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.
Wednesday, Odin’s Day, and rain on the horizon. Many problems to solve, projects to finish and dominoes to lay down on colorful tiles. Today’s Pips puzzles are tricky, especially the Medium and Hard. Let’s solve them, shall we?
Looking for Tuesday’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.
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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 another one of these mildly annoying ones that are challenging mostly because they have so few obvious starting points and require lots of trial and error. Or maybe I’m just in a grouchy mood. Either way, notice there are only two 3’s in your domino stash and both will be needed for two specific tiles. The rest of the “3” tiles are > or < and there are an annoying abundance of these. We just don’t know which way they should go yet, so skip those for now. We have four 6’s in our stash as well, all of which will be needed in Dark Blue and Purple 12. That’s a better place to begin, even if some guessing is still very much required.
Step 1
Start with the 6/0 domino from Dark Blue 12 up into Purple = and the 6/4 domino from dark Blue 12 down into Orange =. The 2/5 domino goes into Green < 3 down into Pink > 3. The 6/1 domino goes from Purple 12 up into Orange = and the 6/5 goes down from Purple 12 into Dark Blue > 3.
Step 2
Place the 4/4 into Orange = and the 4/2 up from Orange = into Blue =. The 2/2 domino goes above that and the 2/1 goes from Blue = over into Orange =. Finish up this step with the 4/5 domino from Green > 3 into Pink =.
Solution
Place the 1/5 domino above that from Purple = into Pink = and the 1/3 domino from Purple = down into the Dark Blue 3 tile. The 1/1 domino fills in the remaining Purple = tiles. Next, place the 5/0 domino from Blue > 4 down int Purple = and the 4/3 domino next to that from Orange > 3 down into Pink 3 — and you’re done!
Have a wonderful Wednesday, Pipsqueaks!
How’d you do on today’s Pips?
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