NYT ‘Pips’ Hints, Answers And Walkthrough For Saturday, July 4

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:

I had a bit of a hard time making out today’s Hard Pips because all the numbers in this chunky grid are smushed together. But it’s the date 1776, the year the United States of America was born. Our country — well, my country, some of you are likely from elsewhere — turns 250 years old today, and boy are we showing signs of wear-and-tear. In nation years, we might still be quite young, and maybe we’re just throwing a tantrum lately. Whatever the case, hopefully we can grow and learn from our mistakes. In any case, there are two dominoes we can place without question to start things off, so let’s begin.

Step 1

Place the 0/5 domino from Purple 0 into Dark Blue 5 and the 5/2 domino from Pink 5 into Orange 2. Next, place the 1/6 domino into the two Purple 7 tiles and the 4/6 domino next to that, from Pink 4 into Blue 7. The 1/4 domino goes from Blue 7 into Orange 4.

Step 2

Next, place the 5/3 domino from Dark Blue 7 into Green = and the 2/4 domino from Dark Blue 7 into Green 4. The 3/1 domino goes from Green = into Orange 7 and the 3/3 domino fills in the remaining Green = tiles. The 4/4 domino goes from Blue 4 into Orange 4.

Solution

Place the 2/1 domino from Purple 2 into Pink > 0 on the left and the 6/5 domino from Dark Blue > 5 into Blue 7 in the second “7” on the grid. The 2/6 domino goes below that from Blue 7 into Pink > 4. Next, place the 0/0 domino from Green 0 into the first free tile and the 6/0 domino from Orange 7 into the second free tile and you’re done!

Somehow I managed to lay every domino perfectly today. All my assumptions and hypotheses were on the money. My gut instincts were sharp and astute. I normally have to rearrange at least a couple dominoes before solving one of these, and I assumed I would today because this was a pretty daunting looking Pips. I guess sometimes you get lucky!

How’d you do on today’s Pips?

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