Connex

Connex is a 1992 DOS puzzler that at first glance looks like one of the many pipe-laying games that appeared in the wake of Pipe Dream. You get a grid, a queue of tiles carrying pipe segments — straight runs and elbows — and you place them side by side so that the open ends meet.

What sets it apart is the goal. Pipe Dream is about staying ahead of an advancing liquid. In Connex nothing flows at all. What you are building is a closed loop: a continuous circuit of pipe that feeds back into itself. The moment a circuit closes, every tile forming it vanishes from the board and pays out. Longer loops pay considerably more, which rewards greed — sprawling, meandering circuits are worth far more than the safe little square made of four elbows.

The pressure comes from the clock. A timer bar drains continuously and there are only two ways to top it up: a small amount for each tile you place, and a substantial amount for each loop you close. That trade-off is the whole game. Committing to a long circuit can buy you a lot of time, but if the piece you need never turns up, the half-finished run just sits there as dead weight and the grid silts up fast.

Controls are simple and early on you set your own pace, but as the timer tightens Connex turns into a game about deciding quickly. The weakness is obvious: it is a single idea with no modes, no story and nothing to work towards, and an hour is enough to see all of it. The presentation is serviceable and no more.

As a short logic game you can dip into for five minutes or a whole evening, it still works. Connex runs straight in the browser on oldgame.cz, with nothing to install.