Welcome to your manual for Pips, the latest addition to the New York Times game lineup.

Released in August 2025, Pips provides an innovative take on dominoes, offering an enjoyable single-player experience that could become part of your daily gaming habits.

At present, if you find yourself in a bind, the game permits you to unveil the entire puzzle, necessitating a shift to the next level of difficulty and beginning anew. But fear not, we’ve got assistance for you! Below are step-by-step answers that will act as clues to help you maneuver through each difficulty level.

How to play Pips

If you’re familiar with dominoes, you’ll grasp the fundamentals of Pips easily. As noted in our earlier hint articles for Pips, the tiles, like dominoes, can be positioned vertically or horizontally and connect to one another. The primary distinction between standard dominoes and Pips lies in the color-coded requirements you must fulfill. The adjoining tiles do not necessarily need to correspond.

The requirements you need to satisfy pertain to the color-coded areas. For example, if a solitary number is indicated, all sides of a tile in that area must total the specified number. It is typical – and quite common – for only half of a tile to fall within a color-coded region.

Here are typical scenarios you’ll face across the difficulty levels:

• Number: All the pips within this area must sum up to the specified number.

• Equal: Every half domino in this area should have the identical number of pips.

• Not Equal: Each half domino in this area must feature distinct numbers of pips.

• Less than: Each domino half in this area must sum to less than the specified number.

• Greater than: Each domino half in this area must total more than the indicated number.

If an area is devoid of color coding, it signifies that there are no constraints on the sections of dominoes within those areas.

Easy difficulty hints, solutions for Nov. 19 Pips

Number (4): All elements in this purple area must total 4. The solution