Half pipe puzzle, half sliding puzzle. In Netslide Pipe Puzzle unblocked, every piece is already turned the correct way, yet each one is parked in the wrong spot. You can't pick up a single tile. You can only shove a full line of them along by one square.
Richard Boulton wrote it for Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection, reusing the network builder from the rotating pipe game. Since one move shifts several pieces at once, it feels closer to a twisty cube than a normal tile puzzle.
How to play Netslide Pipe Puzzle
Little arrows ring the outside of the grid. Clicking one nudges its line a single step in the direction it points. Whatever gets pushed out of one side wraps around and slides back in on the far side.
One dark tile is the source, and anything linked to it lights up. Put the hidden network back together so all pieces belong to one branching system with no circuits. Below the grid, a status line counts your moves along with the number of lit tiles.
Pick a size and level from the Type menu. On easier settings, red barrier marks show places where pipes are not allowed to join, which narrows things down. Tougher settings remove them and let pipes run across the board's edges.
Controls
| To… | Keyboard | Mouse | Touch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Slide a row or column in the arrow's direction | Arrow keys to move the marker around the edge, then Enter | Left-click an arrow | Tap an arrow |
| Slide a row or column the opposite way | — | Right-click an arrow | Press and hold an arrow |
| New game, undo, redo | N, U, R | Menu buttons above the grid | Menu buttons above the grid |
Tips
- Learn on a small easy board. The barriers do a lot of the work, so you can often see where pieces belong before you slide anything.
- Finish one row at a time. Solve the top line first, then work downward so finished rows get disturbed less.
- Use the out-and-back trick. Shift a column, adjust a row, then shift the column back to move a single tile.
- Reverse with a right-click. Sliding the opposite way saves several clicks on longer lines.
- Lean on undo. It goes back as far as you need, so experiment with a sequence and rewind when it makes a mess.
Netslide Pipe Puzzle questions
Do the pieces ever rotate?
No. They start out facing correctly but scattered in the wrong places, and you move them only by sliding whole lines.
What are the red lines?
They are walls. Two pipes can't link through one, which tells you a lot about which squares a tile can go in. The easiest boards have the most.
Can I slide rows on a phone?
Yes. A tap on an arrow pushes its line the way it points. Keep your finger down on the arrow instead to push the line backward.
