Puzzle Time: NYT Pips Challenge Awaits!

Get ready to roll up your sleeves and dive into another tricky NYT Pips puzzle. It’s a lovely October Friday, with Halloween just a week away. Yet, who needs candies or treats when there are puzzles to crack? Well, maybe toss in some chocolates, and let the fun begin!

Looking for Thursday’s Pips? Check out the guide!

How to Play Pips

Pips features a grid filled with colorful boxes. Each hue corresponds to a specific “condition” you must achieve. Your objective is to fill the grid using a designated number of dominoes. To emerge victorious, all dominoes must be used correctly while satisfying every condition. There are different levels: Easy, Medium, and Hard.

Here’s a peek at a particularly challenging Pips layer.

In this grid, various symbols and colors abound. For example, the three purple squares on the left can’t all be the same (indicated by strikethrough equal signs). The two adjacent pink squares must sum to zero, while all blue squares in the zigzag must match. Make sure to click on the dominoes to rotate them into the correct position.

Conditions like “less than” or “greater than” may not always be displayed. Instead, pay attention to the following:

• = All elements in this group must be identical.
• ≠ All elements in this group must differ.
• > The elements of this tile must exceed the indicated number.
• An exact number (like 6) must match precisely.
• Tiles without conditions are free to use.

Completing the puzzle means filling all squares and using every domino while adhering to the set conditions.

Today’s Pips Solution and Walkthrough

Below are solutions for the Easy and Medium levels. But brace yourself, as the hardest puzzles follow!

Easy Pips

Here’s how today’s easy Pips looks.

Pips Today

And here’s a glimpse at today’s main challenge.

Hard Pips Walkthrough and Solution

Let’s tackle today’s challenging Pips. Honestly, they remind me of ostriches. Or maybe it’s a duck? Regardless, this is a tough puzzle without a clear starting strategy, plus there are some misleading cues.

Essentially, you can use either 0 or 3 to fill the large dark blue group. I thought 3 might work due to the purple zero above, but then I realized I didn’t have the necessary dominoes. The orange 5 tile needs part of what’s in the dark blue to make five, complicating things.

Step 1

This leads to the conclusion that dark blue should equal 0. Start with the ostrich’s tail and place the purple 12 6/1 domino on blue 1. Then, position the purple 12 6/0 domino on dark blue 0, followed by the green 4 tile 4/5 domino on the orange 5.

Next, place the 0/0 domino on the left two dark blue tiles and the 4/1 domino from green 1 to purple 1.

Step 2

Add the dark blue = 0/5 domino to the orange 5 tile, then the dark blue = 0/2 domino onto the pink 2 tile. Next, the 0/1 domino connects dark blue = to blue 1. We’ve now wrapped up the dark blue section, so things should get easier from here.

Step 3

Finalize by positioning the 3/3 domino on the bottom two green tiles, and the green = 3/1 domino on blue 2. Then, place a pink 5 5/6 domino on orange 12, topped off with an orange 6 6/4 domino in an open spot.

Solution

Next, set the 0/4 domino with purple 0 on pink 8, followed by a 4/2 domino connecting pink 8 to blue 4. Then, add the blue 4 2/3 domino to the free tile and finish with the purple 0 0/3 domino on the last available space. Voila!

I’ll admit, I had my share of frustrations and cleared my board multiple times when things went south. Initially, I tried the dark blue zero, but it didn’t quite work. I switched to 3, got close, but couldn’t seal the deal. Eventually, I returned to zero and took my time from the end of the ostrich—but I got there! What did you make of today’s Pips?