Pipe Mania

The game is played on a grid of squares, one of which is marked as an entry point for a flow of green slime, referred to in-game as "flooz" or "goo" depending on the version. A column of five pipe sections is displayed to one side as a dispenser. When the player clicks on an empty square, the bottommost piece in the dispenser is placed there and a new piece drops in from the top. Pieces cannot be rotated or flipped and must be used in their original orientation. The objective is to form an unbroken pipeline through which the flooz can flow, starting from the entry point and extending for at least a specified minimum number of squares.

The flooz begins to flow after a set time delay, and continues to do so until it reaches a pipe-end that is either open or blocked by a square/playfield edge. If the pipeline has reached or exceeded the minimum required length, the player advances to the next level; if not, the game ends.

In Japan, Game Machine listed the arcade version of Pipe Mania as the most successful table arcade unit of October 1990.

The game was reviewed in 1994 in Dragon #211 by Jay & Dee in the "Eye of the Monitor" column. Jay did not rate the game, but Dee gave the Macintosh version of the game 21⁄2 out of 5 stars, and the Windows version 41⁄2 stars. Macworld named the Macintosh version of Pipe Dream the Best Arcade Game of 1990, putting it into the Macintosh Game Hall of Fame, and called it an "addictive strategy game".

Many clones of Pipe Mania have been produced, under titles such as Wallpipe, Oilcap, Oilcap Pro, MacPipes, Pipe Master, Pipeworks, DragonSnot, PipeNightDreams, and Fun2Link. Many Nokia cell phones come with a free version of the game called Canal Control.

A version with 3D graphics was released for the PlayStation in 2000, titled Pipe Dreams 3D in the US and Pipe Mania 3D in the UK.