Gusher Grid
Lay pipe before the flow arrives!
▶ Play Gusher GridFree · plays in your browser on phone, PC or Xbox · no ads in the game
What is Gusher Grid?
Gusher Grid is a fast puzzle game about plumbing under pressure. Oil is about to burst out of a wellhead on the board, and you have a short build time to lay pipe ahead of it. Once the flow starts, it keeps moving through whatever you've built, and the game ends when it reaches an open end or the edge of the board. The longer the flow travels through your pipes, the higher your score.
How to play
Press Start. A countdown gives you time to build before the oil starts flowing. The NEXT queue on the side shows the pieces coming up, and the highlighted piece is the one you'll place.
Click or tap an empty square to place the current piece. You can't replace a placed piece by dropping another on top, but clicking a placed piece rotates it 90 degrees, as long as oil hasn't entered it yet.
Now and then the queue hands you a bomb. Right-click (or long-press on a touch screen) a placed, unfilled pipe to blow it up and clear the square. Bombs can't touch filled pipe or the wellhead.
You earn points for every filled segment, plus a bonus when oil passes through a cross piece in both directions. If you're ready early, press F or Space during the countdown to start the flow and save time. The top five scores are saved on your device.
Options
The Options menu uses simple fixed choices: difficulty (Easy, Normal, Hard and Insane), a theme (Oil, Ants, Water or Lava), flow speed, build time from 4 to 40 seconds, board size from Small 7×5 to Huge 16×12, how often bombs appear, the mix of straight, elbow and cross pieces, and a points multiplier. Sound effects and music each have their own toggle.
Controls
Desktop: click to place or rotate, right-click to use a bomb, and F or Space to start the flow early.
Touch: tap to place or rotate, and long-press to use a bomb. The board scales to fit your phone, so there's no need for full screen.
Strategy tips
- Plan a long loop, not a straight line. A winding path that uses most of the board scores far more than a quick dash to the edge.
- Park awkward pieces. When the queue gives you a piece that doesn't fit your path, place it in a far corner rather than blocking your route.
- Crosses are worth the trouble. Planning your path to cross over itself earns a bonus each time oil fills a cross both ways.
- Save bombs for real mistakes. Clearing a dead end in front of the flow can rescue a run that's about to end.
- Build ahead of the flow, not just beside it. Once the oil is moving, every second you spend fixing pieces behind it is wasted.
The genre it's inspired by
Pipe-laying puzzles became popular with a 1989 home-computer game in which players raced a slowly advancing liquid by placing random pipe sections on a grid. It was ported to many systems, and its basic idea has shown up again and again, including in mini-games inside much bigger titles. In the DOS shareware era, small studios made their own variations with oil and water themes. Gusher Grid is our own design built on that classic idea, with its own pieces, art, themes and options. It isn't affiliated with any earlier pipe game.
Developer's notes
We experimented with letting players type their own changes into the game, then dropped it for a simpler options menu with fixed choices. It's easier to use, works the same on every device and doesn't accept free text. Change ideas are welcome through the ✎ suggestion button in the game.
Recent changes
- October 2026: Added sound effects, optional music and upgraded graphics.
- Fixed bombs blocking rotation: a click always rotates, and right-click or long-press uses the bomb.
- Replaced the type-your-own-changes box with a fixed options menu.
- Improved the layout on phones so buttons no longer cover the top text.
- Added the ✎ button for suggesting changes.
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