Struggling with Easy, Medium, or Hard modes? Find what you need here.
Published on: April 1, 2026
Welcome to your guide to Pips, the latest game in the New York Times collection. Launched in August 2025, Pips offers a unique twist on dominoes, making it a fun single-player game that might become your next daily habit. Currently, if you’re stuck, the game only offers to reveal the entire puzzle, requiring you to move to the next difficulty level and restart. However, we’ve got you covered! Below are piecemeal answers as hints to help you navigate through each difficulty level.
How to play Pips
If you’ve played dominoes, you’ll have some familiarity with how Pips is played. As noted in our previous hints stories for Pips, the tiles, like dominoes, are placed vertically or horizontally and connect with each other. The main contrast between a traditional domino game and Pips is the color-coded conditions you need to address. The connecting tiles don’t have to match.
The conditions are specific to the color-coded spaces. For example, if a space provides a single number, every side of a tile in that space must add up to that number. It’s possible – and common – for only half a tile to be within a color-coded space. Here are common examples across difficulty levels:
– Number: All pips in the space must add up to the number.
– Equal: Every domino half in the space must have the same number of pips.
– Not Equal: Every domino half must have a different number of pips.
– Less than: Every domino half must add up to less than the number.
– Greater than: Every domino half must add up to more than the number.
If an area lacks color coding, there are no conditions on the portions of dominoes within those spaces.
Easy difficulty hints, answers for April 1 Pips
– Number (4): All must add to 4. Answer: 4-1, horizontal.
– Number (1): All must add to 1. Answer: 4-1, horizontal.
– Number (18): All must add to 18. Answer: 6-6, horizontal; 6-0, horizontal.
– Number (15): All must add to 15. Answer: 4-5, vertical; 5-5, vertical.
– Equal (0): All must equal 0. Answer: 6-0, horizontal; 0-0, vertical; 0-3, vertical.
– Equal (2): All must equal 2. Answer: 2-2, horizontal; 2-3, horizontal.
– Number (12): All must add to 12. Answer: 2-3, horizontal; 3-3, horizontal; 0-3, vertical.
Medium difficulty hints, answers for April 1 Pips
– Equal (6): All must equal 6. Answer: 1-6, horizontal; 6-2, horizontal.
– Number (2): All must add to 2. Answer: 1-6, horizontal; 1-0, vertical.
– Equal (2): All must equal 2. Answer: 6-2, horizontal; 2-2, horizontal; 2-3, vertical.
– Number (7): All must add to 7. Answer: 2-3, vertical; 4-3, vertical.
– Equal (5): All must equal 5. Answer: 4-5, vertical; 5-5, horizontal.
– Equal (6): All must equal 6. Answer: 6-6, horizontal; 6-3, horizontal.
– Equal (3): All must equal 3. Answer: 4-3, vertical; 6-3, horizontal.
Hard difficulty hints, answers for April 1 Pips
– Greater Than (2): All must be greater than 2. Answer: 3-3, horizontal.
– Less Than (6): All must be less than 6. Answer: 3-3, horizontal; 2-4, horizontal.
– Greater Than (8): All must be greater than 8. Answer: 2-4, horizontal; 5-1, vertical.
– Number (8): All must add to 8. Answer: 1-1, vertical; 6-4, vertical.
– Equal (1): All must equal 1. Answer: 5-1, vertical; 1-4, vertical.
– Number (7): All must add to 7. Answer: 6-4, vertical; 3-0, vertical.
– Greater Than (3): All must be greater than 3. Answer: 1-4, vertical.
– Number (