Happy Friday and we’re thrilled to present your guide to Pips, the newest game added to the New York Times collection.

Launched in August 2025, Pips provides an innovative twist on dominoes, offering an enjoyable single-player experience that could very well turn into your next daily gaming obsession.

At the moment, if you find yourself at an impasse, the game merely lets you unveil the full puzzle, compelling you to progress to a higher difficulty level and restart. Nonetheless, we’ve got you sorted! Below are segmented answers that will act as clues to help you navigate each difficulty tier.

How to play Pips

If you’ve ever engaged with dominoes, you’ll have a basic understanding of how Pips operates. As mentioned in our previous hint articles for Pips, the tiles, akin to dominoes, are arranged either vertically or horizontally and interconnect with one another. The primary distinction between a standard domino game and Pips lies in the color-coded rules you need to follow. The adjacent tiles don’t necessarily need to correspond.

The rules you must adhere to are unique to the color-coded areas. For instance, if it presents a singular number, every side of a tile in that area must total the specified number. It is not unusual – and quite common – for only part of a tile to fit within a color-coded region.

Here are some typical examples you will encounter at the various difficulty levels:

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

• Equal: Every half tile in this area must feature the identical number of pips.

• Not Equal: Every domino half in this area must showcase a completely distinct number of pips.

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

• Greater than: Every domino half in this area must add up to more than the specified number.

If a section lacks any color coding, it indicates that there are no restrictions on the parts of the dominoes within those areas.

Easy difficulty hints, answers for Oct. 25 Pips

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