NYT ‘Pips’ tips and answers for Thursday, December 18

Another day, another three Pips puzzles to purposefully procrastinate on, (probably) delaying the pesky problems that need to be solved. The weekend is approaching, oh my Pipsqueaks. In no time it will be Christmas. Let’s lay down some dominoes, shall we?

Looking for Wednesday‘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:

Today’s Hard Pips is neither a number nor a letter. It’s actually a castle. Or at least the top of a tower, full of battlements and a window. Quite a cool shape if you ask me. Some obvious pointers and principles:

• The three tiles that stick out at the top – the battlements – must be the exact number. There are limited options available, making us more limited in what we can choose.
• Whenever there is a ≠, we almost always get a lot of doubles, and those doubles almost always fit next to (and in) the ≠ groups.

Okay, let’s get started.

Step 1

First place the 2/4 domino of Purple 2 in Orange > 2 and the 4/4 domino of Dark Blue 4 in the Green ≠ group. The 5/5 domino goes from Pink 5 to Green ≠. When I solved this, I simply assumed that this was where each of these would go, based on previous puzzles and strategy.

Step 2

Then place the 3/3 domino of Green ≠ into Purple = and the 0/3 domino of Blue 0 into Purple =. The 5/3 domino goes from Blue 5 to Purple =.

Step 3

Place the 1/0 domino from Pink 1 in Green ≠ and the 2/1 domino from Green 2 in Purple 2. The 3/1 domino goes from Orange 3 to Purple 2.

Solution

Place the 6/4 domino of Blue 6 in the Pink = group and the 4/3 domino of Pink = in the second Orange 3 tile. The 6/1 domino goes from Dark Blue 6 to Green ≠ and the last domino, 2/2 (again a double), from Green ≠ to the one and only free tile. And we’re done!

This Hard Pips looked a lot scarier than it ended up being, though maybe I was just lucky. I wonder if there are any other solutions that people have come up with?

Let me know Tweet, Instagramor Facebook. Make sure you follow me for all your daily puzzle solving guides, TV show and movie reviews and more right here on this blog!