Pipes 2600

About the game

Each level has a start point, marked with a different color, and an end point. You get a short head start before water begins to pour out of the start, and from then on it keeps flowing through whatever pipe it finds. Your job is to lay pieces fast enough to give the water a path all the way to the end; the level is complete when the water reaches the final pipe.

The pieces come in order, and the next ones are shown below the grid, so you can plan ahead. Every new level shortens both the head start and the time the water takes to cross each pipe. When the game ends, a new one starts with the start and end points in random places.

Playing it here

This is a homebrew game made for the Atari 2600: a new game by independent developers for the 1977 console, not a commercial release. It runs here in Stellerator, an Atari 2600 emulator written in JavaScript. Click Play now; the game starts right away.

There are no save states on this platform: like on the real console, a game lasts as long as you keep playing, and P pauses it. A gamepad works too.

Controls

A few things worth knowing

Look at the queue. The upcoming pieces are shown under the grid, with a marker on the current one. Leave room for the shapes you know are coming.

Squares with water cannot be changed. You can place a pipe on an empty square or over a piece the water has not reached yet; squares already filled, and the start and end, are locked.

Fast-forward when you are done. Once the path is complete, press the button three times on a locked square to make the water finish the level quickly.

Credits and licence

Pipes 2600 was made by Alexandre Luiz Brisighello Filho (albf) in batari Basic and released under the MIT licence. The licence text is linked from this page.