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.
We’re rapidly approaching the Summer Solstice and the longest day of the year. This year that falls on Sunday, June 21 — a day after my birthday. That’s the official start of summer, though it’s been summery enough these last few weeks to qualify. We have some tricky Pips puzzles to solve, Pipsqueaks. Let’s get right to it!
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.
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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 an elephant. A baby elephant. And a pretty challenging puzzle, as far as these go. Scanning ahead, I made a few educated guesses. Blue = is almost certainly 1’s, with blanks in Dark Blue = and 2’s in Pink =. We can extrapolate from there.
Step 1
Start with the 0/1 domino from Orange < 3 into Blue = and the 5/1 domino from Purple > 4 into Blue =. The 2/1 domino goes from Pink = into Blue = and the 3/0 goes from Green < 4 into Dark Blue =. Finish this step with the 0/0 domino in the next two Dark Blue = tiles.
Step 2
Place the 2/2 domino directly below that in Pink = and the 6/2 domino from Green 10 into Pink =. The 5/2 domino goes in Dark Blue > 4 into Pink =, finishing that group off. Place the 4/1 domino from Green 10 into Purple 6 and the 5/0 domino from Purple 6 into the final Dark Blue = tile.
Solution
Next, place the 5/6 domino from Blue > 10 into Pink 10 and the 4/3 domino from Pink 10 into Purple =. The 6/3 goes below that from Blue > 10 into Purple = and the 2/0 domino fills up Orange < 3. Finish off today’s Hard Pips with the 3/1 domino from the single free tile into the last Blue = tile.
This one definitely had me switching things around a few times. A nice challenge, indeed!
How’d you do on today’s Pips?
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