Get stuck, and your only escape is to reveal the entire solution.
Each midnight, the New York Times resets its newest daily puzzle — Pips — inviting players into a quiet contest of logic and number, where domino tiles must satisfy color-coded mathematical rules across three tiers of difficulty. Like the ancient game it borrows from, Pips asks us to find order within constraint, to see how pieces fit not just beside one another, but within the conditions the world imposes on them. On September 5, puzzle number 37 offered fresh arrangements of that challenge, and Hindustan Times stepped in as guide for those who sought the path through.
- NYT Pips arrived as a domino-logic hybrid that raises the stakes beyond simple matching — colored zones impose arithmetic rules that can stop even confident solvers cold.
- The September 5 puzzle, number 37, presented three escalating difficulty tiers, with Hard mode demanding players work backward from constraints like a required pip sum of zero or eighteen.
- Solvers who hit a wall face an all-or-nothing escape: reveal the full solution, which immediately advances the board to the next puzzle, erasing any chance to linger.
- Hindustan Times published tile-by-tile solutions for Easy, Medium, and Hard, giving readers both the answers and the underlying logic needed to understand why each placement works.
- The game resets at midnight and runs on mobile and web, quietly positioning itself alongside Wordle and Connections as a fixture in the growing NYT Games daily ritual.
The New York Times has added another daily puzzle to its growing roster — this one called Pips, resetting every night at midnight just like Wordle and Connections. But where those games trade in words, Pips borrows its soul from dominoes, the tile game built on matching numbers and patterns. The difference here is that players must satisfy color-coded zones on the board, each carrying its own mathematical rule: some demand a target sum, others require equal or unequal halves, and still others impose upper or lower bounds on the values placed within them. Uncolored spaces offer the only breathing room.
For September 5 — puzzle number 37 — solutions spanned three difficulty levels. Easy kept the arithmetic accessible: a zone totaling 3 needed just a single vertical 3-3 domino, while a zone totaling 7 accepted a horizontal 3-5 paired with a 2-3. Equal spaces on Easy rewarded straightforward matching, filling zones with dominoes that all shared a common half.
Medium raised the complexity by forcing players to think across the board rather than zone by zone. A "Less than 4" space required tiles whose values stayed beneath the threshold — a 2-5 placed horizontally alongside a vertical 1-6. An "Equal 4" space needed every tile to show a 4 on one side, interlocking three dominoes in careful orientation.
Hard mode pushed the logic furthest. One space demanded a pip total of zero — seemingly impossible until the 0-0 domino enters the picture, paired with tiles like 4-0, 5-0, and 0-6. Another required a sum of 18, solvable only by reaching for the highest-value tiles available. Players who cannot find the path forward may reveal the full solution, though doing so immediately advances the board to the next puzzle.
Pips is available through the New York Times Games app and in web browsers, playable across devices. For those willing to learn its color-coded grammar, the logic becomes navigable — and for those who simply want the answer, the solutions are there, patient and complete.
The New York Times released a new daily puzzle game called Pips, and like its cousins Wordle and Connections, it resets every night at midnight. Unlike those word games, though, Pips borrows its logic from dominoes—the classic tile game where you match numbers and patterns. The twist is that instead of simply pairing identical pips, you're working within color-coded zones that impose specific mathematical and logical constraints. Get stuck, and your only escape is to reveal the entire solution, which automatically advances you to the next puzzle.
If you've ever played dominoes, the basic mechanics will feel familiar. Each tile can be placed either horizontally or vertically on the board. But the real challenge comes from the colored spaces, each with its own rule. A space marked "Number" requires all the pips in that zone to add up to a target sum. An "Equal" space demands that every domino half show the same number. "Not Equal" means no two halves can match. "Less than" and "Greater than" spaces impose upper and lower bounds on the values you can place. Uncolored areas offer freedom—you can place tiles there without restriction.
For September 5, puzzle number 37, the New York Times Games team provided solutions across three difficulty tiers. On the Easy level, solvers faced straightforward arithmetic: a Number space totaling 3 required a single 3-3 domino placed vertically, while a Number space totaling 7 could be solved with a 3-5 domino and a 2-3 domino positioned horizontally. The Equal spaces on Easy demanded matching halves—a space requiring all tiles to equal 3 could be filled with three dominoes: 3-5, 3-3, and 3-1, all placed vertically.
Medium difficulty introduced more complex layering. A "Less than 4" space required careful selection—the solution used a 2-5 domino placed horizontally and a 1-6 domino placed vertically, ensuring no value exceeded the threshold. An "Equal 4" space needed multiple tiles all showing 4 on one half: 4-4 placed horizontally, 4-2 placed vertically, and 4-5 placed horizontally. The Medium tier demanded players think not just about individual spaces but about how tiles could interlock across the board.
Hard difficulty escalated the cognitive load significantly. One space required all pips to total 0—a constraint that sounds impossible until you realize the domino 0-0 exists, and can be paired with tiles like 4-0, 5-0, and 0-6, all placed horizontally. Another space demanded a sum of 18, solvable only with the highest-value dominoes: 0-6 and 6-6, both placed horizontally. The Hard tier forced players to work backward from constraints, imagining which tiles could possibly satisfy multiple overlapping conditions.
Pips is available on the New York Times Games app and through web browsers, playable on mobile devices and desktops alike. The game offers three difficulty levels—Easy, Medium, and Hard—giving players a choice in how much they want to wrestle with the logic. For those who want to solve it themselves, understanding the rule types is the key: master how each color-coded space works, and the path forward becomes clearer. For those who want the answer, the full solutions are there, waiting to be revealed.
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
So this is a domino game, but not like the dominoes your grandmother played. What makes it different?
The dominoes are just the vehicle. What matters is the logic underneath. You're not matching pips to pips in sequence—you're satisfying constraints. A space might say "all these halves must equal 3," and you have to find the dominoes that fit.
And if you get stuck, you can't just skip one tile. You have to blow up the whole puzzle.
Right. That's the design choice that makes it harder than Wordle. There's no partial credit, no hint system that lets you keep playing. It's solve it or surrender.
What's the hardest part for someone new to the game?
Probably visualizing how the constraints interact. On Easy, each space is isolated. By Hard, you're placing a single domino that has to satisfy conditions in two different colored zones at once. You have to think in layers.
Is there a strategy, or is it just trial and error?
Strategy matters. Work backward from the tightest constraint. If a space needs to sum to 0, you know exactly which dominoes can go there. Once you place those, other spaces become easier to fill.
Why would the Times make a game where failure means total restart?
It mirrors the satisfaction of dominoes themselves—there's a moment where everything clicks into place, where the last tile fits perfectly. That moment is worth more if the alternative is complete erasure.