NYT Pips Hints and Answers for September 2, 2026: Complete Guide

Welcome to your daily guide for Pips, the newest addition to the New York Times Games catalog. Released in August 2025, Pips reimagines classic dominoes as a compelling single-player logic puzzle perfect for a daily gaming habit. If you find yourself stuck, the in-game hint system currently reveals the entire solution, forcing a restart on the next difficulty tier. Below, we provide progressive, piecemeal hints to help you solve each puzzle without spoiling the full board.

How to Play Pips: Rules and Mechanics

If you have played traditional dominoes, the core mechanics of Pips will feel familiar. Tiles are placed vertically or horizontally and connect to adjacent pieces. However, Pips introduces a critical twist: color-coded conditional spaces that dictate the value of the pips (dots) occupying them. Unlike standard dominoes, touching tiles do not necessarily need to match numbers.

Each colored zone on the grid enforces a specific mathematical rule. It is common for only half of a domino tile to sit inside a conditioned space. Here are the standard condition types you will encounter across all difficulty levels:

• Number: The sum of all pips within the space must equal the displayed number.
• Equal: Every domino half in the space must display the identical number of pips.
• Not Equal: Every domino half in the space must show a different number of pips.
• Less Than: The sum of pips on every domino half in the space must be lower than the displayed number.
• Greater Than: The sum of pips on every domino half in the space must exceed the displayed number.

Note: Areas without color coding have no conditions; tiles placed there are unrestricted.

Easy Difficulty Hints and Solutions

Here are the tile placements for the Easy puzzle on September 2, 2026:

• Number (4) — Red Space: Everything must add up to 4. Answer: 4-4, placed horizontally.
• Number (4) — Light Blue Space: Everything must add up to 4. Answer: 4-1, placed vertically.
• Number (4) — Purple Space: Everything must add up to 4. Answer: 4-4, placed horizontally; 0-4, placed vertically.
• Number (4) — Orange Space: Everything must add up to 4. Answer: 0-4, placed vertically; 0-3, placed horizontally.
• Less Than (4): Everything must be less than 4. Answer: 0-3, placed horizontally.

Medium Difficulty Hints and Solutions

Solutions for the Medium puzzle on September 2, 2026:

• Number (3): Everything must add up to 3. Answer: 0-5, placed vertically; 3-4, placed vertically.
• Equal (4): Everything must equal 4. Answer: 3-4, placed vertically; 4-5, placed horizontally.
• Greater Than (4): Everything must be greater than 4. Answer: 4-5, placed horizontally.
• Greater Than (4): Everything must be greater than 4. Answer: 6-5, placed horizontally.
• Equal (5): Everything must equal 5. Answer: 0-5, placed vertically; 6-5, placed horizontally; 5-3, placed vertically.
• Less Than (2): Everything must be less than 2. Answer: 1-3, placed vertically.
• Number (9): Everything must add up to 9. Answer: 2-3, placed horizontally; 5-3, placed vertically; 1-3, placed vertically.

Hard Difficulty Hints and Solutions

Solutions for the Hard puzzle on September 2, 2026:

• Number (12): Everything must add up to 12. Answer: 6-5, placed vertically; 6-4, placed vertically.
• Less Than (3): Everything must be less than 3. Answer: 2-4, placed horizontally.
• Greater Than (3): Everything must be greater than 3. Answer: 6-4, placed vertically; 5-4, placed horizontally.
• Greater Than (3): Everything must be greater than 3. Answer: 6-4, placed horizontally.
• Equal (2): Everything must equal 2. Answer: 2-2, placed vertically; 2-6, placed vertically.
• Equal (5): Everything must equal 5. Answer: 5-5, placed vertically; 6-5, placed vertically; 5-0, placed horizontally.
• Less Than (3): Everything must be less than 3. Answer: 5-0, placed horizontally.
• Number (1): Everything must add up to 1. Answer: 1-4, placed horizontally.
• Equal (4): Everything must equal 4. Answer: 2-4, placed horizontally; 5-4, placed horizontally; 4-4, placed vertically; 1-4, placed horizontally; 4-3, placed vertically.
• Number (12): Everything must add up to 12. Answer: 2-6, placed vertically; 6-1, placed horizontally.
• Number (8): Everything must add up to 8. Answer: 0-3, placed horizontally; 5-3, placed horizontally.
• Equal (3) — Green Space: Everything must equal 3. Answer: 5-3, placed horizontally; 4-3, placed vertically.

More Daily Puzzles and Games

Looking for more challenges? Mashable’s games hub offers a variety of free daily puzzles including Mahjong, Sudoku, free crosswords, and more.