. Our 50 levels are built so every one has an answer.

Real watering tips for a real garden

The Royal Horticultural Society says early morning is the best time to water, because less of it evaporates and plants can use it through the day. Evening is fine too, but damp leaves overnight can encourage pests and fungal diseases. Aim the water at the base of the plant, not the leaves. And plants in pots dry out faster than plants in the ground, so check them more often.

The pieces

• Brass tap: where the water starts. It never turns.
• Flower pot: a pipe end with a pot on it. Every pot needs water.
• Straight: two ways to sit, across or up and down.
• Corner and T: bend or split the water. Four ways to sit.
• Cross: open on all four sides, so turning it changes nothing.

How to play

• Tap a pipe to turn it a quarter turn clockwise.
• Water runs from the tap through every pipe that joins up. Full pipes turn blue.
• A pot blooms the moment water reaches it. Blue drips mean a leak.
• Fill every pipe and every pot with no leaks to finish the bed. Use as few turns as you can for 3 stars.
• Keyboard: arrows move, Space or Enter turns, Shift+Enter turns back.
• There are 50 levels in 5 beds, from 4 by 4 up to 8 by 8. Stars save on this device.
• Earn 3 stickers in this game for your QuickBOP sticker book.
• Sound is on to start. Tap 🔊 to mute, or 🎵 for music.

Tips

Start at the edges. A pipe on the edge can’t point out of the bed, or it leaks. A corner pipe in a corner of the bed has only one way to sit.

Follow the blue. Work outward from the tap. Once a pipe is full and fits its neighbors, leave it be.

Undo is free. Turned one too far? Undo takes it back and the turn comes off your count.

Your turn

The tap is on at the top of this page. Start with the Seedlings bed and see how many flowers you can wake up.