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 looks like it could be jewelry, or perhaps handcuffs, or the letter 8 tilted on its side, or even an infinity symbol. It’s a bit of a tricky Pips given it has just 11 dominos, but not too terribly hard. One thing we know right off the bat is that the Orange < 3 group on the left has to be the 1/1 domino, which is the only one small enough to fit there on its own. We know this because if we were to pair Orange < 3 with Purple 5 and Purple 4, we’d need a single domino to fit in Pink 8, and there is no domino in our spread that equals 8. With that in mind, let’s get down to business.

Step 1

Start with the 1/1 domino in Orange < 3. The 5/2 domino goes from Purple 5 into Pink = and the 2/4 domino goes from Pink 2 into Blue 5. The 4/5 domino goes from Purple 4 into Pink 8.

Step 2

Next, place the 3/3 domino from Pink 8 into Dark Blue ≠ and the 1/4 domino from Blue 5 into Dark Blue ≠. The 6/5 domino goes from Dark Blue ≠ into Green 10 and the 5/1 goes from Green 10 down into Blue 2.

Solution

Finally, place the 1/2 domino from Blue 2 into Dark Blue 6 and the 4/0 domino from Dark Blue 6 into Orange < 2. Wrap things up with the 0/5 domino from Orange < 2 up into the last Dark Blue ≠ tile.

Not the hardest Hard Pips I’ve seen, but I definitely had to juggle dominos a couple times before I figured this one out. Have a great weekend, Pipsqueaks!

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

Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. Be sure to follow me for all your daily puzzle-solving guides, TV show and movie reviews and more here on this blog!