Pips has quickly become my favorite of the bevy of NYT Games puzzles I solve every day. I think it’s just a nice change of pace from all the word games. Wordle is all about guessing a word. Strands requires you to uncover words on a grid. Connections is all about grouping words. The Crossword is about solving hints. Spelling Bee is an exercise in frustration as you try to make as many words as possible. Pips, on the other hand, is about placing dominoes into a pattern. It’s not exactly a math game, and it’s not as visually challenging (or tedious) as Tiles. I dig it, and I’m happy it seems to be gaining popularity. Let’s solve today’s!
Looking for Monday’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:
This looks like a flying saucer or a car to me. Yesterday’s was a dog or possibly a cat. We’ll call this one a car. I think it will make discussing its pieces a little easier. The first thing I noticed about today’s Difficult Pips were the big total groups. The big Pink 20 group almost certainly required four 5’s and the big Blue 24 group absolutely required all 6’s. Yes, it’s possible to make 20 using 4’s and 6’s, but there’s a Blue 12 group right above it, and it’s a safe assumption that requires two 6’s. That’s a total of 6 6-pip dominoes we absolutely must use, and there simply aren’t enough left to place in the Pink 20 group. So this was the assumption I used when I started today’s puzzle.
I decided to start at the front of the car and fill in the hood and most of the front tire. I placed the 6/2 domino from Blue 12 into the Purple 2 tile and the 6/5 domino into the Blue 12 group into the Pink 20 group. Then I slotted the 5/5 domino at the base of the Pink 20 group, like so:
Next, I moved to the back of the car. The trunk is a Green 6 group, and based on the dominoes I had left, the most likely pieces would be two 3 pips. With no blank dominoes, I need three 1-pip squares to fill in the Pink 3 group and the only other number with enough dominoes to complete the Purple = group was 4.
So I placed the 3/1 domino from Green 6 into the Dark Blue 1 tile and the 3/6 domino from Green 6 into Blue 24. I placed the 6/6 domino at the base of Blue 24 and the 6/1 domino from Blue 24 into the free tile. I had tried the 6/1 going up into the Orange ≠ group, but that threw off the rest of the puzzle. So this is where it had to go:
With only a handful of dominoes left, I moved back to the front of the car and worked in a circle. I placed the 5/4 domino from Pink 20 over into the free tile. Then I placed the 3/4 tile from the free tile up into Purple =. I put the 4/4 domino into the remaining Purple = tiles and the 1/1 tile into the Pink 3 group. Then I slotted the 1/2 domino from Pink 3 down into Orange ≠ and the 3/2 domino from Orange ≠ into the final free tile. And that’s all folks!
This was, in my opinion, a much simpler puzzle than yesterday’s, though the ≠ group did throw me off a bit. Until I placed that 6/1 tile correctly I was a bit stuck. All’s well that ends well, of course, and I got this one a lot quicker than yesterday’s “mushroom” Pips. How did you do?
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