NYT Pips Today: Hints, Answers And Walkthrough For Tuesday, April 21

Welcome back, Pipsqueaks. Today’s NYT Pips puzzles are a lot of fun, though once again I found myself struggling with the Medium puzzle more than the Hard puzzle today. I’m curious to know if any of you had a similar experience. Grab some dominos and let’s do this thing!

Looking fo Monday’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. 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

Today’s Medium Pips

Hard Pips Walkthrough And Solution

Here’s today’s Hard Pips:

I actually missed that today’s Hard Pips was a “J” until I began writing this guide. I was just looking at the tiles so closely. Some clues: All four 6’s are instantly accounted for: two in Orange 12, one in Dark Blue 6 and one in the Orange ≠ group. This felt like a good place to start, so without examining anything else too closely, that’s what I did.

Step 1

Start with the 3/6 domino from Green 6 over into Orange 12 and the 6/5 domino from Orange 12 up into Purple 12. The 3/4 domino finishes up Purple 12 and the 0/1 domino goes from Green 0 up into Pink 2. Next, place the 6/6 domino from Dark Blue 6 down into Orange ≠. We know it can’t go to the left since we’ll have a domino from Purple = going that way.

Step 2

Place the 1/4 domino from Pink 2 over into Purple = and the 4/0 domino from Purple = down into Orange ≠. Now, as I’ve said countless times, ≠ groups are almost always where you’ll stick your doubles, so place the 4/4 domino from Blue 4 into Orange ≠ and the 1/1 domino from Pink < 2 into Orange ≠.

Solution

Place the 3/2 in the two right tiles of Orange ≠ and the 5/5 domino (another double!) from Orange ≠ down into Blue 10. The 5/4 domino goes from Blue 10 down into Dark Blue 9 and the 5/3 domino goes from Dark Blue 9 over into Green 6. And that’s a wrap!

Honestly, this was another one where I just placed everything as I went around and, based on the correct assumptions I made, didn’t have to make any adjustments as I went around the board. I think these ≠ groups actually make most Pips easier!

How’d you do on today’s Pips? Let me know!

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