NYT ‘Pips’ Hints & Answers For Tuesday, December 16

Tuesday has arrived and we have some dominoes to lay down and some colorful tiles to fill. We have an Easy, Medium and Hard Pips to solve — and the Medium is a real doozy! Let’s get right to it…

Looking for Monday’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.

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:

Hey, look! It’s a dog! Or maybe a tortoise. If you’re speaking Elden Ring. I’m just glad it’s not a letter or number…again. In any case, let’s get started.

Step 1

The trick here is counting pips. We need four of the same number for Purple = and seven of the same for Green = and we can’t use 1’s for Purple, because we’ll need them for Blue 2.

Start with the 2/4 domino from Blue 2 up into Purple = and the 6/3 domino from Orange > 3 into the Purple = group. Next, place the 4/4 domino in the remaining Purple = group.

Step 2

Place the 6/1 domino from the free tile down into Blue 2 and the 1/2 domino from Blue 2 into the Orange 2 tile. Next, place the 3/0 domino from Dark Blue < 4 into the Green = group and the 1/0 domino from Pink < 2 into the Green = group.

Step 3

We’ll knock out most of the Green = group next. Place the 0/5 domino from Green = into Pink < 6 and the 0/2 domino from Green = into Orange < 3. The 0/0 domino goes into the middle Green = tiles.

Solution

Finish the Green = group with the 0/6 domino up into the second free tile. The 4/3 domino goes from the final free tile into Purple ≠ and wrap things up with the 3/5 domino from Purple ≠ into the Pink > 4 tile. And that, my dearest Pipsqueaks, is that!

I had to rearrange a couple dominos in the beginning, but that was mostly due to not counting ahead rather than this being a particularly challenging Hard Pips. I’m curious if anyone found a different solution, though I’m pretty sure there’s only one for this puzzle.

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