In real life I work in the plumbing department at a major hardware store.  Yeah, I guess you could say like Mario, but I really prefer Luigi.  So if I work around pipes all day, why on earth would I play and review a game about plumbing, too?  Is Pipe Push Paradise really that good?  You’ll just have to read on to find out.  It’s available to download on most current consoles and PC, but reviewed on Switch here.

In the game you play as a girl (I think) who has come to an island.  You find your uncle dozing in a hut, and another islander tells you he’s been under a sleeping spell for months, and it’s up to you to do the plumbing, which he presumably did beforehand.  So now you must travel the island, solving puzzles involving pipes.  Each puzzle is like a combination of a block pushing puzzle game like Adventures of Lolo, mixed with water pipe flow puzzlers like Pipe Dream.

The island is like a maze with rooms full of pipes.  Each room has a pipe sticking out of the ground with water coming out of it, and you must push pipes to connect it to another pipe sticking out of the ground so water can flow through it.  Once you do that and exit the room, you finish the puzzle.  When you push pipes on the edges or corners, they’ll stay flat.  But if you push them on a side that can roll, it’ll cause them to flip or rotate.  It’s kind of hard to tell how they will move sometimes, though.

The other problems I had with the game was that the play control feels a little touchy and you sometimes move two squares instead of one.  Luckily you can push buttons to reverse your moves, and start the level over entirely, but it was still annoying.  Also the learning curve is super high.  Even though the game has less than 50 puzzles, only two rooms in and it gets incredibly tough.  So it was hard for me to sink my teeth into.  But if you enjoy your puzzlers with a lot of challenge, you may want to check out this one.

Kid Factor:

Nothing violent or objectionable here.  Reading skill is helpful for the text, but not necessary just to play.  Younger gamers may find it a bit too difficult, though.  Pipe Push Paradise is rated E for Everyone.

Tags: Game Reviews