Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Pipes puzzle (a.k.a. Net) on a hexagonal grid
Hello, HN - I wanted to share this puzzle game I made during my vacation. I'm rather fond of the pipes puzzle where your goal is to restore a scrambled network of connections by rotating tiles. It's usually played on a grid of squares and this all started when I decided to make a programmatic solver for that kind of puzzle. Then I realized that with some minor changes the solver could generate new puzzle instances. I thought about what kind of puzzle to make and someone suggested a hexagonal grid. Adapting the generator wasn't too hard but then I had to create a way to play this variant. So…
Pipes Puzzle is a connection-matching game where players rotate tiles to restore scrambled networks on a hexagonal grid. Unlike the traditional square-grid variant, the hexagonal layout offers increased complexity due… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Pipes puzzle (a.k.a. Net) on a hexagonal grid launched in 2022; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
- 1IM
This is the first iteration of a short game I’m making that tries to interactively explain some of my favorite math questions / ideas. My goal is mostly to get the player curious and not necessarily to explain absolutely everything. There were a lot of fun technical parts to building this: - For implementation reasons, it’s much easier if the lines all have integer intersection points with each other. To do this, when a new line is added I “cheat” by rounding intersections to integers and then splitting the old lines at the intersection into new linds (with potentially different slopes)…
2024 · rahulilango.com · its alternatives →
- 2
Pipe Cube▲69A deep puzzle game with many twists. Also cash prizes.
2017 · tetherstudios.com · its alternatives →
- 3
I’ve been a big fan of Hexapipes since it came out last year. I also wanted to learn about Penrose tiling. So I implemented a Penrose grid for Hexapipes! My intention is to contribute the code back to Hexapipes. Earlier this year I contributed the Cube grid as a practice run. It is a joy working with the brilliant @gereleth. It will take some work to raise the code to the Hexapipes standard. But the game is ready to play, so I thought I’d release it at its own domain. It is based on a new JS library for generating a random area of Penrose tiles, implementing algorithms by Simon Tatham. Demo…
2023 · penrosepipes.vercel.app · its alternatives →
- 4IW
I’ve been working on a puzzle game for a few years as a side project. The game is based on a small region of tiles in a grid that is mirrored, modified, and mirrored again. It’s based on a novel phenomenon I noticed where, once these mutations happen a few times, the original region can be hard to recognize. You have a feeling there are symmetries in the image, but they are just out of grasp. Going further, if only part of the region is visible, such as mirroring off the edge of the board, it adds to the feeling and it becomes a satisfying puzzle to solve. I originally published this on the…
2024 · hidden-mirrors.com · its alternatives →
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Connecting the pipes and cultivating relaxation.
2021 · play.google.com · its alternatives →
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Swapple - A daily puzzle game where you transform patterns by swapping rows and columns. Challenge yourself to solve it in as few moves as possible!
2025 · swapple.fuglede.dk · its alternatives →
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2022 · punkx.org · its alternatives →
- 9
An educational puzzle game. Solve a series of tasks where you build increasingly powerful components. Starts with the simplest logical components and ends up with a programmable computer.
2018 · nandgame.com · its alternatives →
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Hello! Try out a 3x3 puzzle and click the question mark in the top right for a tutorial. I'd really appreciate any feedback! Thanks
2024 · slidecross.io · its alternatives →
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Hi everyone, I’m an indie developer learning Next.js and a big fan of the NYT game Pips. Inspired by it, I built https://pipsgamer.com — a responsive web version of Pips with smooth gameplay on both desktop and mobile. What makes this project different from NYT’s version is that you can play it infinitely under three difficulty levels: Easy / Medium / Hard. This is the first time I’ve built a game. Along the way I ran into many difficulties: implementing the game logic, configuring the UI, matching layouts for small and large screens, etc. I spent many lonely nights and…
2025 · pipsgamer.com · its alternatives →
- 14
a fun match-3 puzzle played in a brilliant hexagonal setting
2015 · amazon.com · its alternatives →
- 15
I've been playing with this for quite some time and I think it's finally ready for public consumption. All feedback welcome.
2025 · madmonk13.github.io · its alternatives →
- 16
This was a lot of fun to build! I have an autistic son who is extremely interested in power lines, electrical transmission towers, and how the grid works. I decided to build a little game for him. When I finally showed it to him with bated breath, he rolled his eyes and said, “Is it 3D? I’ll only like it if it’s 3D!” So, I decided to polish it up and release it to the world! You get a 9x9 map with one power plant, three houses, and terrain obstacles, and the goal is to connect the power plant to the houses with an optimal path. Beneath the coat of paint, it’s a graph theory optimization…
Aug 2026 · wirespan.app · its alternatives →
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HexBreaker!▲57A puzzle game where the only obstacle is your past moves
2016 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
- 18
PipsGame▲7Hi HN, I built https://pipsgames.org , a minimalist logic puzzle game inspired by Pips and NYT-style domino placement. Highlights: 100% free & no signup required Infinite procedurally generated puzzles Share a specific puzzle link with friends to challenge them Works on desktop & mobile It’s a side project for fun & brain training. I’d love feedback on puzzle design, UX, and what to build next (e.g. level editor or leaderboard). Thanks for checking it out!
Oct 2025 · pipsgames.org · its alternatives →
- 19
Artistic and maddening puzzle game
2015 · matthewbrowngames.com · its alternatives →
- 20
Hello HN! We're Rory and Chris, and we've made a game called Dozenal[0], a grid-based number puzzle game where the objective is to use all the tiles on the board to create totals of 12 (hence the name). We think the mechanic is quite unique, although keen to hear if people know of similar games! You essentially drag tiles across the board, and the distance between two numbers decides the arithmetic operation when they connect to each other: zero spaces is addition, one space is subtraction, two spaces is multiplication: e.g. 5 → 4 = 9 5 → _ → 4 = 1 5 → _ → _ → 4 = 20 We've spent the past…
Jul 2026 · dozenal.game · its alternatives →
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Cubic▲58A simple puzzle game for people who love cubes & colors.
2015 · gizop.com · its alternatives →
- 23
PuzzleBits▲62A whimsical puzzly thing, with bits that go boom!
2015 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
- 24
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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →