Struggling with Easy, Medium, or Hard levels? Everything you need is here.
Welcome to your guide to Pips, the newest game in the New York Times collection. Released in August 2025, Pips offers a fresh take on dominoes for a fun single-player experience, potentially becoming your next daily gaming routine. Currently, if you’re stuck, the game only allows you to reveal the whole puzzle, requiring you to move to the next difficulty level and start over. We’re here to help! Below are piecemeal answers to guide you through each level.
How to play Pips:
If you’ve played dominoes, you’ll be familiar with how Pips works. As noted in our previous Pips hints stories, the tiles, much like dominoes, are placed vertically or horizontally to connect. The key difference from traditional dominoes is the color-coded conditions you must address. Tiles don’t have to match exactly.
Conditions specific to color-coded spaces require you to meet certain criteria. For example, if a space provides a single number, each tile side must add up to that number. It is possible — and common — for half a tile to occupy a color-coded space.
Here are common examples across difficulty levels:
– Number: All pips in the space must add up to the specific 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 set number.
– Greater than: Every domino half in this space must add up to more than the set number.
If an area lacks color coding, there are no conditions on the domino segments within those spaces.
Easy difficulty hints for March 17 Pips:
– Number (0): Must total 0. Answer: 0-1, placed vertically.
– Number (0): Must total 0. Answer: 0-0, placed vertically.
– Number (3): Must total 3. Answer: 0-1, placed vertically; 2-4, horizontally.
– Number (5): Must total 5. Answer: 0-5, vertically; 1-5, vertically.
Medium difficulty hints for March 17 Pips:
– Greater Than (3): Must be more than 3. Answer: 6-3, vertically.
– Less Than (3): Must be fewer than 3. Answer: 2-6, horizontally.
– Not Equal: Must be different. Answer: 2-6, horizontally; 6-3, vertically.
– Number (11): Must total 11. Answer: 6-5, vertically.
Hard difficulty hints for March 17 Pips:
– Number (6): Must total 6. Answer: 2-2, horizontally; 2-1, horizontally.
– Number (3): Must total 3. Answer: 2-1, horizontally; 1-1, horizontally.
– Less Than (2): Must be fewer than 2. Answer: 0-5, horizontally.
– Number (6): Must total 6. Answer: 0-5, horizontally; 5-5, horizontally; 5-6, horizontally.
– Greater Than (2): Must be more than 2. Answer: 3-6, horizontally.
– Number (2): Must total 2. Answer: 6-2, horizontally.
– Equal (5): Must be equal to 5. Answer: 0-5, horizontally; 5-5, horizontally; 5-6, horizontally.
– Less Than (2): Must be fewer than 2. Answer: 0-6, horizontally.
– Number (18): Must total 18. Answer: 3-6, horizontally; 6-2, horizontally; 0-6, horizontally.
– Number (8): Must total 8. Answer: 5-4, horizontally; 4-0, vertically.
– Number (6): Must total 6. Answer: 5-3, horizontally; 3-2, vertically.
– Number (2): Must total 2. Answer: 2-5, horizontally.
– Number (10): Must total 10. Answer: 2-5, horizontally; 5-4, horizontally.
– Number (1): Must total 1. Answer: 4-1, vertically.
– Greater Than (9): Must be more than 9. Answer: 6-6, horizontally.
If you want more puzzles, Mashable has games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.