Looking for help with today’s Easy, Medium and Hard NYT Pips puzzles? Whether you’re after a nudge in the right direction or just want to compare notes, below you’ll find everything you need to solve each of today’s Pips plus a full walkthrough for today’s Hard Pips.
I hope all you Pipsqueaks had a fun Father’s Day weekend. It was a big weekend for me: My birthday, the Summer Solstice, Father’s Day and the start of a family vacation all packed into one. I guess that’s one way to kick off the summer. Don’t worry, I’ve brought my domino stash along with me for the trip. Let’s solve today’s Pips, shall we?
Looking for Sunday’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.
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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:
Today’s hard Pips is a chicken. We’re rotating through a bunch of animals lately. There is an obvious starting point: The chicken’s tail, where we know we need to use the 0/6 domino. We’ll take it from there.
Step 1
Place the 0/6 domino from Blue 0 into Green 12 and the 5/3 domino from Dark Blue 5 into Orange =. We have lots of doubles, and 3’s are one of them and we know we can’t go down from Blue 5 because the second Green 12 tile needs to go out into Purple =. Place the 3/3 domino in the next two Orange = tiles and the 6/4 domino from Green 12 into Purple =. The 4/4 domino goes in the next two Purple = tiles.
Step 2
Next, place the 5/5 domino in Blue 10 and the 6/6 domino in Pink 12. The 2/2 domino goes below those in the top Orange = tiles and the 4/2 domino goes from Dark Blue < 6 into Orange =.
Solution
Place the 3/1 domino from Orange = into Pink = and the 1/1 domino above that in the top right Pink = tiles. The 1/6 domino goes from Pink = into Purple ≠ and the 4/0 and 3/2 dominoes fill up the remaining Purple ≠ tiles in whatever order you choose.
Have a lovely Monday, Pipsqueaks!
How’d you do on today’s Pips?
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