How To Solve Today’s NYT Pips, Sunday, August 30

How To Play Pips

In Pips, you have a grid of multi=-colored 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 thought this Hard Pips was some kind of creature at first. Bird-like, perhaps a dinosaur. It’s not. It’s a big “T” and a little “t” as we continue our alphabet games. We have several doubles in today’s Hard Pips. One of these is a 0/0 and we know that we only have four blanks to fill Dark Blue 0, so that’s where we’ll begin. We’ll use two doubles in the same step, because only one option will remain for Purple 4.

Step 1

Stick the 0/0 in the left Dark Blue 0 tiles and the 2/2 domino above that in Purple 4. The 0/1 domino goes from Dark Blue 0 into Pink 6 and the 5/6 domino goes from Pink 6 into Blue 6. The 0/3 domino finishes up Dark Blue 0 and starts Purple =.

Step 2

Place the 3/6 domino from Purple = into Pink 6 and the 2/6 domino from Orange 6 into Blue 6, using up our very last 6 in the process. The 4/3 domino goes below that from Orange 6 into Dark Blue 3. Next, place the 1/4 domino from Green < 3 into Orange = and the 4/4 domino in the remaining Orange = tiles.

Solution

We move to the little “t” and place the 1/2 domino from Orange < 2 into Blue = and the 2/4 domino from Blue = into Purple =. The 5/4 domino goes from Green > 3 into Purple = and the 5/5 domino puts the finishing touch on Pink =.

Have a spectacular Sunday, Pipsqueaks!

How’d you do on today’s Pips?

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