Another January weekend, another Pips to solve. Well, another three Pips to solve, since we have Easy, Medium and Hard puzzles ahead of us. Let’s not waste any time and get right to laying down dominos!
Looking for Friday’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:
Bird, bird, bird is the word b-b-b-bird bird bird, bird is the word. Today’s Hard Pips follows a tradition we’ve seen with words like “hola” in the past. This one isn’t too bad if you make sure to figure out what you need ahead of time. For instance, we know we need three of our 6’s for Orange 12 and Dark Blue 6, but that leaves us with 6’s to spare. We know we need doubles in Green = and Pink = and we can assume we’ll need 1’s for Pink 4. Let’s start at the “b” and go from there.
Step 1
Start by placing the 6/1 domino from Orange 12 into Pink 4 and the 1/1 domino in the next two Pink 4 tiles. The 6/0 domino goes from Orange 12 up into Purple 3 and the 3/1 domino goes from Purple 3 over into Pink 1. We only have one more blank domino, so toss the 0/2 into Purple 3 and up into the first free tile.
Step 2
Moving on to the “d” place the 6/2 domino from Dark Blue 6 into Green = and the 2/2 domino in the next two Green = tiles. (I tried this with 3’s first, but we need the 3/4 domino to be elsewhere). Next, place the 2/3 domino from Green = into Pink = and the 3/3 domino in the next two Pink = tiles. The 3/4 domino I just mentioned above goes from Pink 3 into Blue 4.
Solution
Moving to the “r” place the 2/5 domino from Orange > 1 into Purple 10 and the 5/1 domino from Purple 10 into the next free tile. Over at the “i” place the 6/3 domino from the bottom free tile up into Blue ≠ and the 6/6 domino from Blue ≠ into the top and final free tile. You could also do these the other way around. That’s all folks!
All told, a pretty straightforward Hard Pips, though you might run into the same snag I did in the “d” and have to backtrack. How did you do on today’s Pips?
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