Hints, Answers And Walkthrough For Monday, January 26

It’s Monday, and I know you’re all glad that the grueling weekend is over and we can get back to the joys of labor. Every day spent away from the office is like spending time away from a new lover. (This is sarcasm, for those of you in the back). This must be why I never go a day without work. In the last four years, I’ve taken exactly one day off and that was for a medical emergency. Then again, my work is all about games and shows and movies, so I can’t complain. We have some Pips puzzles to solve, so grab your dominos and let’s get to it!

Looking for Sunday’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 a fidget spinner. It’s also super easy, just like yesterday’s. I’m not sure what’s going on over at the NYT but they sure have been soft on us lately. We have three spindles in today’s Hard Pips, with a central ≠ group. We only have one 6, so we know that of the two 9 groups, only one can be a 6/3 combo and the other has to be 4/5.

Step 1

We’ll begin on the bottom right. As a rule, I like to use a number as close to the < or > sign as possible, though this isn’t always the case. Place the 1/0 domino from Orange < 2 into Pink 4 and the 4/6 domino from Pink 4 into Green 9. Then place the 3/3 domino from Green 9 into Orange ≠ (another rule of thumb being doubles often border ≠ groups).

Step 2

Place the 1/4 domino from Blue < 3 into Purple 9 and the 5/4 domino from Purple 9 into Dark Blue 6. Then place the 2/2 domino from Dark Blue 6 into Orange ≠.

Solution

Finally, place the 6/6 domino from Purple > 4 into Pink = and the 6/1 domino from Pink = into Blue 5. Place the 4/4 domino from Blue 5 into Orange ≠ and finish things up with the 1/2 domino from Orange ≠ into the one and only free tile. That’s a wrap!

There may be an alternative solution here. I didn’t try one. Pretty much everything slotted in for me perfectly on the first try. I think this might be the calm before the storm. Winter is coming — or, well, a super challenging Hard Pips!

How’d you do on today’s Pips? Let me know!

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