Layin some pipe!

It all started when I was looking for Candy Wars the other day. I have been jonesing for the ever popular Dope Wars but since that’s not allowed in the iPhone world, Candy Wars is what you have to get. So I grabbed Candy Wars (with the intent of renaming all the candy back to the regular dope names) which then lead me to get Prohibition 1: Bootlegger. And then as I was checking out the similar games (apparently I had dreams and aspirations of being a drug running, bootlegging tycoon) I happened on Oil Tycoon. Despite what the name might imply it’s not a sim, but rather a “Pipe Mania” or “Pipe Dreams” style game. Since getting Gold Rush and Railroad Puzzle I’ve been really interested in this style of game again so Oil Tycoon struck a chord with me. Plus with a price tag of Free, I was immediately downloading it. Much to my surprise there is an Oil Tycoon 2 with more pipe laying goodness so I grabbed that one too.

And the games are terribly fun! You have a large oil barrel, multiple gas pumps and a slew of pipes. The pipes are already where they need to be, you just have to twist and turn the pieces to get them to connect the right way and get the oil to the pumps. It sounds simple, but the pipes don’t always connect the way you might think. It’s simple to start with, but then the layouts get pretty involved.

Much to my surprise, there is Gas Tycoon 1 and 2 ($0.99 each) from the same developer, plus a Gas Tycoon Winter Edition (Free) so I grabbed those as well. Gas Tycoon is the same premise as Oil Tycoon, connect the gas pipeline to light all the burners. But just as before, it seems easy when you start, but it gets complicated pretty quickly. So now I’ve got 40+ levels of pipe laying fun across 5 games and I spent $2. As a bonus there are iPad HD variants which still only cost $1. Nice to see these guys taking advantage of the iPad but not gouging the price.

But that wasn’t enough and I ended up getting Gushers which looks like another cool pipe oriented game for $0.99 and Pipe Mania for $0.99. Plus, I just got Pipes for Free. So what started off with finding Candy Wars lead me to a host of pipe genre games. It’s interesting how iTunes connects things. 🙂

And I haven’t actually played Candy Wars yet…

I spent well over an hour last night playing Gas Tycoon 2. The first couple levels you can get through in just a few minutes each, but once you get further into the game play it may take 10-15 minutes to connect all the pipes to turn on all the burners for that level. The games are simple, but the graphics are good and the game play is easy to handle. These games are a hell of a lot of fun and now I’m loaded to the gills with new stuff to play. It’ll take me a while to even get to the other games.

So if you’re looking to lay down some pipe, there are plenty of options available to you. Plus, to go back to where it all started, Gold Rush and Railroad Puzzle are pretty cool games with a Cogs like approach and they feature trains which are always fun.

Check out all their games at: http://lemicosoft.com/

And I just found OpenValve which I might have to add to my collection!

One more thing: For a twist on this genre check out this wild variation called Log Puzzle. It looks deceptively simple, but check out the YouTube video:

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

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