Pips

About Pips

Pips is The New York Times' first original logic puzzle. The idea came out of an internal game jam in May 2024, where puzzle designer Heidi Erwin and colleagues started experimenting with a box of physical dominoes, and early versions were tested on paper. The game went into beta in Canada on April 18, 2025 and launched for everyone on August 18, 2025. Puzzle editor Ian Livengood edits and test-solves each puzzle.

Each puzzle gives you a board of squares and a tray of dominoes, each half showing zero to six dots. Parts of the board are shaded into regions, and a small label on each region sets its condition. A number means the dots in that region must add up to it. An equals sign means every half in the region shows the same count, a not-equals sign means they all differ, and a less-than or greater-than sign sets a limit on the total. Some squares have no rule at all. You drag the dominoes into place and tap to turn them until the whole board is covered and every rule holds.

Unlike a real game of dominoes, touching ends do not have to match, and there is no way to lose: if your board is wrong, the game says so and you keep rearranging. The Easy puzzle uses only a handful of dominoes, while the Hard one can use up to sixteen.

Pips suits players who like Sudoku or LinkedIn's grid games and want something a little more hands-on. It is one of the few Times games that remains completely free to play.

How to play Pips

1. Pick today's Easy, Medium or Hard puzzle.
2. Read the label on each coloured region: a target sum, equal, not equal, less than or greater than.
3. Drag a domino from the tray onto two neighbouring squares of the board.
4. Tap a placed domino to rotate it, or drag it elsewhere to try another spot.
5. Keep placing dominoes until every square is covered and every region's rule is met.

Tips

• Start with the strictest regions, such as small exact sums or equals regions, before the loose less-than and greater-than ones.
• A region that must total a small number allows very few dominoes; a sum of 2 over two squares can only be 0 and 2 or 1 and 1.
• Use squares with no rule to park the half of a domino you do not need.
• Count how many of each dot value are in the tray; a not-equal region cannot take two of the same.
• Work the Easy puzzle first to get used to the rules before trying the Hard one.

Questions