Your guide to Pips, the latest entry in the New York Times games lineup, is here!

Released in August 2025, Pips brings a new perspective on dominoes, offering a charming single-player challenge that could easily become part of your daily gaming ritual.

At present, if you find yourself at a standstill, the game only permits revealing the entire puzzle, pushing you to proceed to a higher difficulty level and begin again. But there’s no need to fret, as we have assistance ready for you! Below are detailed solutions that will serve as clues to help you through each level of difficulty.

How to play Pips

If you have experience with dominoes, you’ll grasp the basics of how Pips operates. As noted in our previous hints for Pips, the tiles, much like dominoes, can be arranged vertically or horizontally and connect with one another. The primary distinction between classic dominoes and Pips lies in the color-coded requirements you must fulfill. The adjoining tiles are not necessarily required to match.

The requirements you need to satisfy are particular to the color-coded areas. For example, if a single digit is presented, all sides of a tile in that area must total the specified number. It is common – and achievable – for only part of a tile to fall within a color-coded region.

Here are typical scenarios you will face across the levels of difficulty:

• Number: All the pips in this designated area must sum up to the indicated number.

• Equal: Each half of the domino in this area must contain the same number of pips.

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

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

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

If an area is free of color coding, it indicates there are no restrictions on the parts of dominoes situated in those sections.

Easy difficulty hints, answers for Dec. 15 Pips

Less Than (5): All elements in this purple region must be less than 5