THE MAKING OF Pipe Mania

CREATING A WINNING PUZZLE GAME WAS NO PIPE DREAM FOR THE ASSEMBLY LINE. ALL IT TOOK WAS A FLOW OF IDEAS AND THE INPUT OF SOME WISE MASTERS IN A RANCH FAR, FAR AWAY TO PRODUCE A GAME THAT HAS MORE THAN STOOD THE TEST OF TIME

- WORDS BY DAVID CROOKES

Ask many gamers to name the most iconic puzzle games of all time and Tetris would likely come out top.

Created by Alexey Pajitnov, it not only heavily influenced the puzzle genre, it demonstrated to developers and publishers just how lucrative such games could be.

Among the titles that followed in Tetris' wake was Pipe Mania and few players realise just how much the Russian classic influenced its design. Developed by The Assembly Line in 1989, the game took the core concept of fitting pieces together under pressure, albeit with a fresh twist - one that turned it into a major hit.

When two of The Assembly Line's cofounders, John Dale and Martin Day, began producing the game, however, they didn't imagine it would have resonated with players to such an extent. "The idea that a conceptually simple puzzle game could do well was in the air," John explains. "And we were looking for something that would be quick and easy to code." The pair had begun working on the game around the same time as the company was being set up and the idea was that players would be presented with a set of pieces that they would lay on a grid in some sort of order against the clock. Once a player had done this, their efforts would be tested - if the pieces were not laid correctly, there would be a consequence.

"I think at one stage there was a thought that it might be trains you were trying to get to a station [by laying tracks]," John says, but this idea was shelved in favour of asking players to assume the role of a plumber and lay pipes. "Perhaps there were other games that involved trains at the same time," John adds. And so the concept began to grow.