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:

Another tricky Hard Pips today. We’ve had some recently where you have to lay all the dominoes vertically. Today, you have to lay each one horizontally. This means you can’t always make the kinds of combos you normally would, though it also takes some of the choices out of your hands. The key here is that the Purple 9 group in the center must use the 4/5 domino. This means you can’t have 4’s in the Pink = group on the right.

We also know that whatever goes from the top of Dark Blue 9 over into Orange 2 has to have either a 2 a 1 or a 0 on the other end and has to pair with something that makes 9. That means either a 3, 4, 5 or 6 that pairs with a 0, 1 or 2. There are only two options: 3/1 and 5/1. Quickly, you’ll discover that the only option really is 5/1, since the 3/1 would require a 6 to go with it, and we can’t put a 6 there unless we use 4’s in Pink =, which we can’t do because our fourth 4 is required to go in Purple 9. Alright, let’s begin.

Step 1

Place the 4/5 domino in the center Purple 9 group and the 5/1 above that from Dark Blue 9 over into Orange 2. The 4/6 domino goes from Dark Blue 9 over into Pink = and the 6/6 goes below that in the bottom-right Pink = tiles. Next, place the 6/5 domino from Pink = over into Orange 8.

Step 2

Place the 3/5 domino from Orange 8 over into Blue 9 and the 2/2 domino next to that in the remaining Blue 9 tiles. The 4/4 domino goes above that in Green 8 and the 3/3 domino is one step higher, in the bottom tiles of the upper Blue 9 group.

Solution

Finish off the lower pyramid with the 3/1 domino from Blue 9 over into Orange 2 then hop up to the higher pyramid and place the 1/1 domino in the left two tiles of Purple =. The 1/2 domino goes from Purple = into Pink > 0 and the 0/1 domino goes from the one and only free tile over into Purple =.

This was the most deviously challenging Pips I’ve played in awhile, though it’s entirely possible my brain is just tired. Either way, I had to rearrange things several times before it finally, and quite suddenly, all came together.

How’d you do on today’s Pips?

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