Welcome to your guide to Pips, the latest game in the New York Times catalogue.
Released in August 2025, Pips puts a unique spin on dominoes, creating a fun single-player experience that could become your next daily gaming habit.
Currently, if you’re stuck, the game only offers to reveal the entire puzzle, forcing you to move on to the next difficulty level and start over. However, we have you covered! Here are piecemeal answers that will serve as hints to help you through each difficulty level.
How to play Pips
If you’ve ever played dominoes, you’ll have a passing familiarity with how Pips is played. As we’ve shared in our previous hints stories for Pips, the tiles, like dominoes, are placed vertically or horizontally to connect with each other. The main difference between traditional dominoes and Pips is the color-coded conditions you have to address. The touching tiles don’t necessarily have to match.
The conditions you have to meet are specific to the color-coded spaces. For example, if it provides a single number, every side of a tile in that space must add up to the number provided. It’s common for only half a tile to be within a color-coded space.
Here are examples you’ll encounter across the difficulty levels:
Number: All the pips in this space must add up to the number.
Equal: Every domino half in this space must be 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 number.
Greater than: Every domino half in this space must add up to more than the number.
If an area does not have color coding, there are no conditions on the parts of dominoes within those spaces.
Easy difficulty hints, answers for April 13 Pips
Number (1): Everything in this purple space must add up to 1. The answer is 0-1, placed horizontally.
Number (2): Everything in this red space must add up to 2. The answer is 2-2, placed vertically.
Number (5): Everything in this yellow space must add up to 5. The answer is 1-5, placed vertically.
Equal (4): Everything in this dark blue space must add up to 4. The answer is 1-4, placed horizontally.
Number (3): Everything in this light blue space must add up to 3. The answer is 3-4, placed vertically.
Medium difficulty hints, answers for April 13 Pips
Equal (4): Every domino half in this purple space must have 4 pips. The answer is 4-1, placed vertically; 4-5, placed horizontally.
Equal (5): Every domino half in this red space must have 5 pips. The answer is 4-5, placed horizontally; 5-0, placed vertically; and 5-5, placed vertically.
Equal (1): Every domino half in this light blue space must have 1 pip. The answer is 4-1, placed vertically; 1-1, placed vertically; and 1-2, placed horizontally.
Less Than (3): The domino half in this space must have less than 3 pips. The answer is 1-2, placed horizontally.
Equal (0): Every domino half in this yellow space must have 0 pips. The answer is 3-0, placed vertically; 5-0, placed vertically; and 0-0, placed vertically.
Hard difficulty hints, answers for April 13 Pips
Number (2): Everything in this purple space must add up to 2. The answer is 2-5, placed vertically; 0-3, placed horizontally.
Number (9): Everything in this red space must add up to 9. The answer is 0-3, placed horizontally; 6-0, placed horizontally.
Equal (0): Every domino half in this light blue space must have 0 pips. The answer is 6-0, placed horizontally; 0-5, placed vertically.
Number (9): Everything in this yellow space must add up to 9. The answer is 2-5, placed vertically; 4-1, placed vertically.
Greater Than (9): Everything in this dark blue space must add up to be greater than 9. The answer is 0-5, placed vertically; 6-4, placed vertically.
Less Than (3): Everything in this green space must add up to be less than 3. The answer is 4-1, placed vertically; 1-2, placed horizontally.
Equal (2): Every domino half in this purple space must have 2 pips. The answer is 1-2, placed horizontally; 2-4