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.
Grab your dominoes folks, I don’t have time for a preamble. It’s Pips-in time!
Looking for Wednesday’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.
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:
“M” and “m” are our Hard Pips letters today. Like the candy! Let’s dive right into this sugary delicious Pips treat.
Step 1
Place the 0/2 domino from Pink < 1 down into Orange = and the 2/2 domino next to that in Orange =. The 2/5 goes from Orange = up into Blue = and the 2/1 domino goes down from Orange = into Green < 2. Sneak the 0/4 domino into the Dark Blue 4 tiles in the little “m”.
Step 2
Place the 0/0 domino in Dark Blue = and the 0/6 from Dark Blue = Purple 10. Hop down to the little “m” and place the 1/0 domino from Green < 4 into Pink = and the 0/5 domino from Pink = into Blue > 4. Toss the 1/1 into the top tiles of Orange = and off to the next step we go.
Solution
Plop the 3/1 domino from the first free tile into Orange = and then back up to the big “M” and place the 4/4 domino into Purple > 7. The 5/5 domino goes from Blue = into the second free tile and the 4/3 domino Purple 10 into the third and final free tile.
Have a thundering Thursday, Pipsqueaks!
How’d you do on today’s Pips?
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