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 everyone had a lovely 4th of July yesterday. Even if you don’t live in the US and don’t celebrate our national holiday, I hope your 4th of July was equally awesome. I must admit, I kind of miss fireworks but I’m glad we don’t do them here anymore. The thick smoke and falling ash is a good reminder why. Not great barbeque conditions, but so it goes. As always, pray for rain, grab your dominoes and let’s solve these Pips puzzles!
Looking for Saturday’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:
We’re done with fun Hard Pips like USA and 1776 and back the alphabet. Today’s is “C/c” and just 13 dominoes. There’s not a totally obvious place to start, but I began in the “c” first, where we have fewer variables. We can’t fill the Green 8 tiles right away, however, as we have a 6/2 and a 5/3 domino, and either totals 8.
Step 1
Place the 6/4 domino from Blue 6 into Orange 10 and the 6/1 domino from Orange 10 into Pink 1. This was our best starting point, because you could make a pretty safe bet based on the two single tiles surrounding Orange 10. Move to the “C” and place the 6/2 domino from Pink 6 into Purple < 3 and the 0/0 domino directly above that in Blue < 2. Note: I’m still holding off on Green 8 because it’s possible at this point that 6/2 doesn’t go where I’ve placed it. (Well, that’s what I did when I played; I obviously know it’s correct now).
Step 2
Next, place the 1/3 domino from Purple 1 into Dark Blue = since it’s the only 1 we have left. The 3/0 domino goes below that from Dark Blue = into Blue < 2 and the 5/6 domino fills up the two Green 11 tiles. Move up and place the 2/2 domino in the left two tiles of Purple = and the 2/5 domino from Purple = into Pink 8.
Solution
The 4/3 domino goes from Orange > 3 up into Pink 8 and the 6/6 domino fills in the Blue > 10 tiles. The 3/2 domino finishes Dark Blue = and lands in the one and only free tile, and the 5/3 domino fills up the Green 8 tiles.
A fun, if not terribly challenging, Hard Pips today. The kind of Pips you can play without getting too frustrated, but with enough challenge to keep it interesting.
How’d you do on today’s Pips?
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