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.
Thor’s Day is here, but no lightning or thunder as far as I can see. No rain, just brittle dry forest and fire season upon us. Pray to the rain gods, Pipsqueaks, and grab your dominoes.
Looking for Wednesday’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.
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:
Today’s Hard Pips is the word “CUP.” My cup overfloweth with dominoes. The trick here is finding a good starting point and then figuring out how to extrapolate that into all these 11 groups. The best starting point is in the “C” since we only have one domino that pairs a 1 with either a 5 or a 6. In this case, it’s the 1/5 domino. Let’s dive in.
Step 1
Place the 1/5 domino from Dark Blue 1 into Blue 11 in the “C” then hop down to the “P.” Here, we’ll place the 0/5 domino from Blue 1 into Orange 11 and the 6/2 domino from Orange 11 into Dark Blue 4. The 2/4 domino goes from Dark Blue 4 into Purple 4.
Step 2
Place the 1/1 domino from Blue 1 down into Green 11. The 5/5 domino finishes up Green 11 and then hop back over to the “C” and place the 6/3 domino from Blue 11 into Purple 11. Move to the “U” and place the 6/6 domino from Pink > 4 into Orange 11 and the 5/2 Orange 11 down into Purple 6.
Solution
The 4/4 domino goes in the “C” in the Purple 11 group’s remaining tiles. Next place the 1/2 domino from Green 1 into the first free tile. Move back to the “U” and place the 4/3 domino from Purple 6 into Pink = and the 3/0 domino from Pink = into the second free tile. The 0/0 domino fills out the remaining two free tiles and you’re done!
Have a lovely Thursday, Pipsqueaks!
How’d you do on today’s Pips?
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