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 “P” as in, well, Pips! A perfect pink Pips, Pipsqueaks! It’s actually a tough one today, with several doubles and several different possible Pips in our two 5-tile = groups. I had to rearrange things a bunch because of this. We’ll start on the only single tile on the board, since we know it has to be a 4. We can say with close to 99% certainty that the 5/3 domino will be in the cenral Dark Blue 8 group, but we won’t start there.

Step 1

Start by placing the 4/5 domino from the Blue 4 tile into Purple = and the 5/5 tile next to that. The 5/6 domino goes from Purple = into Pink = and the 6/4 domino goes from Pink = down into Green =. Finish Step 1 by placing the 4/4 domino below that in the next two Green = tiles.

Step 2

Working our way around the board, place the 4/1 domino from Green = into the bottom Pink = group and the 4/3 domino from Green = down into Orange 5. The 2/0 domino goes from Orange 5 up into Blue = and the 0/1 domino goes from Blue = up into the Pink = group. Finish Step 2 with the 0/0 domino in the next two Blue = tiles.

Solution

Place the 0/5 domino from Blue = into Purple 8 and the 3/1 domino from Purple 8 into Orange =. The 1/1 domino goes in the top Orange = tiles and, as predicted, the 3/5 domino goes into the central Dark Blue 8 group — and we’re done!

Let me know if this Hard Pips was as challenging for you as it was for me. I guess I got a little stubborn, trying to make the lower Blue = group work with 4’s and 5’s before even realizing that blanks could go there. I also kept trying to make the bottom domino of Green = go over into Blue = when, it turned out, this needed to go down into Orange 5. Sometimes your brain just gets stuck, or at least mine does.

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

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