Lazy Sunday is back. In fact, it’s the last Sunday of January. This time next week, we’ll be in February, nearing the midwinter. It certainly feels like winter at the moment, wish snowfall all across the country, including my mountain town.
If you’re stuck inside this weekend, be sure to check out my Weekend Streaming Guide for some TV and movie recommendations. Alright, grab those dominos and let’s go!
Looking for Saturday’s Pips? Read our guide right here.
How To Play Pips
In Pips, you have a grid of multicolored boxes. Each colored area represents a different “condition” that you have to achieve. You have a select number of dominoes that you have to spend filling in the grid. You must use every domino and achieve every condition properly to win. There are Easy, Medium and Difficult tiers.
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Here’s an example of a difficult tier Pips:
As you can see, the grid has a bunch of symbols and numbers with each color. On the far left, the three purple squares must not equal one another (hence the equal sign crossed out). The two pink squares next to that must equal a total of 0. The zig-zagging blue squares all must equal one another. You click on dominoes to rotate them, and will need to since they have to be rotated to fit where they belong.
Not shown on this grid are other conditions, such as “less than” or “greater than.” If there are multiple tiles with > or < signs, the total of those tiles must be greater or less than the listed number. It varies by grid. Blank spaces can have anything. The various possible conditions are:
- = All pips must equal one another in this group.
- ≠ All pips must not equal one another in this group.
- > The pip in this tile (or tiles) must be greater than the listed number.
- < The pip in this tile must be less than the listed number.
- An exact number (like 6) The pip must equal this exact number.
- Tiles with no conditions can be anything.
In order to win, you have to use up all your dominoes by filling in all the squares, making sure to fit each condition. Sometimes there’s only one way to solve the puzzle. Other times, there can be two or more different solutions. Play today’s Pips puzzle here.
Today’s Pips Solutions And Walkthrough
Below are the solutions for the Easy and Medium tier Pips. After that, I’ll walk you through the Hard puzzle. Spoilers ahead.
Today’s Easy Pips
Today’s Medium Pips
Hard Pips Walkthrough And Solution
Here’s today’s Hard Pips:
This is an interesting Pips. The only conditions on the board are = groups. One of these has 5 tiles, two have 4 tiles, two have 3 tiles and one has 2 tiles. There are three free tiles. The trick is really in the counting. Only 5’s and 3’s have enough to fill Purple = but we also need to be able to make one of these work with Pink = and one work with Blue =. Since we have three 6’s, and a 5/6 domino, and no 3/6 domino, my hypothesis was that 5’s would go in Purple and 6’s in Pink.
Step 1
This mean that either 3’s or 0’s could fill Dark Blue = / Orange = and I went with 0’s in Dark Blue =. Place the 0/0 vertically in the right two Dark Blue = tiles and then the 0/3 into Orange = and the 0/1 into Green =.
Step 2
Next, place the 3/3 domino in the two adjacent Orange = tiles and the 1/1 domino directly below that in Green =. The 3/4 domino goes slots down from Orange = into the first free tile.
Step 3
Moving to the top half, place the 6/6 domino vertically in the right two Pink = tiles and the 6/5 domino from Pink = into Purple =. The 3/5 domino goes from the second free tile into Purple =.
Solution
Place the 5/5 domino in the next two Purple = tiles and the 2/2 domino directly below that in Blue =. Finish this Pips off with the 5/4 domino from Purple = down into the third free tile (though you could swap this and the 3/5 domino and it wouldn’t make any difference). That’s all folks!
I did have to play around with this one a bit before I got it, but overall a pretty straightforward Pips, even with the all = twist.
How’d you do on today’s Pips? Let me know!
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