NYT ‘Pips’ Hints, Answers And Walkthrough For Sunday, July 12

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 another one of these tower-grid designs, which are always especially challenging. Today’s certainly was. We know the 6 will go in Dark Blue 18, but what else goes with it? Fortunately, we have one place to start since we have no doubles.

Step 1

Place the 0/2 domino from Blue 0 into Orange 2 in the top right corner. This is the only option here since there’s a Pink 2 south of Orange 2. We also know that the 6 has to go in Dark Blue 18 so place the 3/6 domino from Purple 3 into Dark Blue 18. Next, place the 1/4 domino Green 1 into Dark Blue 18 and the 4/3 domino from Purple 4 into Dark Blue 18.

Step 2

Place the 3/2 domino from Purple 3 into Dark Blue 2 in the top left corner and the 5/4 domino next to that, from Pink 5 down into Green 4. The 5/1 domino goes below that, from Blue 5 into Orange 1 and the 0/3 domino goes from Green 0 down into Pink 3.

Move down a bit lower and lay the 0/1 domino down from Blue 0 into Pink 1 and the 0/5 domino from Orange 0 down into Blue 5.

Solution

Next, place the 3/5 domino from Purple 3 down into Dark Blue 5 and the 2/4 domino from Blue 2 into Orange 4 in the bottom left corner. The 4/0 domino goes next to that from Dark Blue 4 into Green 0 and the 3/1 domino goes above, from Pink 3 into Orange 1.

Have a great Sunday, Pipsqueaks!

How’d you do on today’s Pips?

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