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:

I didn’t notice it at first, but today’s Hard Pips — a pinwheel of sorts — gives us the 5 pips we’d find on dice or dominoes, comprised of the five unplayable tiles in the center. Very clever. This is another one that looks harder than it is, however.

Step 1

We’ll start with the 0/5 domino from Purple 2 down into Green > 2. This is the only domino that can be played here. It has to be played this way because the other two Purple 2 tiles have to be one domino. Either 1/1 or 2/0 will fit in those, but given that we will need a double for Orange = and likely another double for the Pink ≠ group, I’m inclined to use 2/0 here. Next, place the 5/4 domino from Blue 10 into Dark Blue 4 (another domino that must go in this exact spot) and the 5/3 domino from Blue 10 into Pink < 5.

Step 2

Given the tiles around Pink ≠ I think it’s safe to say the 1/1 will go in Orange =. We only have three 1’s so place the 5/1 domino from the first free tile into Orange = and the 1/1 domino in the remaining Orange = tiles. The 5/6 domino goes from Blue 5 down into Green 17 and the 5/2 domino goes from Green 17 down into Pink < 3.

Solution

Place the 6/3 domino from Green 17 up into Orange < 4 and the 2/3 domino from Purple < 3 over into the second free tile. The 6/6 domino goes above that from Pink ≠ into Dark Blue > 3 and the 6/4 domino goes from Purple > 3 into Pink ≠. And that’s all she wrote!

The one thing that always messes with me on puzzles like today’s is all the < and > signs. I am almost dyslexic when it comes to these. Half the time I read them the wrong way and mess myself up, even when I take it slow. I can’t even blame my lingering cold on this, as it happens when I’m perfectly healthy. Ah well, I got there in the end!

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

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