NYT Pips Today: Hints, Answers And Walkthrough For Saturday, February 7
The time has come. It’s Saturday at last — the first full weekend of February — and we have an Easy, Medium and Hard Pips to solve. The NYT puzzle games don’t care if it’s a weekday or a weekend, after all. Grab your dominos, Pipsqueaks, and let’s get to it!
Looking for Friday’s Pip? Read our guide right here.
How To Play Pips
In Pips, you have a grid of multicolored boxes. Each colored area represents a different “condition” that you have to achieve. You have a select number of dominoes that you have to spend filling in the grid. You must use every domino and achieve every condition properly to win. There are Easy, Medium and Difficult tiers.
Here’s an example of a difficult tier Pips:
Pips example
Screenshot: Erik Kain
As you can see, the grid has a bunch of symbols and numbers with each color. On the far left, the three purple squares must not equal one another (hence the equal sign crossed out). The two pink squares next to that must equal a total of 0. The zig-zagging blue squares all must equal one another. You click on dominoes to rotate them, and will need to since they have to be rotated to fit where they belong.
Not shown on this grid are other conditions, such as “less than” or “greater than.” If there are multiple tiles with > or < signs, the total of those tiles must be greater or less than the listed number. It varies by grid. Blank spaces can have anything. The various possible conditions are:
- = All pips must equal one another in this group.
- ≠ All pips must not equal one another in this group.
- > The pip in this tile (or tiles) must be greater than the listed number.
- < The pip in this tile must be less than the listed number.
- An exact number (like 6) The pip must equal this exact number.
- Tiles with no conditions can be anything.
In order to win, you have to use up all your dominoes by filling in all the squares, making sure to fit each condition. Sometimes there’s only one way to solve the puzzle. Other times, there can be two or more different solutions. Play today’s Pips puzzle here.
Today’s Pips Solutions And Walkthrough
Below are the solutions for the Easy and Medium tier Pips. After that, I’ll walk you through the Hard puzzle. Spoilers ahead.
Today’s Easy Pips
Easy Pips
Screenshot: Erik Kain
Today’s Medium Pips
Medium Pips
Screenshot: Erik Kain
Hard Pips Walkthrough And Solution
Here’s today’s Hard Pips:
Hard Pips
Screenshot: Erik Kain
This is a very sneaky Hard Pips. It tricks you into thinking you need to place every domino from one group of two to the next, like a staircase. But the key to solving today’s puzzle — one I missed at first — is the Green 2 group on the right. There’s a domino in our stash that can complete that on its own, breaking the chain, as it were. We also know the 6 domino needs to go in Pink 11. That’s enough to solve the Pips, basically.
Step 1
Begin by placing the 1/1 domino into the Green 2 group. Next, place the 5/6 domino from Orange 10 into Pink 11. Place the 5/4 domino from Pink 11 up into Orange 9 and the 5/1 domino from Orange 9 over into Pink 3.
Hard Pips
Screenshot: Erik Kain
Step 2
Next, place the 5/2 domino from Orange 10 over into Blue 6, and the 4/3 domino from Blue 6 into Purple 4. The 1/3 domino goes from Purple 4 into Dark Blue 7.
Hard Pips
Screenshot: Erik Kain
Solution
Next, place the 4/4 domino from Dark Blue 7 into Blue 8 and the 4/1 domino from Blue 8 into Purple 5. Finally, the 4/2 domino goes from Purple 5 into Pink 3 and we’ve come full circle. Voila!
Hard Pips
Screenshot: Erik Kain
This was a great puzzle. I love how the entire thing hinged on Green 2, and how easy it is to miss that. Once you figure it out, the Pips is pretty easy, but until you do, it’s a bit like you’re flying blind with all these total groups and no greater than or equals and so forth.
How’d you do on today’s Pips? Let me know!
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