Looking for help with today’s NYT Pips puzzles? You’ve come to the right place. Not only will you find strategies below, but full answers for each daily trio of Pips puzzles and a full walkthrough for the Hard Pips.
TGIF, Pipsqueaks! It’s another beautiful summer day, half sunshine and half rainshower. And some sunshowers tossed in for good measure. Grab a domino or two and let’s get to these Pips, shall we?
Looking for Thursday’s Pips? Read our guide right here.
How To Play Pips
In Pips, you have a grid of multi=-colored 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.
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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:
It’s only fair that today’s Hard Pips is EURO since we had DOLLAR the other day. Will we have the Great Britain POUND one of these days? A PESO perhaps? RUPEE? So many currencies to choose from. Let’s make some money!
Step 1
Start with doubles: The 2/2 domino goes in Purple = with the 2/5 going from Purple = down into Pink 16. Hop over to the “U” and place the 1/1 domino in Orange < 3 and the 0/5 domino from Orange < 3 into Pink 11.
Step 2
Move to the “O” and place the 4/6 domino from Pink 8 into Purple 10 and the 4/2 domino from Purple 10 into Dark Blue 7. The 5/3 goes from Dark Blue 7 into Orange 3 and the 0/4 domino goes from Green 0 back around into Pink 8.
Step 3
Move back to the “U” and place the 6/3 domino from Pink 11 into Purple 8 and the 5/4 domino from Purple 8 into Dark Blue 7. The 3/1 domino goes from Dark Blue 7 into Blue 1 and then jump down to the “r” and pop the 6/6 domino in the top two Blue 15 tiles.
Solution
Stick the 3/0 domino from Blue 15 into the first free tile, then move back up to the “E” and place the 6/2 domino from Pink 16 into the second free tile. The 5/1 domino goes from Pink 16 down into Green 6 and the 2/3 domino fills up the remaining Green 6 tiles. And you’re all done!
Have a fantastic Friday, Pipsqueaks!
How’d you do on today’s Pips?
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