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:

This Hard Pips looks a lot more daunting than it really is, so don’t let it intimidate you. The trick with a Hard Pips like this is noticing that we have a 7-tile ≠ group, which means we need one of every single Pip we have. The best policy for these is to use your doubles wisely. Every double will almost certainly be used from the edge of this ≠ group into the ≠ group. That’s how I started things off with this Pips and I managed to solve the whole thing without having to replace a single domino. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.

Step 1

Start with the 2/2 domino from Pink ≠ into the Blue 2 tile and the 4/4 domino directly beneath that, from Pink ≠ into Dark Blue 12. Place the 4/0 domino from Dark Blue 12 down into Pink 0 and the 4/1 domino from Dark Blue 12 up into Orange 2.

Step 2

Place the 1/0 domino from Orange 2 over into the Blue 0 tile at the top right and then move to the bottom right and place the 0/6 domino from the Pink 0 group over into the second Dark Blue 12 group. Next, place the 6/1 domino from Dark Blue 12 up into Pink ≠ and the 5/5 domino from Orange > 4 into the Pink ≠ group.

Step 3

Place the 4/3 domino from the Blue > 3 tile into Purple 7 and the 4/2 tile from Purple 7 up into Dark Blue =. The 0/0 domino goes from Green 0 into Pink ≠ and the 2/6 domino goes from Dark Blue = over into Pink ≠. Notice, we have used four doubles already, each of them in the Pink ≠ group.

Solution

Next, place the 2/1 domino from Dark Blue = up into Purpl 1 and the 0/3 domino from Purple 1 into Pink > 1. The 3/3 domino goes from Green > 1 into Pink ≠ and the 3/1 domino finishes things off from Purple > 1 into the one and only free tile on the board.

Lots of tricks and things designed to mislead us on this board today. All the >1 tiles make you think these ought to be 2’s, but they’re actually 3’s (unless there’s another alternative solution that uses 3’s in Dark Blue = — I haven’t tried). A fun Hard Pips all around, with lots of little things to pay attentiont to but also one that rewards some smart guessing and isn’t too horribly tricky.

How’d you do on today’s Pips? Let me know!

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