NYT ‘Pips’ Hints, Answers And Walkthrough For Wednesday, August 5

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.

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

• = 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.
• 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

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. 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?

Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. Be sure to follow me for all your daily puzzle-solving guides, TV show and movie reviews and more here on this blog!