NYT Pips hints, walkthrough and solutions for Sunday, November 2

If you’re looking for help with today’s NYT Pips puzzle, look no further! Below you will find the solutions for the Easy and Medium-tier Pips and a full walkthrough for the Hard Pips. It’s another beautiful day in November, so be sure to get out and enjoy it before the colder weather arrives. Winter is coming. Let’s solve these Pips!

Looking for Friday‘s Beep? Read our guide here.

How do you play Pips?

In Pips you have a grid of multicolored boxes. Each colored area represents a different “condition” you must achieve. You have a select number of dominoes that you must spend completing the grid. You must use every domino and meet all the conditions to win. There are easy, medium and difficult levels.

Here is an example of a difficult level Pips:

As you can see, the grid has a number of symbols and numbers associated with each color. On the far left, the three purple squares may not be equal to each other (hence the equal sign crossed out). The two pink squares next to them must total 0. The zigzagging blue squares must all be equal to each other. You click on dominoes to rotate them, and that’s necessary because they need to be rotated to fit where they belong.

Other conditions, such as ‘less than’ or ‘greater than’, will not appear in this grid. If there are multiple tiles with > or < signs, the total of those tiles must be greater or less than the stated number. It varies per grid. Empty spaces can be anything. The different possible conditions are:

• = All kernels in this group must be equal to each other.
• ≠ In this group, not all kernels may be the same.
• > The pip in this tile (or tiles) must be greater than the stated number.
• < The pip in this tile must be smaller than the stated number.
• An exact number (such as 6) The pip must be equal to this exact number.
• Tiles without conditions can be anything.

To win you need to complete all your dominoes by filling in all the boxes and making sure you meet all the conditions. Sometimes there is only one way to solve the puzzle. Other times there may be two or more different solutions. Play today’s Pips puzzle here.

The current Pips solutions and walkthrough

Below are the solutions for the Easy and Medium tier Pips. Then I will guide you through the difficult puzzle. Spoilers ahead.

Today’s easy kernels

Today’s medium burners

Hard Pips walkthrough and solution

Here are today’s hard pips:

No dog, no spaceship – today’s Hard Pips is a happy dancing little man. Just look at him dancing while he makes his TikTok videos. He’s just a little guy.

We have several places where we could theoretically start here. All of the little guy’s limbs would work, or even his head. These are usually smaller groups or individual tiles, but there is one large Blue = group in the middle. Based on our dominoes, they’re going to have to be 1’s, so we can look ahead a little bit and see which dominoes we have with 1’s and what the other sides of those are to guide us.

It is notable that there are no free tiles in the current Pips, which is unusual.

Step 1

I started by looking at the little guy’s right foot and leg, but decided there were too many possibilities. Left was better, because Green 12 must consist of two sixes. I placed the 5/6 domino of Pink > 4 in Green 12 and the 6/0 domino of Green 12 in Pink 0.

Then I placed the 0/5 domino of Pink 0 in Orange 10. I completed the Pink 0 group with the 0/1 domino in Blue = and placed it horizontally, as you can see that you need to leave the space above it empty.

Step 2

Then I placed the 0/3 domino of Purple 0 in Dark Blue 6 and the 3/1 domino of Dark Blue 6 in the large Blue = group. Then I placed the 5/1 domino from Orange 10 up in Blue= and the 1/1 domino in the middle of the Blue= group.

Step 3

Time for the remaining limbs. I placed the 6/4 domino of Blue > 4 in Purple 8 and the 4/2 domino of Purple 8 in the Dark Blue 2 tile. Then I placed the 3/2 domino of Orange 3 in Green 8 and the 6/1 tile of Green 8 in the Blue = group.

Solution

Since only the head of the man was left, I placed the 1/4 domino from Blue = in Pink 8 and the 0/4 domino from the Purple 0 tile in Pink 8. Now the happy dancing man is complete!

This Pips was much more intimidating than challenging. Lots of small overall groups that can be solved in different ways, but pretty obvious directions on where to go straight away. Starting where I did helped, I think, because it was pretty clear that the 6/0 was going to Pink 0 and the rest of that group led me straight to where I needed to go. Still fun, but not nearly as difficult as yesterday.

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