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:

I guess we’re solving math problems now. Today’s Hard Pips is an equation. Maybe after arithmetic we can move on to some algebra or geometry. This was a tough one, and I had to rearrange things several times before I got the dominos in the right spot. I kept ending up with the wrong number of pips at the end. We do have a pretty solid starting point today, at least, but with so many doubles and ways you can place them, it’s important to look for any clues you can find. The big one for me was Pink 11, which really only has a couple configurations. Basically, you need one domino to equal 8 (we have 4/4 or 6/2, but we should assume we’ll need that double) and one domino to have a 3 on it (we have a 3/1 and a 3/o). Let’s dive right in!

Step 1

Place the 4/0 from Purple 4 into Orange < 4 because this is the only domino that can work for this particular set of tiles. Then place the 5/6 from Dark Blue > 4 into Orange > 5. The 6/6 domino would also work here, but we need those doubles. The 6/2 goes in Pink 11 and the 3/1 goes from Pink 11 up into Green =. Finish off Green = with the 1/1 domino.

Step 2

Next, place the 2/2 domino in Purple 4. Since we’ve used the 3/1, this is the only domino that can go here. The 2/0 domino goes from Pink < 4 into Blue = and the 0/0 goes in the remaining Blue = tiles. Move back to the “4” and place the 4/6 domino from Purple > 3 into Dark Blue = and the 0/6 domino from Pink < 4 into Dark Blue =.

Solution

Finish off the “4” with the 6/6 domino in Dark Blue = and place the 4/4 domino in Green =. The 3/0 and 1/0 dominoes slot into the Blue 4 group however you like. And that’s a wrap!

I kept finding myself with just 3 pips left by the time I got to Blue 4 but with some juggling I was able to finally get this one in the bag. At least it wasn’t as tough as yesterday’s extremely challenging Hard Pips!

How’d you do on today’s Pips?

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