The last weekend of October is behind us and the final few days of the month stretch out ahead. The leaves are all brilliant yellows and oranges and reds and yards are decorated with ghouls and goblins and witches and skeletons. We have another NYT Pips puzzle to solve on this lovely, spooky autumn day. Below you’ll find solutions for the Easy and Medium Monday Pips. I’ll give you a hint for the Medium tier puzzle right now: Start with the 2/5 domino and begin in the Purple 2 tile. For the Hard tier walkthrough, read on, Pipsqueaks!
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:
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:
Two-column Pips are always tricky and today’s is no exception. There are two Purple = groups that require four of the same number, but based on the dominoes we have, this could be 1’s, 2’s or blanks. We can rule out 2’s right off the bat, however, as we’ll need a 4 for the Pink 4 tile. Only 1’s and blanks have a domino with a 4-pip tile.
With this in mind, let’s dive right in!
Step 1
I tried this out with both 1’s and 0’s but the reality is, you’ll need the blank dominoes for the second column. Begin by placing the 1/1 domino in the top two Purple = tiles. Then place the 1/4 domino from Purple = into Pink 4 and the 1/3 domino from Purple = into Blue = like so:
Step 2
Next, place the 0/3 domino from Green 1 into Blue = and the 1/2 domino from Green 1 into Orange =. Finally, the 3/2 domino goes into Blue = down into Orange = finishing up the left column.
Solution
Finally, place the 2/2 domino into Orange 4 and the 1/0 domino into Dark Blue 1 (though it can face either direction). The 0/0 domino goes in the two left tiles of the Purple = group. Finish this one up by placing the 0/4 and 0/2 dominoes from Purple = into Pink >5 (in either spot). And that’s a wrap!
I definitely struggled a bit at first trying to figure out which Purple = block needed 1’s and which needed 0’s but ultimately I realized I needed the second 4 to go into the Pink >5 group since I absolutely needed Blue = to be all 3’s. At that point it was pretty obvious what had to happen. How did you do?
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