An interesting tidbit about today’s trio of NYT Pips puzzles: As far as I’m aware, or at least of the Pips puzzles I can remember playing, today’s Easy Pips was the first where I didn’t have to turn a single domino. They all fit in exactly the way they were in the stash. Usually, just the process of turning the dominos means the Easy takes me at a minimum about 15 seconds but today it took only 12. Huzzah! Let’s solve these, shall we?
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. 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:
Today’s Hard Pips is a little tricky because we have a few doubles that could work in the two Orange = groups, each of which are comprised of four tiles. The best way to start, therefore, is where we have a clearer limit: Namely, the Purple 0 group, which requires both of our blank dominoes. Let’s begin!
Step 1
Place the 0/1 domino from Purple 0 into Dark Blue 2 and the 5/1 domino from Pink > 4 into Dark Blue 2. The 0/2 domino goes up into Blue 6 (though it’s tempting to place it down into Orange =) and the 2/2 domino goes in the right two tiles of Orange =.
Step 2
Next, place the 2/1 domino from Orange = into Green 1 and the 5/4 domino above that from Blue > 4 into Green 4. The 5/3 domino goes from Dark Blue > 4 into Orange = and the 3/3 domino goes above that in the next two Orange = tiles.
Solution
Place the 3/0 domino from Orange = over into Pink 3 and the 3/4 domino fro Pink 3 into Blue 6. The 1/1 domino goes at the top in Purple 2 and the 5/2 domino goes from the single free tile down into Orange =.
This wasn’t a particularly challenging Hard Pips, though I can see how it’s trying to fool us with the 0/2 and 4/3 dominoes in particular.
How’d you do on today’s Pips?
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