The New York Times Games team has a new daily obsession, and it has nothing to do with words. It’s called Pips, the first original logic puzzle NYT Games has ever built from scratch — and if you enjoy puzzles where arithmetic meets pure deduction, this one was designed for you.
Here’s everything you need to know: how Pips works, and the seven strategies that solve every board, from Easy to Hard.
What Is NYT Pips?
Pips is a domino-based logic puzzle that launched after a quiet beta period. According to the NYT Games team, it was born at an internal “Game Jam” — senior game designer Heidi Erwin prototyped the concept with a cart of physical dominoes on paper, and puzzle editor Ian Livengood helped shape it into a daily game.
The idea is simple: instead of guessing letters like Wordle, you’re fitting domino tiles onto a board so that every region’s numerical condition is satisfied at the same time.
How Pips Works
Each puzzle gives you:
- A tray of domino tiles, with standard 0–6 pip values on each half.
- A board split into colored zones. Every zone carries a condition, such as:
- Equal (=) — every domino half inside the zone must show the same number.
- Not equal (≠) — every domino half inside the zone must be different.
- Greater than (>) / Less than (<) — the pips in the zone must be greater or smaller than the number shown.
- Exact sum — the pips in the zone must add up to a specific total.
- Some blank areas have no restrictions at all — free placement.
You place every tile using drag and drop. There is no timer, no penalties, and no way to lose — you can revisit and fix mistakes freely. Finish fast and you earn a cookie: 20 seconds or less on Easy, 40 seconds on Medium, or 60 seconds on Hard.
There are three fresh puzzles every day — Easy, Medium, and Hard — in any order you like, and they refresh at midnight in your local timezone. Easy boards may use only four or five dominoes; Hard boards can demand up to 16 placements.
7 Strategies That Solve Every Pips Board
1. Start with the tightest zone
Scan the whole board before touching a tile. A single-cell “equals 5” zone, or a “less than 2” zone with only a few cells, allows almost no legal placements. Lock those in first — every tile you place there removes candidates from everywhere else.
2. Treat exact-sum zones as subset-sum problems
An exact-sum zone is pure arithmetic: the pips must add to the target. If a 4-cell zone must total 12, ask yourself which domino halves can legally combine to 12 given the tiles in your tray. Eliminate any half that can’t be part of a valid combination. This is where quick mental addition pays off — the same skill our sum and arithmetic tools are built for.
3. Use the “equal” zones to pin values
An equal (=) zone forces every half inside it to the same number, which means it can only contain dominoes that have that number on at least one end. If your tray has only two dominoes carrying a 6, and two equal zones both need a 6, you’ve just locked in two placements for free.
4. Read not-equal zones backwards
A not-equal (≠) zone bans repeats, so it punishes doubling up. If a zone holds four cells and three of your remaining dominoes all show a 3, you know at most one 3 can live there — which tells you where the other threes must go.
5. Work the edges and corners
Dominoes placed on edges and corners have fewer neighboring zones constraining them. Start from the outside in: place the dominoes that only fit in one spot, then let each placement narrow the neighbors. Momentum matters more than brute force.
6. Count what’s left in the tray
Keep a running tally of which dominoes you’ve used. When only two or three tiles remain, the leftover tiles usually have exactly one legal home — check the unfilled zones against your remaining tiles before guessing.
7. Do Easy before Hard
The three puzzles share the same rule set but ramp in size. Easy teaches you the current day’s quirks — a new zone shape or a tricky condition combo — so the Hard board takes half the time. And since there’s no penalty for wrong placements, experiment freely on Easy to build intuition.
A Worked Example
Imagine a small board with two zones:
- Zone A (exact sum 9) covers two cells.
- Zone B (equal) covers two cells.
- Your tray has the dominoes 3-6, 3-3, and 4-5.
Start with the tightest zone: Zone A needs two halves summing to 9. From the tray, the only halves that can pair to 9 are 3 + 6 (from the 3-6 domino) or 4 + 5 (from the 4-5 domino). So one of those two dominoes goes into Zone A.
Now look at Zone B: it needs both halves equal. The only domino with matching halves is 3-3, so it must go in Zone B. Done — and notice we never had to guess.
Real boards are bigger, but the method is identical: constrain, eliminate, then place.
FAQ
Is NYT Pips free?
Pips lives inside the NYT Games app and website alongside Wordle and Connections. Availability depends on your NYT Games subscription status — check the Games app for the current access details.
How many Pips puzzles are there per day?
Three: Easy, Medium, and Hard, all refreshed at midnight local time.
Is there a time limit?
No. There’s no timer and no way to lose — but solving quickly earns a cookie reward (20s / 40s / 60s for Easy / Medium / Hard).
Why is it called Pips?
“Pips” is the name for the dots on a domino tile — fitting, since the entire game is built around dominoes.
The Bottom Line
Pips is a rare thing: a puzzle that’s visual enough for non-native English speakers, deep enough for hardcore logic fans, and short enough for a coffee break. If you can add, compare, and eliminate, you can solve it — and the seven strategies above will get you through every board the NYT throws at you.
Love number puzzles? Explore Calc Solver’s free step-by-step calculators to sharpen the arithmetic behind your next solve.