NYT Pips hints, answers for September 27, 2026

Welcome to your comprehensive guide for the Pips game, released by the New York Times in August 2025. This unique dominoes variation offers a single-player experience that you may find yourself playing daily. While the game can become challenging, we're here to help you with a series of piecemeal hints to guide you through each difficulty level.

To play Pips, recall your basic knowledge of dominoes. You'll place tiles vertically or horizontally, connecting them to one another. The main difference from traditional dominoes is the color-coded conditions you must meet. These conditions don't require matching tiles, just fulfilling specific criteria based on the color-coded spaces.

For the easy difficulty, you'll find hints such as:

- Equal (3): Both domino halves in this space must equal 3. Possible answers are 3-3 (horizontal) and 3-4 (vertical).

- Number (10): All pips in this purple space must total 10. Answers include 3-4 (vertical) and 6-5 (horizontal).

Medium difficulty hints include:

- Equal (0): Every domino half in this space must be equal to 0. Possible answers are 3-0 (horizontal) and 0-0 (horizontal).

- Greater Than (4): All pips in this light blue space must be greater than 4. The answer is 6-5 (horizontal).

Hard difficulty hints include:

- Equal (3): Every domino half in this space must equal 3. Answers are 3-1 (horizontal) and 3-3 (vertical).

- Number (3): Pips in this space must total 3. Answers are 3-1 (horizontal) and 2-6 (vertical).

- Number (8): Pips in this space must add up to 8. Answers are 2-6 (vertical) and 2-3 (vertical).

Remember, if a color-coded space is empty, it means there are no specific conditions for the tiles within that space. With these hints, you should be well on your way to mastering Pips.