We’re officially two-thirds of the way through January, and other than a bit of snow we had early on, it’s been far too sunny and warm out for the middle of winter. That’s fine in the moment, but then I start to worry about the summer and wildfires. These high, dry mountain forests need a lot of snow or they turn into tinderboxes in the summer. In any case, that’s neither here nor there, obviously. We’re here to solve an Easy, Medium and Hard Pips, and the Hard Pips is a good challenge today. Grab some dominos and let’s get to work!
Looking for Tuesday’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:
Pips example
Screenshot: Erik Kain
Play Puzzles & Games on Forbes
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
Easy Pips
Screenshot: Erik Kain
Today’s Medium Pips
Medium Pips
Screenshot: Erik Kain
Hard Pips Walkthrough And Solution
Here’s today’s Hard Pips:
Hard Pips
Screenshot: Erik Kain
If you combine the Easy and Medium Pips you get TOO and the Hard Pips is OWL. Too owl? I suppose if you toss one of the O’s you’d just have TOWEL. In any case, we have OWL for the Hard Pips and a couple of clues to get us started.
The trick here is the Dark Blue 3 group on the left. That can be one of two different dominos: The 1/2 domino or the 0/3 domino. The question is, which of those is needed elsewhere? I tried it both ways, but starting there was not a good approach. Instead . . .
Step 1
We know that the only double we have needs to go in the Purple = group in the “O.” Place it in the top two tiles. Next, place the 4/2 domino from the Pink 4 tile over into Blue = and the 2/1 domino from Blue = into Orange 5. The 4/0 domino slots into Orange 5 over into Purple =.
Hard Pips
Screenshot: Erik Kain
Step 2
Now that we’ve used the 1/2 domino, place the 0/3 domino into Dark Blue 3. The 5/3 domino goes from the Green > 4 tile up into Blue 4 and the 0/1 domino goes from the Green < 2 tile down into Blue 4. Next, place the 0/5 domino from the Purple 0 tile up into Orange =.
Hard Pips
Screenshot: Erik Kain
Solution
Finish the “W” off with the 6/45 domino from the Purple > 4 tile down into Orange =. Moving the “L” we’ll place the 1/4 domino from the Pink > 0 tile down into Dark Blue = and the 4/6 domino from Dark Blue = over into the Pink > 4 tile.
Hard Pips
Screenshot: Erik Kain
This doesn’t seem like it would be that challenging of a Pips, and writing out the steps it certainly seems simple in retrospect, but I got all tangled up on this one.
How’d you do on today’s Pips? Let me know!
Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. Be sure to follow me for all your daily puzzle-solving guides, TV show and movie reviews and more here on this blog!
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2026/01/20/nyt-pips-wednesday/
