Looking for help with today’s Easy, Medium and Hard NYT Pips puzzles? Whether you’re after a nudge in the right direction or just want to compare notes, below you’ll find everything you need to solve each of today’s Pips plus a full walkthrough for today’s Hard Pips.
July is racing by. We’re practically a third of the way into this blasted hot month of dry heat and blue skies. I keep eyeing the clouds and the clouds keep teasing me back. The sky is being awfully stingy with its rain lately, even though water is always just on loan whenever it travels from firmament to the earth below. In any case, we have some Pips puzzles to solve, don’t we? Let’s do it.
Looking for Wednesday’s Pips? Read our guide right here.
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.
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Here’s an example of a difficult tier Pips:
Pips example
Screenshot: Erik Kain
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
Easy Pips
Screenshot: Erik Kain
Today’s Medium Pips
Medium Pips
Screenshot: Erik Kain
Hard Pips Walkthrough And Solution
Here’s today’s Hard Pips:
Hard PIps
Screenshot: Erik Kain
Today’s Hard Pips is “RE” as in “Regarding” or “Redo” or “Revolution” or countless other words. Perhaps tomorrow’s will fill in the rest. It’s pretty straightforward. The “E” has two 6 tiles and we can pretty quickly get this out of the way other than the free tile. The Purple 3 in the “R” has two dominoes that could fill it, so we won’t know which to use until the final step.
Step 1
Start with the 1/6 domino from Orange 3 up into Pink 6 and the 2/6 domino from Blue 6 into Dark Blue 6. The 4/5 goes from Blue 6 up into Dark Blue > 7 and the 3/1 goes from Dark Blue > 7 into Green < 2. We’ve gotten rid of almost all of our biggest pips at this point, which is exactly what we needed to do.
Hard PIps
Screenshot: Erik Kain
Step 2
Place the 5/2 domino from Blue > 4 into Green < 3 and the 2/1 domino fro Orange < 3 into Pink 3. The 3/2 domino goes from Purple 3 into Blue < 2 and the 1/1 domino fills in the rest of the Pink 3 tiles.
Hard PIps
Screenshot: Erik Kain
Solution
The 4/3 domino goes from Purple > 3 into Pink 3 and the 0/4 domino goes from Pink 3 down into Orange > 3. Place the 3/0 domino in Purple 3 and the 2/4 domino from Orange 3 into the one and only free tile.
Hard PIps
Screenshot: Erik Kain
Easy peasy, says I, which is a nice change from the many super challenging Hard Pips we’ve had recently. Not that I don’t enjoy a healthy challenge, mind you.
How’d you do on today’s Pips?
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