How to play Pips, the newest NYT game

The New York Times has launched Pips, the latest entry in its daily habit-forming catalogue of games that includes Wordle, Connections, and Strands.

Released in August 2025, Pips is dominoes with a twist. You don’t have to be good at dominoes to be good at Pips, which is designed to be a single-player experience.

How to play Pips

If you’ve ever played dominoes, you’ll have a solid foundation for Pips. Like dominoes, the tiles are placed vertically or horizontally and connect with each other. The key difference for Pips is the color-coded conditions you have to address. Unlike dominoes, touching tiles don’t have to match.

The conditions you have to meet are specific to the color-coded spaces. For example, if it provides a single number, every side of a tile in that space must add up to the number provided. It is possible — and common — for only half a tile to be within a color-coded space.

There are three difficulty levels: Easy, Medium, and Hard. The more difficult the setting, the more tiles to place and the more conditions that must be met.

Here are common examples you’ll run into across difficulty levels:

• Number: All the pips in this space must add up to the number.

• Equal: Every domino half in this space must be the same number of pips.

• Not Equal: Every domino half in this space must have a completely different number of pips.

• Less than: Every domino half in this space must add up to less than the number.

• Greater than: Every domino half in this space must add up to more than the number.

If an area does not have any color coding, it means there are no conditions on the portions of dominoes within those spaces.

If you get stuck, check out our hints for today’s Pips puzzle.

If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.