Friday brings a fresh set of NYT Pips puzzles. All three boards share the same zone layout, so today's test is pattern recognition rather than new mechanics. Here is a spoiler-free hint for the Easy, Medium, and Hard puzzles.
How to Play Pips
Pips is a domino placement puzzle where you fill a grid of color-coded zones. Each zone has a condition 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 equal 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 Color Free space, any domino value works
Click or tap dominoes to rotate them. Each puzzle has one or more valid solutions.
Today's Easy Pips
Today's Medium Pips
Today's Hard Pips
Puzzle Debrief
Overall Difficulty: Moderate challenge
Trickiest Puzzle: Hard - the board reuses the same zone map as Easy and Medium, which invites overconfidence. The strict zones punish a single careless placement, and backtracking costs more here than on the other two.
Our Take: A well-built set that rewards discipline over speed. The shared zone layout across all three difficulties makes Friday a solid study in pattern recognition, and the constraint-heavy zones reward anyone who reads the board before touching a domino.
Tomorrow's Pips drops at midnight. See you then.