Huzzah! It's the weekend! Saturday is here and the sun is shining. Our brief foray into winter has come to an abrupt and melty end. It'll be all mud and birds chirping in a couple of days. We have an Easy, Medium and Hard Pips to solve, so gather your dominos and let's get to it!
Looking for Friday'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.
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:
This is a real doozy of a Hard Pips, and I was definitely stuck at a few points trying to solve it, ultimately starting over twice before finding the solution. The trick is getting rid of as many large numbers as possible in the = groups and free tiles, though there are just two free tiles to work with. We know we need most of the 0's for actual 0 groups, also, with just one to spare. Finally, the only way to fulfill Orange 7 is with the 5/2 domino, though we’ll keep that in our back pocket and start on the right side of the board.
Step 1
Place the 0/3 domino from Dark Blue 0 into Pink 7 and the 4/5 domino from Pink 7 into Orange = as we need to use the 5’s here, rather than the 1’s. The 5/5 domino goes into the next two Orange = tiles and the 5/6 domino goes from Orange = down into Dark Blue =.
Step 2
Place the 6/6 domino in Dark Blue ='s two remaining tiles and plop the 5/2 domino into Orange 7 below. Then finish up Orange = with the 5/0 domino over into the first Blue 7 group and the 0/2 domino from Pink 0 down into Blue 7.
Step 3
The 0/0 domino goes from Pink 0 over into Purple 0 and the 3/1 domino goes from Blue 7 into Purple =. Place the 1/1 domino in the remaining Purple = tiles and the 2/3 domino from Blue 7 down into the first free tile.
Solution
Almost done. Place the 6/4 domino from the second free tile into Green = and the 4/1 domino from Green = into the second Blue 7 group. Finish this puzzle with the 5/1 domino in the remaining Blue 7 tiles, and heave a sigh of relief. This rather tricky Pips is solved!
Yesterday and today's Hard Pips have been really tough, and the Medium Pips have been harder than usual lately as well. I do like a good challenge, though!
How'd you do on today's Pips? Let me know!
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