NYT Pips Guide
Credit: NYT
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.
Let’s grab some dominoes and dive right in!
Looking for Monday’s Pips solutions? Read our guide 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.
Here’s an example of a difficult tier Pips:
Pips example
Screenshot: Erik Kain
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
Easy Pips
Screenshot: Erik Kain
Today’s Medium Pips
Medium Pips
Screenshot: Erik Kain
Hard Pips Walkthrough And Solution
Here’s today’s Hard Pips:
Hard Pips
Screenshot: Erik Kain
Today’s Hard Pips is “AG” which could be silver on the periodic table or Attorney General. A silver-haired attorney general?
Sam Waterston in Law & Order
Credit: NBC
In any case, we know that the Orange 24 has to be all 6’s and we know that Purple 11 will need smaller pips, especially since our only blank is accounted for with Blue 0. We’ll start with the “A” and Orange 24 and then hop over to the “G.”
Step 1
Place the 6/6 domino in the base of Orange 24 and the 6/3 domino from Orange 24 into Green > 2. The 6/2 goes from Orange 24 into Purple 11 and then we’ll hop over to the “G.” We’re going to use the 4/4 in Pink = because it’s larger than our other remaining doubles and then place the 4/2 from Pink = down into Green
Hard Pips
Screenshot: Erik Kain
Step 2
Next, place the 2/2 domino from Green 4 into Dark Blue = and the 4/3 domino from Dark Blue = into Purple 11.
Hard Pips
Screenshot: Erik Kain
The Solution
The 3/3 domino finishes up Purple 11 and the “A.” Next, place the 5/2 domino in Blue 7 and the 2/1 domino from the top free tile into Pink
Hard Pips
Screenshot: Erik Kain
Have a tootin’ Tuesday, Pipsqueaks!
How’d you do on today’s Pips?
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