Saturday brings a fresh set of NYT Pips puzzles. Easy and Medium offer compact boards before Hard expands to a six-by-six grid packed with single-cell clues. That last board shifts the emphasis from adding totals to matching dominoes without blocking the next move. We've got hints, a step-by-step walkthrough, and full solutions for Easy, Medium, and Hard.
How to Play Pips
Pips is a domino placement puzzle where you fill a grid of condition zones. Each zone has a rule you must satisfy using the pip values on your dominoes. The twist: you must use every domino and meet every condition to win.
Zone Conditions:
- = All pips in this zone must show the same number
- Not Equal All pips must be different numbers
- > Pips must be greater than the listed number
- < Pips must be less than the listed number
- Exact Number Pips must total that exact value
- No Condition Free space, any domino value works
Click or tap dominoes to rotate them. Each puzzle has one or more valid solutions. In the grids below, rows read top to bottom and a 0 is a blank domino half. When two zones share the same rule, we number them in reading order, top to bottom.
Easy Pips Solution
Medium Pips Solution
Hard Pips Solution
Puzzle Debrief
Overall Difficulty: This set builds from a gentle Easy into a more varied Medium, then asks for sustained placement discipline on Hard. The increase from five dominoes to seven and then sixteen gives the trio a clear rise in scope.
Trickiest Puzzle: Hard is the trickiest board because knowing a cell's value still leaves the question of which neighbor shares its domino. Its unmarked cell at row 2, column 2 holds 6, while the unmarked cell at row 3, column 4 holds 0, a useful reminder that no clue does not mean no pips.
Our Take: Our take is that Hard earns its challenge through the domino connections rather than demanding arithmetic. Checking both ends of a tile, then looking at the space it leaves behind, is the habit to carry into the next board.
Until Tomorrow
Enjoy the finished grids, and bring that habit of checking both domino ends to your next solve.
Tomorrow's Pips drops at midnight. See you then.