Friday brings a fresh set of NYT Pips puzzles. All three boards use the same zone map today, so the difficulty comes from how tightly the constraints stack rather than from any new mechanic. We've got a quick hint and the full solution for each of 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 Easy and Medium zone map, which invites overconfidence. The strict zones punish a single careless placement, and unwinding a bad guess takes longer than it does on the other two boards.
Our Take: A disciplined set that rewards reading the board over moving fast. The shared zone layout makes Friday a clean study in pattern recognition, and the constraint-heavy zones reward anyone who maps the strict spots before placing a single domino.
Tomorrow's Pips drops at midnight. See you then.