Parents' Guide to Aqueduct

AQUEDUCT takes a familiar type of puzzle -- connecting up water pipes from the spigots to the drains -- and puts a new twist on it. Rather than being able to place pipe pieces onto the board, the player must slide the pipes around to create the paths. As new features are introduced, the puzzles get more challenging. There are obstacles to work around, buttons to open gates, and moving sidewalks that will push the pieces unless there’s something to stop them. There are also floating bridges that can be moved, teleporters, and immovable pipe parts. Some puzzles have multiple spigots or drains, requiring clever use of the branching pipes.

The graphics are fantastic, with a hand-drawn quality that avoids being overly sketchy, and the interface is clean and simple without anything extraneous. Other than an info screen about the developer and their other games, the app focuses on the puzzles themselves and doesn't rely on a lot of bells and whistles -- and the puzzles themselves are quite enough to satisfy. While the first couple sets of levels aren't tremendously difficult, they're still a lot of fun to solve. And with 190 levels total, Aqueduct will keep any player occupied for quite a while.