Welcome to your comprehensive guide to Pips, the latest addition to the New York Times game lineup. Launched in August 2025, Pips presents a fresh take on dominoes, offering an engaging single-player challenge that might just turn into your new daily entertainment.

At present, if you find yourself at an impasse, the game permits you to unveil the entire puzzle, compelling you to advance to the next level of difficulty and restart. But don’t worry! Below are incremental hints designed to assist you in maneuvering through each difficulty tier.

How to engage with Pips

If you’ve ever engaged with dominoes, you will likely have a foundational grasp of how Pips operates. As we have detailed in our prior hint articles for Pips, the tiles, much like dominoes, may be arranged either vertically or horizontally and interconnect with one another. The primary distinction between a classic domino game and Pips lies in the color-coded criteria that need your attention. The adjacent tiles are not required to align perfectly.

The criteria you must fulfill are specific to the color-coded areas. For instance, if it specifies a single number, each side of a tile in that area must total that number. It is typical – and quite common – for just a portion of a tile to fall within a color-coded area.

Here are typical instances you will come across throughout the various difficulty levels:

– Number: All the pips within this area must sum to the specified number.
– Equal: Each half of the domino in this area must carry the same number of pips.
– Not Equal: Each half of the domino in this area must feature a completely distinct number of pips.
– Less than: The total of every domino half in this area must be under the specified number.
– Greater than: The total of every domino half in this area must be over the specified number.

If an area is devoid of any color coding, it signifies the absence of restrictions on the sections of the dominoes situated within those areas.

Easy difficulty hints, answers for March 21 Pips

– Equal (2): All elements of this area must equate to 2. The solution is 2-2, positioned horizontally.
– Equal (1): All elements of this area must equate to 1. The solution is 3-1, positioned vertically; 0-1, positioned horizontally.
– Number (0): All elements of this area must total 0. The solution is 0-1, positioned horizontally.

– Number (12): All elements of this area must total 12. The solution is 4-4, positioned horizontally; 4-0, positioned vertically.
– Number (0): All elements of this area must total 0. The solution is 2-0, positioned horizontally.

Medium difficulty hints, answers for March 21 Pips

– Greater Than (0): All elements of this area must exceed 0. The solution is 4-4, positioned horizontally.
– Equal (0): All elements of this area must equate to 0. The solution is 0-4, positioned vertically; 0-2, positioned vertically; 0-0, positioned horizontally.
– Less Than (3): All elements of this area must be under 3. The solution is 0-2, positioned vertically.
– Number (5): All elements of this area must total 5. The solution is 0-4, positioned vertically; 1-2, positioned vertically.
– Number (1): All elements of this area must total 1. The solution is 1-0, positioned vertically.
– Number (4): All elements of this area must total 4. The solution is 2-2, positioned vertically.
– Greater Than (1): All elements of this area must exceed 1. The solution is 1-2, positioned vertically.

Hard difficulty hints, answers for March 21 Pips

– Number (5): All elements in this purple area must total 5. The solution is 3-2, positioned horizontally.
– Greater Than (5): All elements of this area must exceed 5. The solution is 6-3, positioned horizontally.
– Number (5): All elements in this dark blue area must total 5. The solution is 6-3, positioned horizontally; 1-1, positioned vertically.
– Number (5): All elements in this orange area must total 5. The solution is 5-5, positioned horizontally.
– Number (5): All elements in this light blue area must total 5. The solution is 5-5, positioned horizontally.

– Number (5): All elements in this red area must total 5. The solution is 3-1, positioned horizontally; 1-0, positioned vertically.
– Number (5): All elements in this green area must total 5. The solution is 2-1, positioned horizontally.