NYT ‘Pips’ Hints & Answers For Thursday, December 11

It’s Thursday, the day of Thor, an entire day dedicated to one of the surliest of all Norse and Germanic gods. A thunder god most people now associate with Chris Hemsworth and the MCU. In any case, we have three very tricky Pips puzzles to solve this fine Thor’s Day. Even the Easy Pips was a bit of a head-scratcher today, and the Medium was downright hard! Read on for answers and a full walkthrough of today’s Hard Pips.

Looking for Wednesday’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:

It was only a matter of time before we snaked our way to the letter “S” as in “Slytherin” and “Stewie” and “Sassafrass.” Today’s Hard Pips is a bit of a tricky one, though not the hardest I’ve seen lately. The trick is figuring out which side of the “S” to begin. At the top, you could go a couple different ways. You’ll need a double to make that Purple = group work, and that could be 1/1 or 2/2. This is why it makes more sense to start at the bottom and work your way up.

Step 1

You’ll notice that the Purple 10 group can only be made by combining two dominoes (we don’t have a 6/4 or a 5/5 domino) so place the 4/0 domino in Purple 10 over to Pink 0 and the 6/1 domino from Purple 10 into Blue =. Next, place the 0/3 domino from Pink 0 into Green 9 (we only have two blank dominoes which makes this pretty straightforward) and place the 1/1 domino in the two Blue = tiles below.

Step 2

The 1/2 domino goes from the final Blue = tile up into Green 9 and the 4/3 domino goes above that, from Green 9 into Dark Blue 9. Stick the 6/5 domino from Dark Blue 9 into Orange 10 and the 5/1 domino from Orange 10 into the second Blue = group.

Solution

It’s the final stretch now. The 1/3 domino lays vertically from Blue = into the sole free tile. Next to that, the 2/2 domino takes the first two Purple = tiles and the 2/5 domino lays horizontally from Purple = into Pink > 1. That’s all, folks!

I tried starting at Pink > 1 when I first tackled this Pips and had to reset and go from the bottom. Even then, I had to fiddle with which dominoes went up into Green 9 / Dark Blue 9 for a bit. In the end, this was the best solution I could come up with. Maybe there are others?

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