Game: Waterworks

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fivecats — 2008-08-03T00:11:15+00:00

Waterworks Wrenches

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inkcat — 2008-06-11T02:54:02+00:00

Who says cats don't like the water(works)?

Thread: Re: Perhaps the best leaky pipe card game I've ever played

Impr3ssion — 2008-05-20T15:19:33+00:00

Our older version also has a hand of five cards.

Nice review.

Thread: Re: Fundamentally Mille Bornes

Impr3ssion — 2008-05-20T14:46:23+00:00

I agree that the basics are similar.

For some reason I like Waterworks with 2 players a lot more than Bornes. That's probably because the scoring is so much easier, the rules are easier to remember, and the special cards are more straightforward.

Thread: Four player teams version

ken_ohio — 2008-05-08T12:19:55+00:00

Yesterday evening we played this game with four players and two teams.

To me, it was better than the original way to play it. I find that it easy to get stuck playing the original game.

We played that a team had to lay 15 cards between the two start cards, but you might try 20.

We first tried it with two wrenches per player. But, the next game we played with only one wrench per player. And, we think you could play without the wrenches altogether. With two player on a team, you seemed to get enough fix-it cards where the wrenches weren't necessary.

Tweaking games is good fun.

Thread: Re: Perhaps the best leaky pipe card game I've ever played

caffeinehead — 2008-04-17T13:04:01+00:00

(grin) I'm guessing you had/have both an old and a new version? The current (Winning Moves) version is hand of five, draw one, play one like you said, but they dropped the number of in-between cards needed: twelve for two players, ten for three, eight for four.

I prefer the original rules, which seems to be where you got your number of cards per player from: fifteen for two players, twelve for three, ten for four and eight for five. Also, that one was hand of five, play one, draw one, which cuts down the number of options a hair.

Thread: Re: Perhaps the best leaky pipe card game I've ever played

Hendal — 2008-04-17T12:15:08+00:00

I had this as a kid, and totally forgot about it, Now I must have it, Hendal Wants it

Thanks for sharing.

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autumnweave — 2008-03-27T15:56:27+00:00

Box Bottom

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autumnweave — 2008-03-27T15:49:55+00:00

Front Cover - Parker Brothers 1976 edition

Thread: Re: Hydropolis >> new game to play with a Waterworks deck

ponchera69 — 2008-03-03T05:38:09+00:00

Looks interesting, I'll give it a try.

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Arnaldo — 2008-02-06T10:57:36+00:00

brazilian version - box (front and bottom), pieces and cards

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Arnaldo — 2008-02-06T10:56:47+00:00

Brazilian version of the box

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asurinach — 2008-01-28T14:47:06+00:00

front box edition spanish borras

Thread: Re: Hydropolis >> new game to play with a Waterworks deck

Rygel — 2008-01-19T01:00:18+00:00

Cool. I'll try it.

Thread: Hydropolis >> new game to play with a Waterworks deck

cerulean — 2008-01-18T22:36:01+00:00

I've created a tile placement game that uses a Waterworks deck. Check out Hydropolis, and let me know what you think.

http://ceruleansgames.tripod.com/hydropolis.htm

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hrc333 — 2008-01-13T00:00:25+00:00

Valve & Spout cards for the Parker Brothers 1972 edition

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hrc333 — 2008-01-12T23:53:51+00:00

Winning Pipeline for the Hasbro 2002 edition

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hrc333 — 2008-01-12T23:51:54+00:00

Valve & Spout cards for the Hasbro 2002 edition

Thread: Re: Fundamentally Mille Bornes

jouslare — 2007-12-29T23:20:20+00:00

Great analysis. I was thinking that the other day while playing with my nephew -- stuck with a leaking T-joint, discarding card after card reminded me of waiting for a green light in Mille Bornes. Fortunately this situation occurs far less frequently in Waterworks. I would recommend Waterworks over Mille Bornes for younger players / players with ADD for that reason. Personally though I am a sucker for the Euro look of the milestone markers in MB...

Thread: Perhaps the best leaky pipe card game I've ever played

MrEleganza — 2007-04-15T11:48:50+00:00

This is a good filler game. A little bit of strategy, a lot of screw-your-neighbor and bash-the-leader, and play is quick, perhaps 15-20 minutes.

You start out with two cards a faucet and a handle, and you have to try to connect the two together with a minimum of ten other pipe cards (if you're playing with 4 players).

The pipe cards are horizontal pipes, vertical pipes, t-joint pipes, and elbow pipes. All your cards must be played vertically - you can't lay a card sideways to make the pipe fit.

Beyond the different shapes of pipes, there's also copper pipes, which can't leak or be sabotaged, and lead, which can leak and be sabotaged.

You draw five cards, picking up a card on each turn and either laying down or discarding a card on each turn. You can either extend your own pipe, if you have a non-leaky piece that fits, or you can lay down a leaky piece on one of your opponent's pipes.

There are two ways of sabotaging your opponents with leaky pipes. You can either fit a leaky piece to his pipe as an extension, if it fits; or you can lay an identical, but leaky, card on top of a card he has already placed (unless its copper). A double-whammy is to lay down a leaky extension that not only gives him a leak to fix, but leads him in a direction he doesn't want to go.

You can fix a leak either by placing an identical, but non-leaky, card on top of the leaky card, or by putting a wrench on it. You get two wrenches to use at your discretion. Placing the wrench uses up your turn.

There are a couple other restrictions to sabotaging your opponent. You have to leave him a direction to build in. If you look at the images, you'll notice there are some stopper cards, (gap closers, pipe closers, whatever you want to call it.) If your opponent is building a long, straight pipe, you will be tempted to shut it off with a leaky stopper card. But you can't, as it leaves him nowhere else to build.

You can only lay down leaky cards on your opponent's pipes. You may be tempted to lay down an unleaky fitting-but-unwanted elbow or t-joint on your opponent's pipe, but you can't.

Further, you cannot lay down a leaky card on your own pipe (an example of when you might want to is if it's an ideal fit, but leaky...and accepting the leak to fix with a wrench).

If you have a leak, you cannot continue to build until you have repaired the leak, although you may use your turn to sabotage your opponents instead. Your finished product cannot have any loose ends either, like T-joints with an open valve. This is what the aforementioned stopper cards are for.

Perusing the other comments and reviews, I'm seeing a lot of complaints about the amount of space laying all these cards take up. I played two games with four people, and we were able to easily acommodate all pipes on a regular dining table, although we did have to sometimes gently shift our constructions to make for more room from time to time. Not a legendary game but not much to complain about, either.

Thread: There is a mexican version named "Goteras"

falcala — 2006-10-17T21:46:32+00:00

A few years ago there was a mexican edition of this game, named "Goteras" ("Leaks"), published by "AS Manufacturas".

The game allowed five players, and contained 15 wrenches (cardboard). The rules stated that each player has only 2 wrenches (10 maximum in a 5-player game), the remaining 5 were there as replacements if any wrench got lost or damaged.

Thread: Fundamentally Mille Bornes

ellephai — 2006-01-14T08:15:35+00:00

I played a lot of Waterworks as a kid, and still enjoy it now and again. But it wasn't until later in life that I realized it was essentially a differently-themed Mille Bornes. Presuming you are familiar with Mille Bornes, consider:

The victory condition is to acquire a certain mass of cards before anyone else. In Mille Bornes, it's a certain number of miles; in Water Works, it's a pipeline of a certain length (varies by # of players). In both cases, it's not quite as simple as "just collect x cards of this type"; in MB you have to arrive at the desired total exactly, which restricts what cards you can use, and in WW you have graphic constraints--the cards all have to be played oriented vertically, and your water has to end up flowing down. But in both cases, most cards are usable.

The turn mechanism is similar. In both games, you have a hand of cards (of comparable size), and on your turn you have three choices:
(1) Play a card to benefit yourself (either by direct advancement, or by curing an affliction someone else has put on you);
(2) Play a card to afflict another player (in MB, the various road hazards; in WW, a leaky pipe);
(3) Discard a card you don't want or can't use, if you have no better play.
Following any of these, you draw a card to replenish your hand.

In both games, there are several different types of misfortune other players can afflict you with, and each one has a specific matching cure. In MB, you have the flat tire, the empty gas tank, the accident, and the red light, cured respectively by the spare tire, the gas can, the repairs, and the green light. In WW, it's not as evident that there are several distinct misfortunes, because generally speaking, the only bad thing you can do to another player is to play a leaky pipe on them. However, when you consider that there are several (5 plus a 6th (leaky cap) that is only usable in certain circumstances) distinct shapes of leaky pipe, and each one must be mended by its specific unleaky equivalent, you can see the parallel.

What about differences? There's no direct equivalent in WW to the MB speed limit, a partial affliction that allows you to still play cards of advancement, but only the lesser ones.

On the other hand, in MB, once you get a milestone onto the board, they can't take that away from you. In WW, due to the lead/copper distinction, there's the potential to directly smite a particular card an opponent has played, and effectively make them play it again. In certain situations involving the T-pipe, the possibility also exists of neutralizing some of an opponent's advancement cards so that they can never count them toward their ultimate goal.

Another difference: there's no WW equivalent to the green light of MB. As a response to the red light, the green light is just another affliction/cure pair (like leaky pipe/good pipe). But in the sense of having to start the game with a green light, and having to get another green after every misfortune, there's no parallel in WW, and that strips away a layer of difficulty and frustration that's present in MB.

Then there are the wrenches. How often in MB, while sitting interminably by the side of the road with a flat tire, watching your opponents zooming past at high speeds and taunting you by discarding spare tires, have you wished that even without drawing a spare tire, you could just magically, instantly fix the problem and get back in the game? In WW, you can, twice per game. The wrench is a sort of "deus ex machina" add-on that keeps anyone from being fenced into a position of utter hopelessness.

In MB there are the special power cards, which could be considered roughly comparable to the wrenches of WW. However, they function in a distinctly different way. The special power cards (like driving ace, priority vehicle, etc.--I can't remember what they are collectively called in English) each cure a particular affliction, not just any affliction, so they're weaker than the wrenches, which can fix a leaky pipe of any configuration. But in another way they're also stronger than the wrenches, because they prevent damage of their particular kind throughout the entire rest of the game, whereas the wrench only works in one specific incident.

The special power cards in MB, because you can play them in a coup-fourre, also affect scoring, which is more complex in MB. In WW, there really is no scoring; you just win, and the game is over. It's the equivalent of a hand of MB. In MB, you not only have score that carries over from hand to hand, but you have all sorts of frills that affect the score, like the bonuses that you get if another player never left their driveway, or if you won after the deck was exhausted.

So WW has the guts of MB, but is modified a little bit, presumably to make it an easier kids' game. Scoring is completely eliminated and the game is shortened, by making a hand a game. (This offers the interesting possibility of using MB as a model to create an extended, scored version of WW.) And the more powerful wrenches are introduced in order to reduce/eliminate the chance of anyone getting totally shut out from being able to play. It's interesting that in MB, you know it's hopeless when you've seen all the cards of the kind you need (to cure whatever misfortune has afflicted you), and the game instructions clearly specify how many of each kind there are--there's even a handy little summary card with that info on it for easy reference. In WW, though, unless you go through the deck, sort, and count (which I have never done), you don't know how many cure cards there are for each affliction--and the situation is a bit different anyway, because the same good pipe that fixes leaks can also be played on its own. Sort of as if you could play a spare-tire card when you didn't have a flat, and count it as a milestone.

I maintain that WW is essentially MB, simplified in a few aspects, but retaining the main design and function; rethemed; and given a visual layout that tends to obscure the similarity. If you like either one, try the other.

Thread: The original pipe game

Gecko23 — 2005-05-26T23:51:20+00:00

I had this game as a kid, but I really don't remember playing it then. All I really remembered was the nifty minature monkey wrenches.

Anyways, in a fit of nostalgia, and a $2.50 listing ebay, I snagged a duplicate of my long lost copy planning to unleash it on my children.

It arrived in a smallish but sturdy box containing a plastic bathtub card holder (complete with simulated rust stain around drain hole), the cards, and the nifty metal wrenches I remembered.

The cards themselves come in two varieties, copper, which is immune from opponents attacks, and doesn't leak, and lead, which may or may not leak and can be attacked.

The cards are also fullsize, which leads to the first problem I noticed: You need a lot of table to play this with any number of people.

Game play is simple enough, add pipe sections to your pipe until you reach the goal length. Screw with other players by adding broken pipes to theirs', which they must fix with new pipe, or by using one of the wrenches.

And thats it. Play card, draw card, discard, repeat. The only strategy of any use is to hold onto caps and non-leaking t's and 4-ways since these are the least common.

And all that being said, it just isn't very interesting. This game has as much depth as the cards do.

The kids like stringing the pipes together, but for anyone over 8 or so, it's not going to do much for them.

There are legions of better card games, even for kids this age.

Thread: "Lange Leitung" from Winning Moves

GeoMan — 2004-06-15T21:37:46+00:00

This game was re-released in 2001 by Winning Moves as Lange Leitung.

Thread: 5-player Waterworks

g_o_williams — 2004-03-30T11:26:29+00:00

For those who are looking for a 5-player version of Waterworks, the 30th Anniversary edition has 110 cards AND 10 wrench tokens, in spite of what it says on the box. The card deck has enough valve and spout cards for 5-players. Just print off the Parker Rules from this site and you have a replica of the original game. You'd think that Winning Moves could have included a copy of the original rules as a bonus for the 30th Anniversary edition !

Thread: Session Report

gschloesser — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

With the hour approaching 2AM, Joe, Ted and I opted for this old Parker Brothers classic of constructing pipelines. I have always thoroughly enjoyed Waterworks and it is definitely a game which was way ahead of its time. It has been re-released by Winning Moves and I'd certainly recommend it as an entertaining family game or light filler.

The game certainly takes on a different 'feel' when played by gamers. It's nasty .... very nasty. Most of our turns were spent placing leaks on each other. When played with my wife and daughter, a kinder, more gentle approach is usually taken.

Joe and I each won a match before heading for bed.

It was great to have Joe, Tom and Ted in attendance. Just for the record, Joe and Ted have each attended more Westbank Gamers sessions than my good buddy Tom. Why this is significant is that they both live out of state, while Tom lives right here in New Orleans! For shame, Tom, for shame!!