Are you having trouble with Easy, Medium, or Hard levels? We’ve got everything you need.
Welcome to your guide to Pips, the newest game in the New York Times collection. Launched in August 2025, Pips offers a fresh take on dominoes, providing a fun single-player experience that can easily become your next daily gaming habit.
Currently, if you’re stuck, the game only reveals the entire puzzle, making you start over on a different difficulty level. But worry not, we’re here to help! Below are hints that will guide you through each difficulty level.
How to play Pips
If you’ve ever played dominoes, Pips will feel familiar. As we’ve mentioned in our previous guides for Pips, the tiles are placed either vertically or horizontally and connect with each other. The key difference from traditional dominoes is the color-coded rules you must follow. The connected tiles don’t necessarily need to match.
The conditions you need to follow are specific to the color-coded spaces. For instance, if a number is provided, every side of a tile in that space must add up to that number. It’s common for only part of a tile to be in a color-coded space.
Here are the common conditions you might encounter across difficulty levels:
– **Number**: The pips in this space must add up to the specified number.
– **Equal**: Every domino half in this space must have the same number of pips.
– **Not Equal**: Every domino half in this space must have a different number of pips.
– **Less Than**: Every domino half in this space must add up to less than the specified number.
– **Greater Than**: Every domino half in this space must add up to more than the specified number.
If an area doesn’t have any color coding, it means there are no conditions on the portions of dominoes within that space.
Easy difficulty hints, answers for April 12 Pips
– **Number (22)**: Everything in this purple space must add up to 22. Place 6-6 horizontally; 5-0 vertically; 5-4 horizontally.
– **Number (4)**: The domino half in this red space requires 4 pips. Place 5-4 horizontally.
– **Number (4)**: Everything in this light blue space must add up to 4. Place 2-2 horizontally.
– **Equal (4)**: Every domino half in this space must have 4 pips. Place 4-1 vertically; 4-2 horizontally.
Medium difficulty hints, answers for April 12 Pips
– **Less Than (3)**: The domino half in this purple space must have less than 3 pips. Place 2-4 vertically.
– **Greater Than (5)**: The domino half in this red space must have more than 5 pips. Place 6-4 horizontally.
– **Equal (4)**: Every domino half in this light blue space must have 4 pips. Place 6-4 horizontally; 2-4 vertically.
– **Equal (6)**: Every domino half in this yellow space must have 6 pips. Place 6-6 vertically.
– **Less Than (3)**: The domino half in this purple space needs to have less than 3 pips. Place 2-5 horizontally.
– **Equal (5)**: Every domino half in this dark blue space must have 5 pips. Place 2-5 horizontally; 5-5 horizontally.
– **Number (1)**: Everything in this red space must add up to 1. Place 1-3 vertically; 0-5 horizontally.
– **Number (10)**: Everything in this green space must add up to 10. Place 4-5 horizontally; 0-5 horizontally.
Hard difficulty hints, answers for April 12 Pips
– **Number (6)**: Everything in this purple space must add up to 6. Place 2-2 horizontally; 3-6 horizontally.
– **Number (0)**: Everything in this red space must add up to 0. Place 0-3 horizontally; 0-6 vertically.
– **Less Than (6)**: The domino half in this light blue space must add up to less than 6. Place 0-3 horizontally; 2-1 vertically.
– **Number (0)**: The dark blue space must have 0 pips. Place 2-0 vertically.
– **Number (6)**: Everything in this yellow space must add up to 6. Place 2-1 vertically; 5-0 vertically.
– **Equal (4)**: Every domino half in this purple space requires 4 pips. Place 2-4 vertically; 4-4 vertically; 4-6 horizontally.
– **Number (