NYT ‘Pips’ Hints, Answers & Full Walkthrough for Thursday, June 18: Today’s Puzzle Solutions

How To Play Pips

For anyone new to Pips, the game presents a grid made up of differently colored sections. Each color corresponds to its own rule or requirement, and your goal is to place a limited set of dominoes into the grid so that every condition is satisfied. To complete the puzzle, every domino must be used correctly. The game is offered in Easy, Medium, and Hard difficulty levels.

Here’s an example of what a Hard-tier Pips puzzle looks like:

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 an elephant. A baby elephant. And a pretty challenging puzzle, as far as these go. Scanning ahead, I made a few educated guesses. Blue = is almost certainly 1’s, with blanks in Dark Blue = and 2’s in Pink =. We can extrapolate from there.

Step 1

Start with the 0/1 domino from Orange 4 into Blue =. The 2/1 domino goes from Pink = into Blue = and the 3/0 goes from Green < 4 into Dark Blue =. Finish this step with the 0/0 domino in the next two Dark Blue = tiles.

Step 2

Place the 2/2 domino directly below that in Pink = and the 6/2 domino from Green 10 into Pink =. The 5/2 domino goes in Dark Blue > 4 into Pink =, finishing that group off. Place the 4/1 domino from Green 10 into Purple 6 and the 5/0 domino from Purple 6 into the final Dark Blue = tile.

Solution

Next, place the 5/6 domino from Blue > 10 into Pink 10 and the 4/3 domino from Pink 10 into Purple =. The 6/3 goes below that from Blue > 10 into Purple = and the 2/0 domino fills up Orange < 3. Finish off today’s Hard Pips with the 3/1 domino from the single free tile into the last Blue = tile.

This one definitely had me switching things around a few times. A nice challenge, indeed!

How’d you do on today’s Pips?

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