How to play Pipes

Turn every pipe until the whole network lights up from one source. Each board carries a proven minimum, so there is always a best answer to chase.

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Pipes is a rotate-to-connect puzzle. You are given a grid of pipe segments, one of which is a source, and every segment has been turned at random. Tapping a segment turns it a quarter turn clockwise. The board is finished when the light from the source reaches every segment and nothing is left pointing at a wall.

That is the whole rule, and it is worth being precise about the finish condition, because two different-looking boards can both be wrong.

What counts as connected

Two neighbouring segments carry light between them only when **both** are open on the edge they share. A pipe pointing at its neighbour's blank side connects nothing, and neither does a pipe pointing off the edge of the board.

So there are two ways to be unfinished. The obvious one is a dark segment: light has not reached it. The less obvious one is a segment that is lit but still has an arm pointing at a wall or into a neighbour's blank side — the network works, but it has a loose end, and the board is not done. Both are visible: unlit pipes stay grey, and a pipe aimed at the rim is unmistakable once you look for it.

Where the boards come from

Each board starts as a tree. The generator grows a network that reaches every square exactly once — no loops anywhere — and then reads each square's pipe shape off that network: a square with one connection becomes a dead end, two opposite connections a straight, two adjacent an elbow, three a tee, four a cross. Then every segment is turned at random.

Because the board was a working network before it was scrambled, it can always be put back. There is no such thing as an unsolvable board here and no way to make one by playing badly. Nothing you do can lock the puzzle.

The generator uses a branching growth rather than a winding one, which is a deliberate choice. Growing the tree by always pushing deeper produces boards that are one enormous snake — technically fine, monotonous to look at, and containing no crosses at all. Branching outward instead gives roughly a fifth junctions and a third dead ends, which is what makes a board look like a network you are repairing.

The Fewest number, and why it is a fact

The number marked Fewest is the smallest number of taps that can finish the board. Not an estimate, not the generator's own solution written down — the actual minimum.

It holds because of a check made before the board is dealt. The game counts how many ways the segments on that board could possibly be arranged into a complete network, and it deals the board only if the answer is exactly one. With a single arrangement possible, every segment has one orientation it must reach, and since a tap turns one segment one step, the minimum is simply the sum of how far each segment has to travel. Nothing can be shorter, because every one of those turns has to happen.

If a board could be finished two different ways, that sum would only be an upper bound — you might reach the other arrangement sooner. Boards with more than one answer do turn up, roughly one in twenty, and they are thrown away and re-dealt rather than shipped with a Fewest number that could be beaten.

A symmetric segment is excluded from all of this. A cross looks identical whichever way it is turned, so it can never be wrong, is never scrambled, and tapping it does nothing and costs nothing.

Playing well

Since nothing can be lost, the entire game is the tap count. Two habits do most of the work.

The first is to solve the edges and corners before the middle. A segment on the rim cannot point outwards in a finished board, which removes one or two of its possible orientations immediately — and a corner dead end has only two directions it can face. These are the squares where the answer is forced rather than chosen.

The second is to work outward from what is already lit rather than tidying pipes at random. A lit segment is definitely correct, so every pipe touching it is constrained by it. Chasing the light outward means each decision is made with the most information available, and it avoids the commonest way of wasting taps: turning a segment to something reasonable, then turning it again later when its neighbour turns out to disagree.

The daily circuit

One six-by-six board a day, the same for everybody, built from the date. Finishing it extends your streak, your best tap count is kept, and the share text carries your taps, the Fewest for that board and your time without revealing anything about the layout.

Controls

Tap or click a pipe to turn it a quarter turn clockwise. That is the whole control scheme — there is nothing to drag, aim or time.

New deals a fresh board; Daily switches to today's shared circuit.
Turning a pipe that looks the same in every direction does nothing and is not counted.

Strategy tips

Do the corners first. A corner segment cannot point out of the board in either direction, so its orientation is often forced outright.
Work the rim before the middle. Any edge segment has at least one direction it cannot face, which usually leaves one sensible answer instead of three.
Follow the light rather than tidying at random. Anything already lit is correct, so the pipes touching it are the ones you can reason about.
A dead end pointing at a wall is always wrong. They are the fastest mistakes to spot and cost one tap each to fix.
Count before you tap. Turning a pipe three times to go one step backwards is the most common way to lose the Fewest, and the direction is always clockwise.
A cross is already right and always will be. Skip it — tapping it does nothing.
When two neighbouring pipes both look plausible, look at what is behind them. The one with a lit pipe on its far side is the one whose answer is already decided.
On the daily, a perfect circuit is worth slowing down for. Nothing is timed, so there is no reason to spend taps on a guess you could have reasoned out.