A Bittersweet Sunday

Playing Pips: An Overview

Pips features a grid filled with colorful boxes, each indicating a different condition that needs to be met. Your goal is to fill this grid with the chosen number of dominoes. To win, you must use up all your dominoes while satisfying every condition. There are varying levels of difficulty: Easy, Medium, and Hard.

Here’s an example of a challenging setup in Pips.

As you can see, the grid is dense with several symbols and numbers corresponding to each color. For example, the three purple squares on the far left shouldn’t be the same (hence the stricken-out equal signs). The two pink squares adjacent to them should sum to zero. Furthermore, all blue squares in the zigzag need to match. You’ll click on a domino to rotate it, as they must align correctly.

Other conditions like “less than” or “greater than” aren’t displayed on this grid. If there are multiple tiles, the rules include:

• = All pips in this set have to be equal.
• ≠ All pips in this set must not be equal.
• > The pips must exceed the number listed.
• An exact number, like 6, must match this number.
• Any tile without conditions can be utilized.

To secure a victory, you need to complete all squares and exhaust all dominoes while adhering to each condition.

NYT Pips: Hints and Solutions for October 4th

Here’s a look at the solutions for the Easy and Medium levels. Spoiler alert: we’ll dive into the tougher puzzles too.

Easy Level

Today’s solutions are available below.

Medium Level

Check out the solutions here as well.

Difficult Level

Now onto today’s hard pips:

Does anyone else recognize that familiar hand sign? You know, the one with the finger pointing up? It’s pretty tiny. The empty tile at the bottom resembles a handle, albeit also on the smaller side. Or maybe it’s simply that the rest of the finger and handle aren’t fully shown. Either way, those two tiles really ramped up the difficulty. If it were just a plain square, it wouldn’t be quite so tough.

Step 1

Getting started is relatively straightforward. The only double available is 4/4, so we can deduce that Purple = Group must equal 4. Place it on Purple =, followed by the Purple 4/5 domino on Pink 5.

Step 2

I could have shifted the 4/5 domino from Purple = to Blue ≠, but that just wouldn’t have worked since the only single I possess is a 1/5 domino, and I need to go from Orange 1 to Blue ≠. You can’t have two 5’s in the same ≠ group. There are 4/0 and 4/2 dominoes available, but you’ll need both of those, too.

For either choice, place the 1/5 dominoes as previously mentioned and put the 3/5 dominoes from Orange 3 into the second blue ≠ group.

Step 3

The two Blue ≠ groups present a real challenge, especially since there’s a shortage of 2s. You must use two 2s for the purple and dark blue 2 tiles. Begin by arranging a 4/2 domino with blue ≠ on the purple 2 tile, then position a 6/0 domino from Blue ≠ to Green 0, finishing the top half with a 4/0 domino on Blue ≠.

Solution

Finally, place the 2/6 domino from Dark Blue 2 into the second Blue ≠ group, and set the 4/6 domino from Blue ≠ Group onto one open tile. It’s generally wise to end with free tiles in Pips.

I ended up redoing this puzzle quite a few times. I kept inching closer to a solution, but found myself stuck with two identical Pips left in the last Blue ≠ group. It was a tad frustrating, but I eventually got through it. How did you fare?