If you’re looking for help with today’s NYT Pips puzzle, look no further! Below, you’ll find the solutions for the Easy and Medium-tier Pips and a full walkthrough for the Hard Pips. It’s another beautiful day in November, so be sure to get out there and enjoy it before chillier weather descends. Winter is coming. Let’s solve this Pips!
Looking for Friday’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. 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:
Not a dog, not a spaceship — today’s Hard Pips is a happy little dancing man. Look at him dancing, making his TikTok videos. He’s just a little guy.
We have several places we could theoretically start here. Any of the little man’s limbs would work, or even his head. These are mostly smaller groups or single tiles, but there’s one big Blue = group in the middle. Based on our dominoes, that will need to be 1’s, so we can kind of look ahead and see what dominoes we have with 1’s and what the other sides of those are to guide us.
Notably, there are no free tiles in today’s Pips, which is unusual.
Step 1
I started by looking at the little man’s right foot and leg but decided there were too many possibilities. The left was better, since Green 12 has to be comprised of two 6’s. I placed the 5/6 domino from Pink > 4 into Green 12 and the 6/0 domino from Green 12 into Pink 0.
Next, I placed the 0/5 domino from Pink 0 into Orange 10. I finished up the Pink 0 group with the 0/1 domino into Blue = and placed it horizontally, since you can tell you need to leave the space above empty.
Step 2
Next, I placed the 0/3 domino from Purple 0 into Dark Blue 6 and the 3/1 domino from Dark Blue 6 into the big Blue = group. Then I placed the 5/1 domino from Orange 10 up into Blue = and the 1/1 domino in the center of the Blue = group.
Step 3
Time for the remaining limbs. I placed the 6/4 domino from Blue > 4 into Purple 8 and the 4/2 domino from Purple 8 into the Dark Blue 2 tile. Then I placed the 3/2 domino from Orange 3 into Green 8 and the 6/1 tile from Green 8 into the Blue = group.
Solution
With just the little man’s head remaining, I placed the 1/4 domino from Blue = into Pink 8 and the 0/4 domino from the Purple 0 tile into Pink 8. Now the happy dancing man is complete!
This Pips was a lot more daunting than it was challenging. Lots of small total groups that could be solved different ways, but pretty obvious clues on where to go right off the bat. Starting where I did helped, I think, because it was pretty clear that the 6/0 would go into Pink 0 and the rest of that group led me straight to where I needed to go next. Still fun, just not nearly as hard as yesterday’s.
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