Caught on Easy, Medium, or Hard? We’ve got everything you need here.
Welcome to your guide to Pips, the latest game in the New York Times collection. Released in August 2025, Pips offers a unique spin on dominoes, creating a fun single-player experience that might become your next daily gaming habit. Currently, if you’re stuck, the game only reveals the entire puzzle, prompting you to move on to a new difficulty level and begin afresh. However, we can help! Below are hints providing piecemeal answers to guide you through each difficulty level.
How to play Pips
If you’ve played dominoes, you’ll have a sense of how Pips works. The tiles, like dominoes, are placed vertically or horizontally and connect with each other. The main difference is the color-coded conditions you must consider. Touching tiles don’t necessarily have to match. The conditions to meet are specific to the color-coded spaces, like when a space provides a single number, every side of a tile must add up to that number. Common examples across difficulty levels include:
Number: All pips in this space must add up to the number.
Equal: Every domino half must be the same number of pips.
Not Equal: Every domino half must have a different number of pips.
Less than: Every domino half must total less than the number.
Greater than: Every domino half must total more than the number.
If an area lacks color coding, there are no conditions on the domino portions within those spaces.
Easy difficulty hints, answers for May 11 Pips
Less Than (10): Everything must be less than 10. Answer: 5-2, horizontally.
Number (4): Everything must add up to 4. Answer: 3-4, vertically; 0-4, horizontally.
Number (10): Everything must add to 10. Answer: 0-4, horizontally; 6-6, vertically.
Medium difficulty hints, answers for May 11 Pips
Number (4): Everything in purple must total 4. Answer: 4-2, vertically.
Number (4): Everything in red must total 4. Answer: 1-2, horizontally; 0-1, vertically; 3-5, horizontally.
Number (4): Everything in light blue must total 4. Answer: 1-2, horizontally; 4-2, vertically.
Less Than (1): Everything must be less than 1. Answer: 0-6, vertically.
Number (4): Everything in dark blue must total 4. Answer: 0-1, vertically; 3-2, horizontally.
Equal (2): Everything must equal 2. Answer: 3-2, horizontally; 2-0, horizontally.
Less Than (1): Everything must be less than 1. Answer: 2-0, horizontally.
Hard difficulty hints, answers for May 11 Pips
Equal (3): Everything in purple must equal 3. Answer: 3-3, vertically; 1-3, vertically; 3-6, horizontally; 3-4, vertically.
Number (2): Everything must total 2. Answer: 1-3, vertically; 1-2, horizontally.
Number (2): Everything must total 2. Answer: 1-2, horizontally.
Equal (4): Everything in yellow must equal 4. Answer: 4-4, vertically; 3-4, vertically; 5-4, horizontally; 1-4, horizontally.
Equal (5): Everything in dark blue must equal 5. Answer: 5-5, horizontally; 5-4, horizontally; 5-1, horizontally.
Equal (6): Everything must equal 6. Answer: 6-1, horizontally; 6-2, horizontally.
Number (3): Everything must total 3. Answer: 5-1, horizontally; 1-4, horizontally; 6-1, horizontally.
Number (2): Everything must total 2. Answer: 6-2, horizontally.
Not Equal: Everything must differ. Answer: 2-4, horizontally; 0-6, vertically; 5-3, vertically.
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