Pips, Pips, Pips. Pips everywhere. Sometimes these puzzles make me want to get out a box of real dominos and line them all up and knock them all down. There won’t be any of that in today’s Easy, Medium or Hard Pips puzzles, of course. We’ll knock them out instead.
Looking for Tuesday’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:
We have a bit of a curly-cue for today’s Hard Pips. There’s not an ideal starting point here, at least that I can see, but since the bottom and left side each have free tiles, I decided to start in the middle and fill in the right side of the grid.
Step 1
Since doubles often border ≠ groups, I started with the 0/0 domino from Purple ≠ into Pink < 2. From here, I placed the 0/5 domino from Pink < 0 into Green > 10. Since we know the only 6 in our stash of dominos has to go here, I placed the 6/2 domino from Green > 10 into Blue 5, and the 3/0 domino from Blue 5 into Pink 5.
Step 2
Next, I slotted the 5/1 domino from Pink 5 into Dark Blue 2 and the 1/1 domino from Dark Blue 2 into Purple ≠. I might normally recommend waiting on the rest of the Purple ≠ group, but it’s pretty obvious that the 5/2 needs to in the remaining two tiles.
Solution
Next, place the 3/4 domino from Purple 3 into Orange = and the 4/2 domino from Orange = into the first free tile. This leaves the 5/5 domino for the remaining two free tiles.
I had tried this a bit differently the first time around, with the 1/5 domino going from Pink < 2 into Green > 10, and everything worked out fine until the end, when I didn’t have enough disparate Pips left to complete Purple ≠. Pretty easy fix, though, on a not-too-challenging Hard Pips.
How’d you do on today’s Pips? Let me know!
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