NYT Pips: Master Domino Puzzles with These Expert Hints

The New York Times’ latest daily game, Pips, offers a fresh take on dominoes, challenging players to strategically place tiles to meet specific conditions. Released in August 2025, Pips has quickly become a favorite for puzzle enthusiasts. If you find yourself stuck on a particular level, this guide provides piecemeal hints and answers for easy, medium, and hard difficulties on November 27, 2025.

What it is: Pips is a single-player puzzle game from The New York Times, akin to dominoes but with unique color-coded placement rules.
Objective: Strategically place domino tiles to satisfy numerical and equality conditions within designated spaces.
Challenge: The game offers difficulty levels and specific challenges that can stump even experienced players.
This Guide: Provides targeted hints and answers for November 27, 2025, to help you progress without revealing the entire solution at once.

How to Play Pips

Pips builds upon the familiar concept of dominoes but introduces a set of color-coded constraints. Tiles are placed vertically or horizontally, and their values must adhere to the rules of the space they occupy. Unlike traditional dominoes, adjacent tiles don’t always need to match, but the numbers within specific colored zones must meet certain criteria.

NYT Pips: Master Domino Puzzles with These Expert Hints detail — AI Analysis: NYT Pips: Master Domino Puzzles with These Expert Hints

Understanding Pips Conditions:

Number: The sum of all pips within the space must equal the specified number.
Equal: All domino halves within the space must share the same pip count.
Not Equal: Every domino half in the space must have a different pip count.
Less Than: The sum of pips in the space must be less than the specified number.
Greater Than: The sum of pips in the space must be greater than the specified number.

Spaces without color coding have no specific placement requirements.

Pips Hints and Answers: November 27, 2025

Easy Difficulty

Number (3): Requires a total of 3. Solution: 0-5, placed horizontally.
Number (5): Requires a total of 5. Solution: 0-5, placed horizontally.
Number (1): Requires a total of 1. Solution: 0-5, placed horizontally.
Number (2): Requires a total of 2. Solution: 0-5, placed horizontally.

Medium Difficulty

Less Than (3): All pips must sum to less than 3. Solution: 0-4, placed horizontally.
Equal (4): All pips in this red space must equal 4. Solution: 0-4, placed horizontally; 4-3, placed vertically.
Equal (5): All pips in this light blue space must equal 5. Solution: 5-5, placed vertically.
Equal (4): All pips in this green space must equal 4. Solution: 4-4, placed horizontally; 4-5, placed horizontally.
Number (6): Requires a total of 6. Solution: 6-1, placed horizontally; 4-5, placed horizontally.

Hard Difficulty

Number (12): Requires a total of 12. Solution: 2-6, placed vertically; 6-0, placed horizontally.
Greater Than (2): All pips must be greater than 2. Solution: 3-6, placed horizontally.
Equal (6): All pips in this light blue space must equal 6. Solution: 3-6, placed horizontally; 6-4, placed vertically.
Equal (4): All pips in this dark blue space must equal 4. Solution: 1-4, placed horizontally; 6-4, placed vertically.
Equal (0): All pips must equal 0. Solution: 5-0, placed horizontally; 6-0, placed horizontally; 0-0, placed vertically; 0-2, placed vertically.
Equal (5): All pips in this green space must equal 5. Solution: 5-5, placed vertically; 5-4, placed vertically.
Equal (2): All pips in this red space must equal 2. Solution: 0-2, placed vertically; 2-4, placed horizontally.
Equal (4): All pips in this light blue space must equal 4. Solution: 5-4, placed vertically; 2-4, placed horizontally.