Welcome to December, Pipsqueaks! As we kick off the final month of the year, it’s time to delve into fresh challenges and brain teasers. Ready your dominoes and sharpen your wits—today’s Pips puzzle awaits!

Curious about Sunday’s Pips puzzle? You can find our comprehensive guide right here.

How To Play Pips

The game of Pips involves a grid filled with multicolored boxes, each color representing a unique condition that players must satisfy. Armed with a limited number of dominoes, your mission is to strategically fill the grid and meet all specified conditions. Success demands careful planning, as every domino must be used correctly. The game is divided into Easy, Medium, and Difficult tiers to suit every player’s skill level.

Consider this example from the difficult tier of Pips: The grid is adorned with symbols and numbers, each tied to a specific color. On the left, three purple squares must remain unequal, indicated by a crossed-out equal sign. Adjacent to these, two pink squares must total zero. Meanwhile, the zig-zagging blue squares need to match each other. Players can rotate dominoes to ensure they fit perfectly within the grid’s constraints.

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 brought to you by the letter “U” as in “Ukelele” or “Ultimate frisbee.” We’ll start with the two Dark Blue groups on the right side.

Step 1

First, place the 6/5 domino from Dark Blue 12 into Green 10. Place the 6/2 domino from Dark Blue 12 into the Blue 12 group (which has six tiles, meaning if each one of them is a “2” it’ll work out). Place the 6/6 domino in the upper Dark Blue 12 group.

Step 2

Since we’re committed to 2’s in the Blue 12 group, place the 4/2 domino at the top-right from Orange > 3 into Blue 12. Place the 2/2 domino below that and the 3/2 domino from Orange > 2 into Blue 12.

Step 3

We have a lot of free tiles, but we’re going to save all of those for the end. Place the 2/0 domino from Blue 12 into Pink 0 and the 6/0 domino from Purple 12 into Pink 0. Next, place the 5/1 domino from Green > 4 into Purple 3 and the 3/1 domino in Pink < 4 into Purple 3. Rule of thumb: If it’s a < or > symbol, try to find a number that’s just one over.

Solution

We’ll fill in all the free tiles now. The 1/4 domino goes from Purple 3 into the first free tile. The 6/3 domino goes from Purple 12 into the second free tile. The 0/3 domino goes from Pink 0 into the third free tile. And the 5/0 domino goes from Green 10 into the final free tile. Our dirty deeds are done dirt cheap.

Did you find a different solution for today’s Hard Pips?

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