How to Solve Pipe Connect Puzzles

The pieces

The caps are taps at the far ends of the network; they need water like every other tile. Every daily grid is one connected network with no loops, made from a single tree of pipes, and each has exactly one solution.

Start at the edges

The border does most of the work. A pipe may never point off the grid, so:

• A straight on an edge must lie along the edge.
• A tee on an edge must have its closed side against the edge, which fixes it completely.
• A corner in a corner square has only one way to sit: pointing into the grid.
• A cap on an edge cannot point outwards, which leaves it three choices, and often its neighbours rule out two more.

Go round the border once and set every tile the edge decides. Then lock them.

Locking tiles

A long press, or a right click on a computer, locks a tile: it shows a small padlock and ignores taps until you long press it again. Lock every tile you are sure of. On a big grid this is the difference between a calm solve and a frustrating one, because a stray tap on a finished tile is easy to make and hard to notice. Locking is just for you; it does not change your time or your turns.

Work inwards with two simple facts

Once the border is set, every fixed tile tells its neighbours something. For each side of a tile you know, the neighbour on that side must match: open meets open, closed meets closed.

1. Look at the sides facing a fixed tile. If the fixed tile opens toward a neighbour, the neighbour must open back. If it is closed, the neighbour must be closed on that side too.
2. Count what is left. A neighbour with only one way to sit that matches is now fixed. Lock it and look at its neighbours in turn.

This spreads across the grid like water itself, and on easy and medium days it often solves the whole puzzle without any guessing.

No loops, no islands

Because the network is a tree, two more rules help on hard grids:

• No loops. If turning a tile would close a ring of pipes, it is the wrong way round, because a tree has no rings.
• No islands. If a group of tiles is joined up among themselves but sealed off from the tank, something in that group is wrong.

Both are easy to spot while you play: the water only fills tiles joined to the tank, so a dry group of pipes that looks finished is an island, and you know where to look.

Speed habits

• Tap the right number of times. A tile turns clockwise, so a corner pointing up and right needs one tap to point right and down, two to point down and left. Think, then tap the number you need.
• Switch on the red marks. Turn on Mark open ends in Options and a red dot shows every opening that meets nothing. When the dots are gone and everything is blue, you are done.
• Fill from the tank outwards near the end. When only a few tiles are left, follow the water: the first dry tile next to a wet one is where the work is.

Difficulty, scoring and the leaderboard

The grids never wrap round from one edge to the other. Pipe Connect is ranked by time, fastest first; fewer turns break ties. Undo takes back the last turn, and only a member's first solve of the day counts.