Welcome back, Pipsqueaks! It’s another unseasonably gorgeous day on this fine Tuesday in November and we have some Pips puzzles to solve. The newest game from the NYT Games app continues to be my favorite of the bunch. Figuring out how to combine dominoes and place them in the proper tiles is a fun visual logic challenge that’s a nice change of pace from word puzzles. Let’s solve today’s, shall we?
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.
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:
We’ll call today’s Hard Pips the head of a Doberman Pinscher. (Dogs and spaceships, remember). This is a very small Hard Pips, with just seven dominoes and a handful of colored tiles. There are five free tiles here, which is unusual. In any case, while I had a bit of trouble in the beginning with this one, it’s actually pretty straightforward. We can do it in just two steps.
Step 1
Start with the 1/0 domino from the top free tile (the Doberman’s ear) into the Pink 0 tile. Then lay the 6/5 domino from the next free tile into Purple 10 and the 5/3 domino from Purple 10 down into the third free tile.
Solution
The 5/5 domino goes into both Orange 10 tiles and the 6/0 domino lays down directly beneath that from Dark Blue 10 into the fourth free tile. Finally, place the 4/0 tile from Dark Blue 10 into the final free tile and you’re done!
I’ll be honest, this felt more like a Medium-tier Pips than a Hard-tier Pips, though it would be on the more challenging end of the spectrum. Still . . . oddly simple. Or maybe I just got lucky. Who knows?
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