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:

It’s been awhile since we had an arithmetic problem for our Hard Pips. This is a nice little challenge, with 4’s being the major limiting factor (at least in my experience solving this puzzle). We have a few “7” groups that lend themselves to a 3+4 combo, but we don’t have enough 4’s to make that happen. Let’s dive right in.

Step 1

Start by placing the 5/4 domino from Purple > 4 over into Pink 7, then place the 3/6 domino from Pink 7 down into Purple > 5. Hop over from the “1” to the “4” and place the 4/3 domino from Blue 4 into Dark Blue 5 and the 4/2 from Dark Blue 4 up into Blue 7. The 4/1 domino goes from Orange 4 down into Green < 3.

Step 2

Place the 2/5 domino from Dark Blue 5 into Blue 7. We’ve now used two of the three dominoes that equalled 7 on their own, so place the final one — the 6/1 domino — in the Orange 7 group back in the “1.” Next, place the 5/5 domino in Green 12 over in the “3” and the 2/3 domino from Green 12 down into Purple 8. The 3/5 domino goes from Pink > 2 over into Purple 8.

Solution

Place the 0/5 domino from Purple 8 down into Dark Blue 7 and the 2/1 domino from Dark Blue 7 into Orange > 0. We now have three floating groups to fill: The 0/2 domino goes in Pink > 4, the 3/3 domino goes in the free tile group and the 5/1 domino goes in Blue ≠. And that’s all, folks!

I didn’t notice at first that basically every 4 was required to go in the three tiles in the “4” portion of the grid. Only one 4 was leftover, but that had to go in the “1” so every other 7 group required some other combination. Once I’d realized this, today’s Hard Pips came together nicely, though I did get a little stuck figuring out how to make the Purple 8 group come together.

How’d you do on today’s Pips?

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