NYT ‘Pips’ Tips, Answers and Walkthroughs for Saturday, July 4

How to play Pips

In Pips, you have a grid of colorful boxes. Each colored area represents a different “state” you must reach. You have a selected number of dominoes to use to fill the grid. You have to use every domino and win every situation correctly to win. There are Easy, Medium and Hard Tiers.

Here is an example of Pips for a heavy tier:

As you can see, the grid has a lot of symbols and numbers in each color. On the far left, the three purple squares are not equal (so the equal sign is crossed out). The two pink squares next to those must equal a total of 0. The jagged blue squares should all fit. You click on the dominoes to flip them, and you will need to rotate them to fit where they are.

What can be shown in this grid are other conditions, such as “less than” or “greater than.” If there are multiple tiles with > or < symbols, the sum of those tiles must be greater than or less than the number listed. It varies by grid. Empty spaces can contain anything. The various possible scenarios are:

• = All pipes must fit in this group.
• ≠ All pips must not be equal in this group.
• > The pipe in this tile (or tiles) must be larger than the number listed.
• < The pipe in this tile should be less than the number listed.
• An exact number (like 6) The pipe must fit this exact number.
• Shapeless tiles can be anything.

To win, you must use all your dominoes by filling all the squares, making sure you fit each position. Sometimes there is only one way to solve a puzzle. Sometimes, there can be two or more different solutions. Play today’s Pips puzzle here.

Today’s Solutions for Pips and Moves

Below are solutions for Easy and Medium tier Pips. After that, I’ll go with you on a Hard puzzle. Spoilers ahead.

Today Easy Pips

Today Medium Pips

Hard Pips Walkthrough and Solution

Here are today’s Hard Pips:

I had a hard time doing today’s Hard Pips because all the numbers in this chunky grid are lumped together. But the date is 1776, the year the United States of America was born. Our country – yes, my country, some of you are probably elsewhere – turns 250 today, and boy are we showing signs of aging. In the age of the nation, we may be young, and maybe we are just making noise recently. Either way, I hope we can grow and learn from our mistakes. In any case, there are two dominoes that we can put out of the question to start things off, so let’s get started.

Step 1

Place a 0/5 domino from Purple 0 to Dark Blue 5 and a 5/2 domino from Pink 5 to Orange 2. Next, place a 1/6 domino on the two Purple 7 tiles and a 4/6 domino next to that, from Pink 4 to Blue 7. A 1/4 domino from Blue 7 to Orange 4.

Step 2

Next, place a 5/3 domino from Green Green Dark 7 to Green = and a 2/4 domino from Green Green Dark 7 to Green 4. A 3/1 domino from Green = to Orange 7 and a 3/3 domino fills the remaining Green = tiles. A 4/4 domino goes from Blue 4 to Orange 4.

The solution

Place the 2/1 domino from Purple 2 to Pink > 0 on the left and the 6/5 domino from Dark Blue > 5 to Blue 7 in the second “7” on the grid. A 2/6 domino goes under that from Blue 7 to Pink > 4. Next, place a 0/0 domino from Green 0 to the first free tile and a 6/0 domino from Orange 7 to the second free tile and you’re done!

Somehow I managed to place all the dominoes correctly today. All my ideas and guesses were on the money. My natural mind was sharp and creative. I usually have to rearrange at least a few dominoes before solving one of these, and I thought I’d do it today because these were some scary looking Pips. I guess you just get lucky sometimes!

How did you do in today’s Pips?

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