We’re back to numbers again in today’s NYT Pips Hard tier puzzle. Numbers, numbers, numbers and the occasional letter for good measure. They skipped quite a few numbers to get to today’s, however. That number is 100 and I thought maybe it was a celebration of the 100th Pips puzzle, but I calculate that at 99 days. I’m probably doing something wrong. Happy 100th puzzle, Pips!
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:
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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:
Hard Pips with multiple sections can be extra challenging, but today I felt like it just broke up the puzzle for me and made it a bit easier. I decided to start on the right and work to the left. I looked to see if I could find a combo where one domino had either a 2 and a 0 or a 3 and a 0 and another had a 6 and a 2 or 3. I found what I was looking for.
Step 1
I placed the 3/0 domino up from Purple 5 into Dark Blue 0 and the 2/6 domino down from Purple 5 into Dark Blue 12. Then I placed the 6/3 domino from Dark Blue 12 into Orange 17 and the 5/5 domino in the next two Orange 17 tiles. The 0/4 domino slots from Dark Blue 0 into Orange 17. Our first “0” is complete.
Step 2
We need a couple doubles here. The 1/1 domino goes in the top two Blue = tiles and the 0/0 domino goes in the bottom two Blue 0 tiles. The 0/6 goes from Blue 0 into Pink 10 and the 4/2 domino lays down from Pink 10 into the free tile. Next, pop the 1/2 domino from Blue = into the second free tile.
Solution
Two 0’s down and just two dominoes left. The 4/5 domino goes from Purple > 2 into Green 10 and the 5/2 domino slides in below that from Green 10 into the third and final free tile. That’s a wrap!
I thought this one would be harder, but I kind of coasted through it and didn’t even have to backtrack once. Did you find an alternative solution?
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