Pips is The New York Times’ daily puzzle game that puts a fresh spin on traditional dominoes. Released in August 2025, the single-player game challenges you to arrange domino tiles according to color-coded conditions.
When you need help, Pips currently reveals the entire puzzle rather than offering individual hints. The clues below provide step-by-step assistance for the Easy, Medium, and Hard difficulty levels without giving away more than necessary.
How to play Pips
If you have played dominoes, you will recognize the basic mechanics of Pips. Tiles can be placed vertically or horizontally and must connect with one another. However, unlike traditional dominoes, connected tiles do not necessarily need to match.
Instead, each color-coded space has a condition that the tiles within it must satisfy. A tile may also sit partly inside a color-coded space, meaning only one half of the domino is subject to that space’s condition.
- Number: All the pips in the space must add up to the displayed number.
- Equal: Every domino half in the space must contain the same number of pips.
- Not Equal: Every domino half in the space must contain a different number of pips.
- Less than: Every domino half in the space must add up to less than the displayed number.
- Greater than: Every domino half in the space must add up to more than the displayed number.
Spaces without color coding have no conditions for the portions of dominoes placed inside them.
Easy Pips hints and answers for August 30
- Equal (1): Everything in this space must be equal to 1. The answer is 1-2, placed vertically; 1-5, placed vertically.
- Equal (2): Everything in this space must be equal to 2. The answer is 2-6, placed vertically; 1-2, placed vertically.
- Number (9): Everything in this space must add up to 9. The answer is 1-5, placed vertically; 4-3, placed vertically.
- Number (12): Everything in this space must add up to 12. The answer is 2-6, placed vertically; 6-6, placed horizontally.
- Number (9): Everything in this space must add up to 9. The answer is 6-6, placed horizontally; 4-3, placed vertically.
Medium Pips hints and answers for August 30
- Greater Than (2): Everything in this space must be greater than 2. The answer is 3-0, placed vertically.
- Equal (0): Everything in this space must be equal to 0. The answer is 3-0, placed vertically; 0-2, placed vertically.
- Equal (2): Everything in this space must be equal to 2. The answer is 2-1, placed vertically; 0-2, placed vertically.
- Equal (4): Everything in this space must be equal to 4. The answer is 4-1, placed vertically; 2-4, placed vertically; 4-5, placed vertically.
- Number (1): Everything in this space must add up to 1. The answer is 4-1, placed vertically.
- Number (2): Everything in this space must add up to 2. The answer is 2-1, placed vertically; 1-0, placed horizontally.
- Less Than (2): Everything in this space must be less than 2. The answer is 1-0, placed horizontally.
- Greater Than (9): Everything in this space must be greater than 9. The answer is 4-5, placed vertically; 1-6, placed horizontally.
Hard Pips hints and answers for August 30
- Number (4): Everything in this space must add up to 4. The answer is 2-2, placed horizontally.
- Number (6): Everything in this space must add up to 6. The answer is 1-0, placed vertically; 5-6, placed horizontally.
- Number (6): Everything in this space must add up to 6. The answer is 5-6, placed horizontally.
- Less Than (3): Everything in this space must be less than 3. The answer is 1-4, placed horizontally.
- Equal (4): Everything in this space must be equal to 4. The answer is 4-4, placed vertically; 1-4, placed horizontally.
- Number (0): Everything in this space must add up to 0. The answer is 0-0, placed horizontally; 1-0, placed vertically; 0-3, placed horizontally.
- Equal (3): Everything in this space must be equal to 3. The answer is 0-3, placed horizontally.
- Number (6): Everything in this space must add up to 6. The answer is 6-3, placed horizontally.
- Number (6): Everything in this space must add up to 6. The answer is 6-2, placed horizontally.
- Number (3): Everything in this space must add up to 3. The answer is 3-4, placed horizontally.
- Number (6): Everything in this space must add up to 6. The answer is 3-4, placed horizontally.
- Greater Than (3): Everything in this space must be greater than 3. The answer is 5-4, placed horizontally.
- Equal (4): Everything in this space must be equal to 4. The answer is 5-4, placed horizontally; 4-2, placed vertically.
- Equal (5): Everything in this space must be equal to 5. The answer is 5-5, placed horizontally.
- Equal (2): Everything in this space must be equal to 2. The answer is 4-2, placed vertically; 2-1, placed vertically.
- Less Than (2): Everything in this space must be less than 2. The answer is 2-1, placed vertically.
Looking for more puzzles? Mashable’s games hub includes Mahjong, Sudoku, free crosswords, and more.
