I’ve always kind of liked airports. I like working in airports, sitting at a charging station or an overpriced restaurant or bar with my laptop open and the thrum and bustle of people around me. Travelers from all over the world, some hurrying to make a narrow connection; others lounging, napping, drinking too much. This isn’t always the case. Sometimes an airport can be too crowded or the vibe can just be off. Probably my least favorite airport experiences were:
Costa Rica. Leaving the country, the airline we flew in on and I think one person at the desk and the line was genuinely outrageous. We were there several hours before our flight and still almost missed it just waiting in line to check in, check our bags and pay the fee you have to fork over to leave that country.
London City Airport. The security here was wild. Everyone seemed angry and on edge. You had to stand in very specific foot marks on the floor when in line for security check. It took forever. Even though when we flew out of Heathrow I was pulled aside (randomly) for their extra security checks, the experience was still far more enjoyable.
San Diego. The airport was under construction the last time I was there. It was a sardine can in there.
Anyways, I write this from an airport, hence the train of thought (plane of thought?) Let’s solve this Pips!
Looking for Saturday’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 Solution
Below are the solutions for the Easy and Medium tier Pips. After that, I’ll walk you through the Difficult puzzle. Spoilers ahead.
Easy
Medium
Difficult
Let’s do a complete walkthrough of today’s Difficult Pips. It starts out like this:
I’m going to call this Pips an igloo. I mean, it really is mostly an amorphous blob, but igloo is more interesting, or at least more defined.
We have tons of different conditions and narrow lanes to work with on this one, but a couple key observations will help get us started:
The far left Dark Blue = group is a good place to start since we know it has to begin with a double. We also know that Pink 10 (which it adjoins) must be either a 6/4 or a 5/5. Almost all of our 6’s, 4’s and 5’s will go to this group and the Orange and Purple 10 groups.
Step 1
Based on these observations and the dominoes we have, I started by slotting the 1/1 domino into Dark Blue = and then placing the 1/5 domino from Dark Blue = into Pink 10. The 5’s make more sense here given the 6/6 domino will be needed to bridge the Orange 10 and Purple 10 groups later on.
Step 2
From here, I placed the 3/3 domino in Pink 9 and the 3/0 domino from Pink 9 into the Blue 0 group. I finished off that group with the 6/0 domino, which I placed from Green >4 into Blue 0.
Step 3
Next up, we tackle the remaining 10 groups. I placed the 6/6 domino between the two. The I slotted the 4/2 domino from Orange 10 up into Purple 5 and the 4/0 domino from Purple 10 down into the second (and larger) Blue 0 group.
Solution
From here, it’s pretty easy. The 3/1 domino goes from Purple 5 into the free tile. The 2/0 domino goes from Orange >1 into Blue 0. The 0/0 domino fills in the next two Blue 0 tiles and the last domino, a 0/1, goes from Blue 0 into the final free tile.
Another stray observation: It almost never (maybe truly never) makes sense to start with a free tile because it’s the least specific of all conditions. Always begin a Pips with the most specific, ideally with tiles that can be filled no other possible way. Sometimes this is obvious, and sometimes it requires looking ahead a little bit. How did you do on today’s Pips?
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