NYT ‘Pips’ Hints, Answers, And Walkthrough, Wednesday November 26

The trouble with getting back into shape is that it’s very tiring. Today, already sore from lifting yesterday, I took a hot yoga flow class and followed that up with a hike in the woods (since it’s sunny but still quite chilly today). I’m so sore and exhausted and now I have to go make dinner and do chores. I need a butler or a valet or something. A chef, a maid, a full staff. Wouldn’t that be nice? But I digress. We have an Easy, Medium and Hard Pips to solve so let’s get to laying dominoes!

Looking for Tuesday’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:

Today’s Hard Pips is brought to you by the letter “J” — as in Jiminy Cricket, that’s a hard pips! It really is a tough one today, and I had to try multiple different approaches before I realized that the key is simple: You have to make the top right section work without using any 3’s. You need four of the five 3’s in today’s selection of dominoes for the Orange = group. Here’s what to do.

Step 1

Place the 5/6 domino from Dark Blue 15 up into Pink 10 and the 5/1 domino from Dark Blue 15 into the Purple = group. Next, place the 1/1 domino in the remaining Purple = tiles and the 2/2 domino in the remaining Pink 10 tiles.

Step 2

Next, place the 5/2 domino from Dark Blue 15 into Green 8 and the 3/6 domino from the free tile into Green 8. We’ve used one of our five 3’s at this point, but still have plenty. Next, place the 3/3 domino in the left corner of Orange = like so:

Solution

We have two 4’s remaining, so place the 3/4 domino from Orange = into Blue = and the 5/4 domino from the free tile into Blue = and then wrap this puppy up with the 3/0 domino from Orange = into the final free tile. All done! Woohoo!

This was either a refreshingly challenging Pips or I was just off my game today. Whatever the case, I had fun figuring it out. Did you find a different solution? Was this as tricky for you as it was for me?

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