We have another very challenging NYT Pips puzzle to solve today, so buckle up and get ready to lay down some dominos. It’s another beautiful Friday in October. Next Friday is Halloween. But who needs treats—or tricks for that matter—when you can solve puzzles? Actually, please pass the chocolate and let’s solve this Pips!
Looking for Thursday’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:
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. 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:
To me, today’s Hard Pips looks like an ostrich. Sure, it could be a duck, but ostrich is more interesting. This is a very challenging Pips with no clear place to start. There’s also a red herring.
Basically, there are two numbers that could fulfill the big Dark Blue = group. Theoretically, you could use o’s or 3’s in this group. You might be inclined to go with 3’s because of the Purple 0 block at the top. The problem with this, however, is the missing domino: There is no 3/5 domino, and we’ll need one half of whatever’s in Dark Blue = to be a 5 for the top left Orange 5 tile.
Step 1
What this means is that Dark Blue = will be 0’s. We’ll start at the ostrich’s tail, placing the 6/1 domino from Purple 12 up into Blue 1. Next, place the 6/0 domino from Purple 12 down into Dark Blue 0 and the 4/5 domino from the Green 4 tile into the Orange 5 tile.
Next, place the 0/0 domino in the two left Dark Blue = tiles and the 4/1 domino from the Green 1 tile into the Purple 1 tile, like so:
Step 2
Place the 0/5 domino from Dark Blue = into the Orange 5 tile and the 0/2 domino from Dark Blue = into Pink 2. Now, lay the 0/1 domino from Dark Blue = into Blue 1. We’ve finished off the entire Dark Blue = group at this point, and it’s smooth sailing here on out.
Step 3
Head to the ostrich’s feet and place the 3/3 domino in the bottom two Green = tiles and the 3/1 domino from Green = into Blue 2. Then, place the 5/6 domino from Pink 5 into Orange 12 and the 6/4 domino from 6 Orange into the free tile.
Solution
From here, place the 0/4 domino from Purple 0 down into Pink 8 and the 4/2 domino from Pink 8 into Blue 4. Place the 2/3 domino from Blue 4 into the free tile and the 0/3 domino from Purple 0 into the final free tile — and that’s it!
I definitely struggled with this one, clearing the board a couple of times after finding myself in a corner. I tried using 0’s in Dark Blue = first, but this didn’t work for one reason or another so I tried 3’s instead and got so close but couldn’t complete the puzzle. I went back to 0’s and started at the tail-end of the ostrich and while it was slow going, I finally got it! What did you think of today’s PIps?
Let me know on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. Be sure to follow me for all your daily puzzle-solving guides, TV show and movie reviews and more here on this blog!
