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 was a lot easier for me than the Medium, which really messed with my head. It’s something of a tower shape. Actually it reminds me of an hourglass, though it’s not quite that, either. There’s no super obvious place to start. We have several doubles, so you’re really bound to some trial and error. But I made at least one correct assumption and started with the Blue 3 in the bottom right corner.

Step 1

Place the 3/0 domino from Blue 3 over into Purple = and the 3/4 domino from Pink 3 into the first free tile. I chose the 3/4 here because there aren’t many 4’s so we likely won’t need them for the = groups, and with 0’s in Purple = we won’t need it in Pink 4, either. Next, place the 0/0 domino in the middle Purple = tiles and the 0/2 domino from Purple = into Green =. The 2/2 domino fills the right two Green = tiles.

Step 2

Next, place the 2/6 domino from Green = up into Dark Blue = and the 6/6 on top of that. The 6/5 domino goes from Dark Blue = into the free tile and the 3/3 domino slides into the left two tiles of Orange =.

Solution

Place the 3/2 domino from Orange = into Pink 4 and the 2/1 domino from Pink 4 into the top free tile. The 4/6 domino goes from Blue 4 into the next free tile and the 1/6 domino finishes things up from Green < 4 over into the fifth and final free tile.

Definitely one of those Hard Pips that looks harder than it ends up being. I did have to make a few changes as I went up the grid, but mostly they were fairly obvious. That Medium Pips, though! That stumped me for a good long while.

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

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