DrainSim

I didn’t expect to care this much about drains. Yet here I am, three missions deep and strangely proud of my perfectly routed pumps. DrainSim from CodePeas turns a mundane municipal task into a patient, tactile puzzle where water physics are the star. If you like methodical problem solving, quirky indie charm and the satisfying gurgle of a finally drained square, this one’s for you.

Getting Your Hands Wet

Gameplay in DrainSim is deceptively simple: you receive a mission brief, inspect the flooded area, pick your gear and start manipulating flow with pumps, barriers and shovels. Most sessions feel like a slow, deliberate engineering puzzle — place a generator, run hoses, angle a sump pump and watch currents form. The joy isn’t in twitch reflexes but in reading the surface ripples, anticipating where a whirlpool will form and correcting your setup. Levels nudge you to consider terrain, time of day (floodlights are a thing) and how far electricity will realistically reach. There are little triumphs like watching water find a new channel you cut, or the satisfying way a well-placed sandbag finally reverses the tide. Expect some fiddliness: tool handling is tactile and sometimes awkward on purpose, which can be charming or mildly annoying depending on your patience.

Tools, Tactics and the Joy of Planning

What sets DrainSim apart is its toolkit and the meta-game of preparing for each mission. You plan what to bring: extra pumps, a backup generator, maybe floodlights if you’ll be working at night, and yes, a shovel if the ground can be dug. Tools have obvious upgrades and niche uses — different pump types, hoses of varying lengths and angle-dependent flow behaviors make choices matter. I loved the way choosing to split flow with two smaller pumps sometimes outperformed one giant pump because of how currents interacted. There’s also a scoring/recognition system that unlocks upgrades, which gives a gentle carrot to experiment without turning things into a grind. Missions escalate in complexity: irrigation canals, market squares, storm drains that misbehave — each level forces you to adapt and sometimes to improvise with what you’ve got.

The Look, The Sound, and the Splash

Visually DrainSim is clean and functional with an approachable art direction that keeps the focus on water behavior. The day-night cycle is atmospheric and adds real consequences — night work without floodlights can be frustratingly comical as you fumble with hoses. Sound design is understated but excellent: water sounds, generator hums and the slap of a shovel all sell the tactile fantasy. Performance is mostly solid on Windows, and CodePeas seems nimble with patches (the dev interaction in reviews is real). Accessibility options are still basic; a few people report severe headbob motion-sickness and there are some control quirks that could use toggles. Overall the presentation does exactly what it needs to: it makes plumbing feel important and oddly beautiful.

DrainSim is a delightful niche sim that turns municipal plumbing into low-fi metagaming. It’s approachable, often hilarious, and deeply satisfying when everything finally flows the way you planned. There are rough edges — occasional bugs, inventory fiddliness and motion-sickness warnings — but the core is strong, and the solo dev’s responsiveness is a big plus. Recommended for fans of physics-driven, relaxing sims who don’t mind a little early-access wobble.