How To Solve Today’s NYT Pips, Tuesday, September 1

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:

Today’s Hard Pips follows a trend of rather tricky grids with just a bit of white space in the center, making the perimeters crowded and awkward, though at least today we have a fairly strong idea of where to start since we only have two 6’s and we have an Orange 12 group.

Step 1

Start with the 6/4 domino from Orange 12 into Dark Blue > 3 and then the 6/3 from Orange 12 into Green =. This is pretty much the only way to place these, which is handy. Only a couple pips can fill our two Purple = groups but the blanks will have to go on the right side of the grid since we only have four. Place the 4/0 domino from Blue 4 into Purple = and the 0/0 domino next to that. The 0/2 domino goes from Purple = down into Dark Blue 7.

Step 2

Move back up and place the 3/1 domino from Green = into Purple = on the top left. The 5/2 domino goes from Blue > 4 into Pink = and the 2/1 from Pink = into Purple =. The 1/1 domino goes in the remaining center Purple = tiles and the 1/5 domino drops into the last Purple = tile and then over to the first free tile of the board.

Solution

Place the 4/4 domino in the top two tiles of Pink = and the 4/2 domino from Pink = into Orange ≠. The 3/2 domino follows that from Orange ≠ into the second free tile and the 3/5 domino goes from the third free tile back into Dark Blue 7. We’ve come full circle, as it were.

Have a tubular Tuesday, Pipsqueaks!

How’d you do on today’s Pips?

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