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.
Saturday is here at last and I’ve been procrastinating a bit. I have a lot of plates in the air, spinning and spinning, and the nature of my work makes it tricky to know when hobby ends and work project begins, and I’m shifting between the two like a madman most of the time. But I’m here to guide you through today’s Pips puzzles now, so let’s get right to it!
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.
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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 the letter “E” as in Erik and the lower-case “e” as in “excellent.” This one is pretty straightforward, though I had to juggle a few dominoes here and there. We have a good starting point, however.
Step 1
We only have two 6 pips dominoes and we have two Green 6 tiles we have to use them on. We know the 6/1 has to go from Green 6 to Purple 6 because there are no other 6’s, so the 6/0 would not work. Start there and then place the 5/1 domino from Purple 6 into Pink < 3. Next, place the 6/0 domino from Green 6 into Dark Blue 3 and the 3/3 domino from Dark Blue 3 into Blue 6. The 2/1 domino finishes up the “E.”
Solution
I’m doing all these in one go instead of breaking them out into two steps because there’s only six dominoes left. Place the 4/3 domino from Orange > 3 into Dark Blue 3 and the 3/1 domino from Pink 3 into Orange 3. The 2/3 domino goes from Orange 3 into Purple 3 and the 0/5 domino goes from Purple 3 into Blue > 3. (SO MANY 3’s!)
Place the 0/4 domino from Purple 3 into Pink = and the 4/4 domino from Pink = into Blue > 3, and you’re done!
Excellent! Extraordinary! Egg salad! Easter! Effervescent! Everybody have a lovely Saturday, okay?
How’d you do on today’s Pips?
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