NYT ‘Pips’ Hints & Answers For Thursday, December 18

Another day, another trio of Pips puzzles to purposely procrastinate with, putting off the pesky problems that need solving (probably). The weekend approaches, oh my Pipsqueaks. It’ll be Christmas in the blink of eye. Let’s lay down some dominoes, shall we?

Looking for Wednesday’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:

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:

Today’s Hard Pips is neither a number nor a letter. It is, in fact, a castle. Or at least the top of a tower, replete with battlements and a window. Pretty cool shape if you ask me. Some obvious clues and starting points:

• The three tiles jutting up at the tops — the battlements — have to be the exact number. We have limited options available, which narrows down what we can choose.
• Anytime there’s a ≠ we almost always get a lot of doubles, and those doubles almost always fit next to (and into) the ≠ groups.

Alright, let’s get started.

Step 1

First, place the 2/4 domino from Purple 2 into Orange > 2 and the 4/4 domino from Dark Blue 4 into the Green ≠ group. The 5/5 domino will go from Pink 5 into Green ≠. When I solved this, I simply assumed that this is where each of these would go based on previous puzzles and strategy.

Step 2

Next, place the 3/3 domino from Green ≠ into Purple = and the 0/3 domino from Blue 0 into Purple =. The 5/3 domino goes from Blue 5 into Purple =.

Step 3

Place the 1/0 domino from Pink 1 into Green ≠ and the 2/1 domino from Green 2 into Purple 2. The 3/1 domino goes from Orange 3 into Purple 2.

Solution

Place the 6/4 domino from Blue 6 into the Pink = group and the 4/3 domino from Pink = into the second Orange 3 tile. The 6/1 domino goes from Dark Blue 6 into Green ≠ and the last domino, 2/2 (once again, a double), from Green ≠ into the one and only free tile. And we’re done!

This Hard Pips looked a lot more daunting than it ended up being, though maybe I just got lucky. I wonder if there are any other solutions people came up with?

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