Saturday brings a fresh set of NYT Pips puzzles. All three difficulty levels share the same zone map this time, so if you crack the Easy board you already know the layout for Medium and Hard.
We've got hints, step-by-step walkthroughs, and full solutions for all three.
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. The identical zone map across all three levels is unusual, so the real difficulty curve comes from tightening constraints rather than learning a new board.
Trickiest Puzzle: Hard - The twin navy (0) zones at the board's edges are the trap. They look like free space at a glance, but each must hold a zero pip, and misplacing a nonzero there forces a full reshuffle late in the solve.
Our Take: Saturday's set rewards pattern recognition over brute force. Once you see that the teal (>16) zone needs the two biggest dominoes and the teal (=) block runs on 4s, every level collapses into a clean sequence.
Solid puzzle design, and a good warm-up if you want to chase tomorrow's board.
Tomorrow's Pips drops at midnight. See you then.
