How to play NYT Pips
Unofficial hints. Not affiliated with The New York Times.
NYT Pips is a domino puzzle. You get a set of dominoes and a board marked with colored regions, and every domino has to go down somewhere so that each region's rule is satisfied. The uncolored cells carry no rule at all — they simply have to be covered.
What makes it a logic puzzle rather than a fitting exercise is that the regions constrain numbers, not shapes: a region can demand a total, or that its halves all show the same number, or that they are all different. Because a domino can lie across the border between two regions, one placement often answers two rules at once.
NYT Pips at a glance
- Board
- A board of cells with colored regions, plus a set of dominoes
- Goal
- Place every domino so that each colored region satisfies its rule
- New puzzle
- Every day at midnight in your own time zone All reset times
- Where to play
- NYT Games website and app
The rules
- Every domino is used once.
- Each domino covers two neighboring squares, and you can turn it any way.
- A number means the pips in that region add up to it.
- = means every half in the region shows the same number. ≠ means they're all different.
- < and > set a limit: the total stays under (<) or over (>) that number.
- Squares with no color have no rule and only have to be covered. A domino can cross from one region into another.
How a game goes, step by step
- Read every region before you place a single domino, and begin with the one-cell regions. A rule on one cell names the half that has to sit there, or narrows it to very few numbers.
- Move on to the tight sums. A small total across a small region allows only a few pairs of numbers, and often only one domino in your set can supply them.
- Check which regions a domino would straddle before you commit it. One half answers to one region's rule and the other half to its neighbor's, and that is where most of the difficulty lives.
- Cross each domino off the set as you use it. The set shrinks as you go, so a region that looked open often turns out to have only one supplier left.
- Finish with the loose regions — the limits set by < and >, and the uncolored cells — since a limit leaves more room than an exact total and can absorb whatever is left over.
Three tips for your first games
- An = region unravels in one step: the moment you know one half inside it, you know every other half in it as well.
- A ≠ region gets harder as it gets bigger, because every half inside it has to show a different number from all the others.
- Count before you place. If a region needs a total your remaining dominoes cannot reach, the mistake is in a domino you put down earlier.
Questions about NYT Pips
Do I have to use every domino in Pips?
Yes. The whole set goes down, so a board that satisfies every region but leaves a domino over isn't finished. That makes a useful check as you solve: compare what is left in the set with the cells still bare.
Can one domino sit in two regions?
Yes, and often it has to. A domino can straddle the border between two regions, with each half counting toward the rule of the region it lands in. Beginners tend to treat regions as separate boxes, which makes some boards look impossible.
What are the uncolored cells for?
They still have to be covered by a domino, but they carry no rule, so they are where the flexibility on a board lives. When a region is tightly constrained, the uncolored cells beside it are usually how the leftover halves get absorbed.
When does a new NYT Pips puzzle come out?
NYT puzzles change at midnight in your own time zone, so players further east see the new puzzle first. Everyone gets the same puzzle for a given date.
Where can I play NYT Pips?
On the New York Times Games website and in the NYT Games app.
How do I get help without spoiling the puzzle?
Our daily NYT Pips page reveals hints one step at a time, from a gentle nudge to the full answer, so you only see as much as you need.