NYT Pips Hints, Walkthrough And Solutions — Sunday, October 12

Lazy Sunday is here which is always a little bittersweet. There’s still half the weekend left — but only half. Make the most of it, as they say. Play some games with friends. Get out and enjoy this lovely fall weather. Watch some of the excellent TV shows and movies in my weekend streaming guide. The world is your oyster. Oh, and we have some dominoes to lay out and some colorful tiles to fill. The Medium Pips is pretty tough today, and the Hard Pips was definitely a challenge. Let’s dive right in!

Looking for Saturday’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. Play today’s Pips puzzle here.

NYT Pips Today: Hints and Answers for Saturday, October 4

Below are the solutions for the Easy and Medium tier Pips. After that, I’ll walk you through the Hard puzzle. Spoilers ahead.

Easy

Medium

Hard

Here’s today’s Hard Pips:

You know those big hand signs? The ones with the finger pointing up? That’s what this Pips is, only the pointer finger is super tiny. The free tile on the bottom is the handle, which is also tiny. Or maybe — and this makes more sense — the rest of the finger and the rest of the handle are just cut off. In any case, the thing that makes this Pips so tough are those two tiles. If this were a pure square, it wouldn’t be quite as tricky.

Step 1

At least we have a clear starting point. We know that the Purple = group has to be 4’s since the only double we have is 4/4. We’ll start by placing that in Purple = and then the 4/5 domino from Purple = into Pink 5.

Step 2

Obviously, we could have placed the 4/5 domino from Purple = into Blue ≠ but that won’t work since the only 1 we have is the 1/5 domino and it needs to go from Orange 1 into Blue ≠. We can’t have two 5’s in the same ≠ group. We also have a 4/0 domino and a 4/2 domino, but we’ll need both of those.

In any case, place the 1/5 domino as noted and place the 3/5 domino from Orange 3 into the second Blue ≠ group.

Step 3

The two Blue ≠ groups are the real challenge here, but also the lack of 2’s. We have to use our two 2’s in the Purple 2 tile and Dark Blue 2 tile. We’ll start by placing the 4/2 domino from Blue ≠ into Purple 2. Next, place the 6/0 domino from Blue ≠ into Green 0 and finish off the top half of the grid with the 4/0 domino from Pink 4 into Blue ≠.

Solution

Finally, place the 2/6 domino from Dark Blue 2 down into the second Blue ≠ group and the 4/6 domino from the Blue ≠ group down into the single free tile. It’s always best to end with a free tile in Pips.

I had to start over a couple times with this Pips. I kept getting close only to realize I had two of the same Pips left for the final Blue ≠ group. It was a little frustrating, but I got there eventually. How’d you do?

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