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:

Today’s Hard Pips is brought to you by the letter “F” as in “Friday” or “Falafel” which actually sounds kind of delicious. Or maybe a gyro pita. I’m thinking Greek for dinner, how about you? In any case, this is a tricky and troublesome Hard Pips. There’s a great big Purple ≠ group that requires one of each Pip, 0-6, and since there’s no other obvious place to start, we’ll start there.

Step 1

My rule with ≠ groups is look for your doubles. I wasn’t sure this would work, and I did have to swap the 0/0 and 1/1 to make it work, but the rule held true today. Place the 0/0 domino from Dark Blue = into Purple ≠ and the 6/6 domino from Purple ≠ down into the Orange 6 tile. The 1/1 domino goes from Purple ≠ into Blue 4 and the 3/6 domino slides in from Blue 4 over to Pink =. (Note: You can actually have the dominos in Purple ≠ go different directions, just so long as you can fit two more with the nubers 2, 3, 4 and 5 in the remaining slots).

Step 2

Next, place the 6/2 domino from Pink = up into Green > 4 and the 3/5 domino from Green > 4 up into Purple =. Our final double domino, 5/5, goes in the next two purple tiles and the 5/1 domino will bridge Purple = over into Pink 4. Then place the 3/4 domino from Pink 4 into Blue =.

Solution

Next, place the 4/0 domino from Blue = down into Dark Blue = and the 1/3 domino into Orange 4. The 2/3 and 4/5 dominos fit into the remaining Purple ≠ tiles, and you’re all done!

This was definitely a trickier Pips than usual, partly because it was pretty easy to end up with the wrong dominos when you arrive at Purple ≠. I got there eventually!

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

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