It’s an interesting trio of NYT Pips puzzles today. I thought the Easy was actually a little trickier than the Medium, which is rare. Some Medium Pips can be almost as tough as the Hard tier Pips. In any case, it’s a fine, chilly Monday so let’s lay some dominoes!
Looking for Sunday’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.
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:
Yesterday’s Hard Pips looked a bit like an “L” and today’s looks like a “K” so I guess we’re entering the letters stage, following a long run of numbers. This is a tricky one when it comes to knowing where to begin, but we have a couple tiles worth noting. First, the Blue 11 and Dark Blue 10 groups on the left will require most of our larger Pips, but we need to reserve two 6’s for the Pink 12 group.
Step 1
Start by laying th the 5/0 domino from Blue 11 into Purple = and the 6/6 domino down from Blue 11 into Dark Blue 10. We can’t use 5’s to make this group because we don’t have enough, and we need that double 6 to straddle both groups in order to have enough 6’s leftover for Pink 12. The 4/2 domino then goes from Dark Blue 10 down into Blue > 1.
Step 2
We’ll hop to the other side of the board and place the remaining 6’s. The 6/1 domino goes from Pink 12 into Purple > 0 and the 6/0 domino goes from Pink 12 down into the free tile. Next, place the 0/0 domino in the top right tiles of the Pink 1 group and the 1/4 domino from Pink 1 into the next free tile.
Solution
We have just four dominoes left. The 2/0 domino goes from Orange = into Purple = and the 2/3 domino goes below that, from Orange = into Green =. The 3/1 domino slots vertically from Green = down into the next free tile, and the 0/4 domino slots horizontally from Purple = into the final free tile. And we’re done!
This one definitely took some trial and error. I realized after I began that I’d used too many 6’s and couldn’t complete Pink 12. Then I tried placing 6/0 from Blue 11 into Purple = (which I was pretty sure would be blanks) but this left me stuck when it came to the middle of the board. I got there eventually, though as always I’m curious if any of you Pipsqueaks found a different way.
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