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.
Tuesday has arrived. It is our last full day of vacation, and I think everyone is ready to be home. As lovely as Vancouver is, and as much as we love British Columbia and Canada, there’s no place like home. Alas, the home we will return to is covered in smoke from a nearby wildfire that continues to grow and burn, uncontained despite the valiant efforts of wildfire crews. Pray for rain, and grab your dominoes. Let’s solve today’s Pips!
Looking for Monday’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:
Both the Easy and Medium Pips were a bit tricky today, but this Hard Pips is oddly straightforward. It’s got a very good starting point, for one thing, in the bottom right of the capital “A.”
Step 1
Only the 4/1 domino can go from Dark Blue 4 into Pink < 3 so place that there then hop over the “a” and place the 4/6 domino from Orange 4 into Green 12. The 4/5 domino goes from Blue 4 down into Green 15 and the 5/5 domino fills in the remaining Green 15 tiles. Only the 2/3 domino can now work in Purple 5, so plop that there.
Step 2
Move back to the “A” and place the 4/3 domino from Pink = into Orange = and the 4/4 domino in the remaining Pink = tiles. We have three doubles now that the 5/5 is gone, but I went with 4’s here because we’ll need either the 2/2 or the 1/1 in Dark Blue 5 to pair with either the 6/1 or 6/3 domino. My guess as I played this was that it would be the 2/2, since it seems likely we’ll need the 1/1 for Purple 4.
Next, place the 3/5 domino from Orange = into Pink 8 and the 3/6 domino from Pink 8 into Purple =. The 6/5 domino goes from Purple = into Blue =.
Solution
Place the 5/2 domino from Blue = down into Purple 4 and the 1/1 domino below that. Move back to the “a” and place the 6/1 domino from Green 12 into Dark Blue 5 and finish that group off with the 2/2 domino. Done and done!
Have a lovely last day of June, Pipsqueaks!
How’d you do on today’s Pips?
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