Pipes #44

In his 2023 book, 'The Beauty of Play', Frank Lantz writes, 'Games are an aesthetic form. Which is to say they are something we do for their own sake, in search of beauty, pleasure and meaning, a realm in which our subjective tastes and individual experiences are joined together into communities of critical judgement and overlapping but contested values'.

'Pipes' is a reimagining of the game 'Pipe Mania', released in 1990 by Empire Software. While in the original game, the aim for the player is to connect a series of randomly generated pipe pieces to ensure the flow of 'goo' for a specified distance, in 'Pipes', unique left-to right-pathways are generated section by section.

By refiguring this game and its components into a generative collection, 'Pipes' forms a part of an overarching series, 'The Art of Play', which seeks to highlight the aesthetic beauty of early gaming software.