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:

An interesting, interlocking trio — almost like DNA or a tattoo — for today’s Hard Pips, which eschews the lettering we’ve been getting almost every day for the last few weeks. This is a smaller-than-average Pips, and it has a pretty clear starting point, though it’s less clear at first how exactly to place our first dominos. With only one double, we know that the Purple = on the right has to be 2’s. With a closer examination of the board, we realize that the the double has to go in the bottom tiles. If it goes in the top, we end up at Blue = needing a second double that we don’t have. Let’s begin.

Step 1

Start with the 2/2 domino in the bottom two tiles of Purple = and the 2/3 domino above that laying over into Green > 2. The 5/3 domino goes from Orange > 2 into Blue = and the 3/0 domino goes from Blue = up into Orange < 2. (It’s easy to be fooled here into putting a 3 in the Orange > 2 square, which is a natural and often correct choice).

Step 2

Next, place the 0/6 domino from Orange < 2 over into Pink 6 and the 6/4 domino from Pink 6 down into Dark Blue =. The 4/3 domino goes from Dark Blue = over into Pink > 2.

Solution

Next, the 6/1 domino goes from Pink = into Purple = and the 1/0 domino goes from Purple = down into Blue =. Last but not least, place the 0/2 domino from Blue = into the one and only free tile.

I had to shuffle things around a couple times today, but the adjustments were fairly painless and ultimately it ended up being a pretty quick and easy Hard Pips as far as these things go. Still a fun challenge though.

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

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