The New York Times’ games are kind of a big deal. The crossword is the OG game, of course, but newer games are now equally iconic. Wordle , Connections , Strands —these are games played by people of all ages and skill levels. (I do not have the brain for Connections, myself.)
Now, The New York Times is out with a brand new game: Pips . The name sounds simple and cute, but I have a feeling this game is going to be deceptively mind-boggling.
What is Pips?
Pips is a logic game played with dominoes. (A “pip” is the black dot on a domino, which The New York Times cleverly featured in the Mini last week.) The goal is simple: Place the dominoes where they’re supposed to be. The execution, however, is anything but. There are a number of “regions” you must pay attention to on the board, each with its own rule. The “number” region means your dominoes numbers need to add up to the corresponding region number. If the number is “2,” for example, and the region has two spaces, you can place two ends each with one pip. If there is one space, you can play one domino end with two pips.
“Equal sign” regions mean the pips in this space must be the same, while “not equal sign” regions cannot add up to the same number. If there are two spots in the equal sign region, you can place two domino ends containing four pips each. “Less than” regions means your pips need to add up to less than the number of the region, while “greater than” regions have the opposite condition. If the less than region is “7,” your pips need to add up to six or fewer. Finally, there are empty regions. No rules apply here, so you can place whatever dominoes you want.
This is The New York Times’ first game to add a “drag-and-drop” component. You can tap each of your available dominoes to rotate them, then press and drag to bring it where you want it. It works well, though I’d encourage the Games team to add haptic feedback whenever you interact with the dominoes for an extra tactile effect.
Like the other games, Pips is a daily challenge, with three difficulty levels: easy, medium, and hard. When you first boot Pips up, you’re given a choice to play or skip a tutorial. I’d recommend you play it: This is a difficult game to explain in text, so playing the game is a much better way to learn.
In my brief experience with the game, I will say the easy puzzle seems relatively easy, though the hard one does seem complex, offering the player larger boards with more difficult region placements. If you give the game a shot, let me know in the comments what you think of it.
