It’s Friday at last, with the second weekend of November just ahead. As always, we have some dominoes that need to find a home in some very colorful tiles. If you’re looking for help with your NYT Pips puzzle, read on. I have the solutions for the Easy and Medium tiers followed by a complete walkthrough of today’s Hard Pips.
Looking for Thursday’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:
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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:
I guess this looks kind of like an abstract face. Who’s face? The Vault Boy, of course!
Do you see the resemblance? Vault Boy is the mascot for the Vault-Tec Company in the Fallout games. You’ll also find him on the Pip-Boy device you wear in the game, so there’s a roundabout connection to Pips!
In any case, let’s dive right in.
Step 1
The obvious place to start is the Purple 12 group at the bottom. It has just two tiles, so it has to use both of our 6’s. It seems reasonable to assume that the 6/3 domino will go over into Dark Blue 12 with its four tiles, and the 6/5 domino will go into the smaller Green 12 group. Finally, place the 3/3 domino in the next two Dark Blue 12 tiles.
Step 2
Next, place the 4/1 domino from the free tile into Orange 1, the 1/0 domino from the next free tile into Pink = (since only blanks are the only dominoes we have that can fill five tiles). Place the 4/0 domino from Purple 12 into the Pink = group. Then the 4/4 domino will go in the remaining two Purple 12 tiles.
Solution
Place the 0/0 tile into the next two horizontal Pink = tiles and the 3/0 domino from the last Dark Blue 12 tile into the last Pink = tile. The 2/4 domino will slot into the Blue 2 tile down into the final free tile, which just leaves the 4/3 domino for the final two Green 12 tiles. And that’s all she wrote!
This wasn’t a particularly challenging Pips, though it was a fun one to solve. I’m pretty sure this is the only way to solve it, but maybe you came up with an alternative solution?
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