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.
Grab your dominoes, Pipsqueaks, and let’s get to solving!
Looking for Monday’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.
Here’s an example of a difficult tier Pips:
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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:
Today’s Hard Pips is an ostrich or perhaps a flamingo. Either that or an oddly shaped lawnmower. Let’s say flamingo and just imagine he has a little leg sticking out from his body with a few more tiles to fill up. That would maket his a super hard Hard Pips. It’s not the easiest as it stands.
Step 1
Start with the 5/5 domino in the Orange 10 tiles and the 6/4 domino directly next to that, from Green 24 up into Purple 8. We need four 6’s down here and 2 up in Purple 12, so place the 6/5 next to that from Green 24 into Blue 9 and the 6/6 domino horizontally in the rest of the Green 24 tiles. Finisht his step with the 3/3 domino from Dark Blue 3 into Pink 3.
Step 2
Next, place the 4/1 domino from Blue 9 into Dark Blue 3 and the 2/2 domino from Dark Blue 3 into Green 5. The 3/4 domino goes from Green 5 into Purple 8 and the 1/2 domino fills up the Orange 3, which I almost called the camel’s hump. Maybe this isn’t a flamingo. MAYBE IT’S A CAMEL.
Solution
Place the 0/1 domino from Pink 3 into Blue 3 and the 1/1 domino in the next two Blue 3 tiles. The 4/4 domino goes above that in Pink 11 and the 3/6 domino goes from Pink 11 into Purple 12. Place the 12/2 from Purple 12 into the free tile in the camel’s beak. Because camels totally have beaks.
Have a great Wednesday, Pipsqueaks!
How’d you do on today’s Pips?
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