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.
My kids and I are off on a fun-filled vacation in the Pacific Northwest, on an incredible island off the coast of Vancouver, B.C. so I’ve had a little less time to tackle all these NYT puzzle games in a timely matter. Better late than never, of course. Let’s solve today’s Pips!
Looking for Tuesday’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:
In the spirit of FIFA, today’s Hard Pips is ‘BOL’ — aka the second half of FUTBOL. I’m going to start with the ‘O.’
Step 1
Placed the 1/5 from Dark Blue 1 into Purple 9 and the 4/5 domino from Purple 9 into Dark Blue 9. Next, place the 4/6 domino from Dark Blue 9 into the lower Blue 12 and the 6/6 into the two upper Blue 12 tiles.
Step 2
Place the 6/0 domino from Blue 12 into Pink 4 then hop over to the “B” and place the 0/4 domino from Pink < 3 into Purple 8. Next, place the 4/1 domino from Purple 8 into Green = and the 1/1 domino horizontally into the next two Green = dominoes.
Step 3
Place the 1/3 domino from Green = into Purple 9 and the 3/3 domino in the next Purple 9 tiles. Next, place the 2/3 domino into the Orange 5 pair and the 0/1 into the Orange < 4 pair.
Solution
Hop to the ‘O’ again and place the 2/2 domino into the remaining Pink 4 tiles, then hop down to the ‘L’ and place the 3/4 domino from Dark Blue < 4 into Orange =. The 4/4 goes into the remaining Orange = tiles and the 5/3 domino from Blue > 4 into the one and only free tile.
Have a great Wednesday, Pipsqueaks!
How’d you do on today’s Pips?
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