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 a dog. I’m thinking it’s a Highland Collie or something like that. Very cute, bearded pups. This isn’t a cute puzzle, though. It’s a really hard one, and the Medium was no walk in the park, either! We’ll start in the tail, since the structure of these tiles leaves our available options rather restricted. We also need all of our blank dominoes for 0 groups.

Step 1

Place the 6/0 domino from Orange 11 down into Green 0 The o/0 domino goes to the left of that in Green 0 and the 0/3 domino goes to the right, from Green 0 down into Orange 5. Next, place the 2/1 domino from Orange 5 into Green 13 and the 6/6 domino in the remaining Green 13 tiles.

Step 2

Next, place the 2/2 domino in Purple = and the 6/5 domino below that, from Dark Blue > 4 into Pink =. The 5/5 domino fills in the remaining Pink = tiles. Place the 6/4 domino from Purple > 4 into Pink = in the dog’s head, and the 0/4 from Blue 0 into Pink =.

Solution

Place the 0/2 domino from Blue 0 into Dark Blue < 4 and the 4/3 domino from Pink = down into Blue 4. The 1/4 domino goes from Blue 4 into the first free tile and the 2/4 domino goes from the second free tile into Purple 4. Finally, the 1/5 domino goes from the third free tile (in the dog’s tail) into Orange 11 — and you’re done!

That was a genuinely puzzling Pips, but I got there eventually, after many changes and failed attempts.

How’d you do on today’s Pips?

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