Thor’s day is here, and we might even get some thunder. It’s been beautiful out and unseasonably warm, but there’s rain in the forecast. This should speed the changing of the leaves as temperatures drop considerably. Of course, you’re not here for the weather report. You’re here for today’s Pips walkthrough. Shall we?
Looking for Wednesday’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.
NYT Pips Today: Hints and Answers for Saturday, October 4
Below are the solutions for the Easy and Medium tier Pips. After that, I’ll walk you through the Hard puzzle. Spoilers ahead.
Easy
Medium
Hard
Here’s today’s Hard Pips:
The Easy Pips today looks like a U and the Medium looks like an L and I started to think we’d get some word out of these, but the Hard Pips doesn’t really look like any letter. Maybe an A? Lots of = groups in all three of these. Based on our dominoes, the Blue = has to be 1’s, but the next largest, Pink =, could be 3’s or 5’s.
Step 1
We’ll start with Purple 0 since it’s obvious which dominoes are required to fill it in. The 0/0 domino goes straight in the middle, while the 0/1 domino juts down into Blue = and the 0/6 domino slots into Pink 12.
From here, the 6/1 domino goes from Pink 12 into Blue = and the 1/1 domino fills in two more tiles of Blue =.
Step 2
This next phase got me all turned around. I tried placing 2’s in the Green = group at first, and while this worked for a time, once you get to the left side of the grid you’ll be in trouble. Instead, lay the 1/4 domino from Blue = into Green =.
Next, place the 4/5 domino from Green = into Pink = and the 1/5 domino from Blue = into Pink =. The 5/5 domino can fill in the lowest two tiles of Pink = and the 5/1 domino slots into Pink = and over into Dark Blue =.
Step 3
Next, the 1/2 domino lays down from Blue = into Dark Blue = and the 2/3 domino wraps up Dark Blue = and begins Orange =. We can wrap up Blue = as well, by laying the 1/3 domino from Blue = into the first free tile.
Solution
Finally, place the 0/4 domino from Purple 0 up into the second free tile, the 3/3 domino in the bottom remaining tiles of Orange = and the 3/6 domino from Orange = into the final free tile. And we’re done!
The obvious Purple 0 and Blue = made this one easy to start, but the remaining = groups were very tricky, since we could use so many different combinations. 3’s could have fulfilled the Pink = group or the Orange = group, and either 2’s or 4’s could be Green = or Dark Blue =. Sometimes you just have to try different combinations until one sticks.
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