Day 19 - Plumber
Immersive Sim, Mobile Trash, Nightmare Fuel ·
Skeeter’s Take:
I was feeling adventurous today and am also tired of Sam making fun of me for picking shitty games, so I left today’s choice in the hands of the RNG Gods. I used a random number generator to summon the almighty chaotic ones and pressed “random game” that amount of times on itch.io. This 100% frees me of the burden of being made fun of. If the game is “Bad” or “Had Nothing to Talk About in it” it’s the robots fault, not mine!
I did disclude Game Jams as I feel the majority of what we end up playing from that site ends up being a part of a game jam, and I wanted to see what else was out there in uncharted waters in the depths of itch.io. I guess you could say there may have been some small human error in the automated system, but certainly not enough to shift full blame.
And that’s how I found Plumber.
Plumber is a mobile game ported to browser. The entire title screen looks exactly like a Mobile Game interface, and even has a little exit game button that is, I am assuming, supposed to force close the app on your phone but does nothing in the browser.
This game is classified as “Puzzle” but it’s hardly that. Essentially this is just the BioShock hacking pipe-puzzle mini-game:
The difference being you don’t get to pick where these pipes go. Instead you are tasked with making them all face the correct direction before the time runs out - a mechanic that gets boring after the first level. Don’t be fooled by the rising green water. You would think that’s a visual cue for how much time you have left, but it reaches the top well before your time limit runs out. Also, I know I’m just being nit-picky but when I hear things like “plumbing”, “pipes”, “rising water”, and “raw sewage” I don’t immediately think of “Arachnids”, so the Spirit Halloween spiders as background decoration are an… interesting choice.
Look there’s practically nothing to say about this game and it might be one of the worst ones we’ve played yet. At least the stupid family guy quiz had some passion. Some kid made it for a quick laugh for one of their friend’s birthdays. This is just soulless, lifeless crap that I’m 80% sure only exists as a free download to keep kids glued to the screen for an hour (there’s like 36 levels in this shit) while endless freeware ads scroll at the bottom to generate cash money. I hate this. Robots never get to pick the game again. Stupid robots and Gods of Random Numbers. At least I can go to sleep knowing that 100% none of this is on me, and this was simply the game we were meant to play today, and nobody can blame me for this game choice. This isn’t karma coming back to bite me! This isn’t an ironic consequence of my own actions! It was synchronicity! It was Fate! The universe said “Here’s Plumber” and so there has to be some lemonade here somewhere! There has to be a larger meaning! The pipes under my sink have been leaking for a few months, but I got too lazy to do anything about it so I threw a towel under there that has started to sprout strange wispy mushrooms. This is clearly a sign from the universe that my pipes are facing the wrong direction and I should call a plumber. Or that it’s time to try those mushrooms - they are fruiting wonderfully.
Recommend: Rip my esophagus out and use it as a pipe
Replay Percentage Chance: I HATED THIS?
Time Played: AHKSALPHJKJUHFOILUAJHOIPUJJAHQBNF DOIUPHBNIUDHNASIPUH oiuhfdsgiohusdfaaoshijufdoaisu weefhnafsdeoijudhaopsiduhf gnoap89iyuergbpaoiweuehnfgpaowi 9SJU*ERHND Fhniobjuyl weaqDR3S
Sam’s Take:
Fuckin CLASSIC Skeeter, talkin’ about how this is the Bioshock minigame.
BITCH, THIS THE SYSTEM SHOCK 1 MINIGAME:
Actually, did you know that Nightdive Studios remade System Shock 1? Did you know that it beats up Bioshock and takes its lunch money? They even remade THIS MINIGAME! CHECK IT OUT:
Wow, hot damn. Actually, you know what, we’re ranking Pipedream-based minigames. Top 5. Let’s go.
5 - Plumber: Pipes are already in place, the only choice is rotating them. Once you figure out that you can start from the end and complete it that way, you have maximized the possible strategies. Do nothing shovelware trash.
4 - System Shock 1: Looks like ass, but retro-cool ass. Again, the only option is rotating, but at least it’s not directional. Seriously the only times I would lose time on plumber was from having to turn a pipe 180 degrees because apparently they are one-way pipes? Also later on has dead nodes you have to work around, which gives some reason to think.
3 - Bioshock: Pretty much the same as System Shock 1’s minigame, but looks and sounds better. ALSO you have the option to swap pieces out for each other, which is a little more in depth than just rotating. Loses points for being impossible for human hands at later levels because they realized that those autohack items would be useless otherwise.
2 - System Shock Remake: Same as regular System Shock 1, but adds some pipes that can’t be rotated by hand. Those have to be activated by a knob in the puzzle that usually rotates 4 pipes at once. This ups the amount of strategy needed to figure out each puzzle to a point where a timer actually isn’t needed. This is the only minigame on this list that is clever enough to be satisfying on its own merits without relying on speed. Congrats! On another day we can discuss if these puzzles being scattered around a survival horror game was a smart choice, but reviewing just the puzzles themselves, kinda actually good.
1 - Pipe Dream: Come on, this thing slapped then and it slaps now:
Instead of an end, you’re presented with a conveyor belt of pipes that you have to build in order to create a pipe long enough to deal with the number of pipes in the top right (the nine boxes shown in the screenshot above). The goo doesn’t start flowing until a few seconds in, giving you a head start before the tension of attempting to outbuild the flow starts proper. It gets faster every level, until you eventually die and record your high score. Highly replayable, more strategic depth than you’d think with 5 whole pieces revealed in advance. The og takes the cake on this one.
Recommend: Pipe Dream? Yes. Plumber? No.
Replay Percentage Chance: 0.00%
Time Played: 4 Minutes
Sorry I didn’t mention the Saints Row IV hacking minigame. I’ll try to improve my reviews in the future.
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