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.