NYT ‘Pips’ Hints, Answers, And Walkthrough, Sunday November 23

Another Pips for another lazy Sunday. We have an Easy, Medium and Hard Pips to solve today and for the first time in I don’t know how long, the Hard Pips isn’t shaped like a number. We’d reached 14 by yesterday, and I admit I was getting a little bored of the gimmick, so I’m glad they changed it up a smidge. Let’s lay down some dominoes!

Looking for Saturday’s Pips? Read our guide right here.

How To Play Pips

In Pips, you have a grid of multicolored boxes. Each colored area represents a different “condition” that you have to achieve. You have a select number of dominoes that you have to spend filling in the grid. You must use every domino and achieve every condition properly to win. There are Easy, Medium and Difficult tiers.

Here’s an example of a difficult tier Pips:

As you can see, the grid has a bunch of symbols and numbers with each color. On the far left, the three purple squares must not equal one another (hence the equal sign crossed out). The two pink squares next to that must equal a total of 0. The zig-zagging blue squares all must equal one another. You click on dominoes to rotate them, and will need to since they have to be rotated to fit where they belong.

Not shown on this grid are other conditions, such as “less than” or “greater than.” If there are multiple tiles with > or < signs, the total of those tiles must be greater or less than the listed number. It varies by grid. Blank spaces can have anything. The various possible conditions are:

• = All pips must equal one another in this group.
• ≠ All pips must not equal one another in this group.
• > The pip in this tile (or tiles) must be greater than the listed number.
• < The pip in this tile must be less than the listed number.
• An exact number (like 6) The pip must equal this exact number.
• Tiles with no conditions can be anything.

In order to win, you have to use up all your dominoes by filling in all the squares, making sure to fit each condition. Sometimes there’s only one way to solve the puzzle. Other times, there can be two or more different solutions. Play today’s Pips puzzle here.

Today’s Pips Solutions And Walkthrough

Below are the solutions for the Easy and Medium tier Pips. After that, I’ll walk you through the Hard puzzle. Spoilers ahead.

Today’s Easy Pips

Today’s Medium Pips

Hard Pips Walkthrough And Solution

Here’s today’s Hard Pips:

So instead of a number, today’s Hard Pips is a big “L” and a baby “L” or perhaps a road as it turns between two rows of buildings. Either way, the trick with today’s puzzle is to count out which number will work for the Dark Blue = group, which requires five of the same number. We have several doubles, including 2/2, 4/4 and 5/5 and we have enough 4’s to fill in Green = but not enough for Dark Blue 5.

Step 1

Given what we know, I started with the 5/3 domino from Dark Blue = down into Purple 6, and the 3/4 domino from Purple 6 over into Green = like so:

Step 2

Next, I placed the 5/5 domino in the next two Dark Blue = tiles and the 4/4 domino in the next two Green = tiles and then stuck the 4/5 domino from the Green = group into the Dark Blue = group. We’re off to a good start.

Step 3

The 5/7 domino slots up from Dark Blue = into Purple 7, with the 1/0 domino fitting in above that from Purple 7 into the first free tile. Our last double, the 2/2, fills in the Blue = nicely.

Solution

We only have the baby “L” left and, thankfully, at this point I realized I had exactly the right dominoes remaining. The 2/6 domino goes from Pink < 3 into Orange ≠ and the 3/6 domino lays down from Orange ≠ into the last free tile. And that’s all folks!

Once again, I managed to get this one without having to start over or adjust anything. It would have been a lot more difficult if there had been more dominoes that could have fulfilled Dark Blue = but since that wasn’t the case, I had a pretty strong idea about where to start and everything just lined up. Like dominoes. Line ‘em up and knock ‘em down.

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