Looking for help with today’s NYT Pips puzzles? You’ve come to the right place. Not only will you find strategies below, but full answers for each daily trio of Pips puzzles and a full walkthrough for the Hard Pips.
Is it Friday already? How did that happen? At least we’re still early-on in August and the month hasn’t completely slipped by us yet, though time is a slippery and mercurial beast. Let’s solve today’s Pips shall we?
Looking for Thursday’s Pips? Read our guide right here.
How To Play Pips
In Pips, you have a grid of multi=-colored 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:
Another tower-grid style Hard Pips today. These are always an extra challenge and today is no exception. Like most of these, there are no doubles and this is basically how you get your first dominoes laid down. There are also no tiles that equal 6 so we know that our one 6 pips domino has to go in either Orange > 0 or a free tile. Let’s begin.
Step 1
Place the 2/1 domino in the top right corner from Orange 2 down into Purple 1 then hop down to the bottom left corner and place the 5/1 domino from Purple 5 into Blue 1. The 5/3 domino goes next to that from Pink 5 into Blue 3 and the 2/4 domino directly above that from Orange 2 into Dark Blue 4.
Step 2
Pop the 5/2 domino in Green 5 down into Orange > 0 and the 4/1 domino from Purple 4 into Pink 1. The 3/2 domino goes from Green 3 up into Pink 2 and the 3/0 domino goes from Dark Blue 3 up into Purple 0. As per usual, we’re avoiding all those free tiles until the end, but we can safely say the 6 will be in one of them since we used the 5/2 down in the Orange > 0 move.
Step 3
Place the 3/4 domino from Orange 3 over into Dark Blue 4 and the 4/5 domino from Blue 4 into Orange 5. The 3/1 domino goes from Green 3 up into Pink 1, then hop to the top and place the 2/0 domino from Blue 2 into Pink 0.
Solution
Final stretch: Place the 3/6 domino from Purple 3 into the first free tile and the 4/0 domino from Blue 4 into the second free tile. The 1/0 and 5/0 dominoes go from Dark Blue 1 and Green 5 respectively, each down into the remaining free tiles. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a wrap!
Have a fantastic Friday, Pipsqueaks!
How’d you do on today’s Pips?
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