The elevator pitch for Corey Martin’s Pipe Push Paradise goes a little something like this:
“Pipe Push Paradise is a difficult open-world puzzle game about plumbing.”
An open-world puzzle game…about plumbing you say? Well, I’m sold; I can’t think of anything else that would make me so wet with excitement. In all seriousness though, once you strip away the game’s over-the-top jumping off point – a tale of a missing island plumber and its denizens longing for the cleansing embrace of a comforting shower – what you are left with is minimalist tile-based puzzle game that is loaded with as much charm as it is challenging.
On the onset, Pipe Push Paradise is simple enough: you see a pipe, you push it around, and you stop water from wastefully spilling out into the open. Easy right? The surely has a way of luring into a false sense of security, what with its bright, vibrant graphics like something out of a children’s story book and its relaxing bossa nova guitar soundtrack. But what begins as an endeavor hardly fit for a hero, quickly escalates to some of the most mind-bending puzzles you will ever come across in a video game. Fortunately the game makes it incredibly simple to wipe the slate clean and wash away any of the missteps you will inevitably make as you push an ever-increasing number of pipes into just the right configuration. With just the push of a button you can reset an entire puzzle and try again. While this happens with absolutely no wait-time, it highlights one of my main gripes with Push Pipe Paradise.
Completing any of the game’s 47 well-designed and elaborate puzzles is an incredibly satisfying feeling, well…with exception with initial batch aimed at teaching you the gameplay with as little frustration imaginable. Arriving to a solution, on the other hand, can be an exhausting affair. Manipulating multiple three-dimensional objects on such a massive scale in a relatively confined space requires a super delicate touch. Often times, you’ll have to nudge a pipe ever so slightly just so you can have enough room to move the other remaining pipes into a better position. For a game that is build around a pipe-pushing mechanics, I really wish it did more to make the task of getting there a little less laborious. It reminded me of those block puzzles from Soul Reaver: Legacy of Kain. Yes, it felt really good to figure out exactly which blocks to use and where exactly to put them in place, but the act of pushing and pulling and flipping blocks was such an incredible drag that you couldn’t help but let out a deep sigh every time you entered one of those block-puzzle rooms. Now imagine an entire game based around that mechanic. Sure, it is nowhere near as masochistic an endeavor in Pipe Push Paradise, but we’ve come a long way since the PS1-era, and mechanics like these should feel a bit more intuitive. That being said, I actually like this game a whole lot. It’s no-frills design and concept make it a fun distraction on the Nintendo Switch.
Pipe Push Paradise is the kind of game you boot up between large-scale titles. As a puzzle game, it accomplishes with what it sets out to do – to make you get that noggin joggin’. It is way more difficult than it looks and at the price of $10.99, it is a cost-effective way to challenge that brain of yours. Now, would I buy it at $10.99…well, probably not. The game’s open-world design means you can tackle any puzzle without hitting a wall, and with only 47 puzzles to complete the game doesn’t last very long. The current Steam price of $7.99 sounds just about right for a game like this, and I would strongly suggest waiting for a price drop if you plan on getting this for the Nintendo Switch.
Review code provided by Digerati Distribution.
