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Saturday at last. The weekend is here, Pipsqueaks! Time to celebrate. I assume that the best way to celebrate the weekend for intrepid puzzle-solvers like you fine folk, is with a puzzle! Let's lay some dominoes!
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.
In order to win, you have to use up all your dominoes by filling in all the squares, making sure to fit each condition.
Below are the solutions for the Easy and Medium tier Pips. After that, I'll walk you through the Difficult puzzle. Spoilers ahead.
Let's do a complete walkthrough of today's Difficult Pips. It starts out like this:
This is very obviously a ship or boat. There's a mast and sails, a prow and a hull and the stern there in the back. Avast, mateys, let's set sail and show these landlubbers how it's done!
Step 1
There was one clear starting point in today's Pips. Only one domino could go in the Green 5 tile at the prow of the ship. I placed the 5/1 from Green 5 into Dark Blue 2. Then I placed the 2/0 domino from Dark Blue 2 into Pink 0, like so:
Step 2
I decided to keep working my way from front to back. Moving down into the ship's hull, I knew the Green 18 group had to be all 6's. So I placed the 5/6 domino from Purple 5 into Green 18 and the 6/6 domino there at the bottom, like so:
Step 3
Moving to the stern, I had some counting to do. Both Orange = and Purple = required 5 of the same numbers. That could only be 2’s or 3’s at this point. But there was a clue. The Blue 1 tile could only be the 1/2 domino. With no 1/3 domino available, this was my only option. So I placed the 1/2 domino from Blue 1 into Purple =, then the 2/2 domino at the tip of the stern. I placed the 5/2 domino from Dark Blue 5 into Purple = and the 2/3 domino from Purple = into Orange =, like so:
Step 4
Moving up into the mast, I placed the 0/3 domino from Pink 0 into Orange = and the 3/3 domino in the mast. Then I placed the 0/4 domino at the very bottom of the ship, like so:
At this point, with just a few dominoes left, it was simply a matter of figuring out which ones could hit the right totals. I placed the 3/5 domino from Orange = into Blue 9 and the 3/4 domino from Orange = into the free tile. With Pink 2, I knew we needed the two remaining 1 pip dominoes, so it was just a matter of laying those down in the right directions and this Pips was solved.
The Solution:
Where shall we sail to, my crew of Pipsqueaks? The Caribbean perhaps? Or down the Pacific coast to Puerto Vallarta? The world is a big place filled with wonder and beauty. Point me in a direction!
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