How to play Pips

The goal

Place every domino from the tray onto the board so that each colored region obeys its rule. A domino covers two neighboring cells, one half in each, and each half shows a number of pips, the dots that give the game its name. A board is solved only when the whole tray is placed and every region rule on the board checks out at the same time.

How a round works

Step 1 - Pick a board. Pips comes as three boards of rising difficulty: Easy, Medium and Hard. The harder boards carry more dominoes and more regions, so Easy is the place to learn the rules.

Step 2 - Place a domino on two neighboring cells. A domino always covers two cells that sit side by side, across or down, never diagonally. It can be turned end for end, which swaps which half lands in which cell, and that choice is the heart of the game.

Step 3 - Read the region under each half. Cells are grouped into colored regions, and each region carries one rule, listed in the next section. Both halves of a domino can sit in the same region, or one half each in two different regions.

Step 4 - Keep placing until the tray is empty. Every domino in the tray must be used, and every cell of the board is covered when the tray runs out. If the last dominoes will not fit the rules that remain, an earlier placement is the one to undo.

The region rules

A number: the pips add to it. In a region marked with a plain number, the pips on every half inside the region add up to that number. A region of a single cell with a number is the strictest rule on the board: that one half must show exactly that number.

Equals: every half matches. In an equals region, every half inside it shows the same number of pips. The halves can arrive on different dominoes; what matters is that they all agree.

Not equal: no two halves match. In a not-equal region, every half inside it shows a different number. It is the mirror image of the equals rule.

Greater than and less than: the total must clear the bar. In these regions, the pips inside add up to more than, or less than, the number shown. Less than 1 is a strong rule: the total can only be 0, so every half in the region must be blank.

No rule: the blank regions. Some cells sit in a region with no rule at all. Those halves are free to show any number, which makes blank regions the natural home for domino halves that no rule can use.

Good first moves

Start with single-cell regions. A one-cell region with a number fixes that half exactly, and a one-cell less-than or greater-than rule narrows it almost as far. Our daily hint pages open the same way, because pinned cells anchor everything around them.

Feed the equals regions early. An equals region needs the same number several times over, so count which values the tray can supply that often. A double domino, with the same number on both halves, is a natural fit inside one.

Match big sums to big halves. A two-cell region that must add to a high total needs the largest halves in the tray, and there are only so many of those. Placing them early stops a small half from being spent where a large one was required.

Leave the blank regions for last. Halves with no rule to satisfy are your spare parts. Spending the ruled cells first means the dominoes left at the end are exactly the ones the blank regions can absorb.

Common questions

Do I have to use every domino?

Yes. Every board is built so the full tray fits the grid exactly. A finished board has every domino placed, every cell covered and every region rule satisfied at once.

What does a blank region mean?

It means no rule applies to those cells. A half in a blank region can show any number of pips, which is why blank regions are where leftover halves usually land.

Can a domino sit diagonally?

No. A domino covers two cells that share a side, placed either across a row or down a column. Turning it end for end is allowed and often necessary, since it swaps which rule each half has to satisfy.