If you thought The New York Times had run out of clever puzzle ideas after Wordle and Connections, think again. In August 2025, the Times introduced a brand-new daily challenge called Pips. Instead of words, this puzzle puts dominoes at the center of the action, turning those familiar black-and-white tiles into a surprisingly deep logic game.
Officially, you can play just one Pips set per day—choosing between Easy, Medium, and Hard. But puzzle fans don’t have to stop there. A community-built site, pipsunlimited.app, now lets you enjoy unlimited puzzles without waiting for the next day’s drop. That makes it the perfect option for players who get hooked and want more than the Times’ daily offering.
What Makes Pips Different?
Unlike other NYT Games hits, Pips doesn’t rely on vocabulary. You won’t need a strong word bank or clever anagrams. Instead, it’s about numbers and logic. The puzzle board is divided into colored zones, and you’re given a small set of dominoes—each split into two halves, with zero to six pips. Your task: place the dominoes so that every region of the board meets the rules. That might mean a sum greater than three, a total less than 13, or identical pips across a section.
At first glance, it looks like Sudoku met dominoes on a modern interface. But once you start playing, you notice it’s got a different rhythm. The puzzle doesn’t demand speed. Instead, it rewards patience and logical deduction. And when the last domino locks into place, you feel the same little spark of accomplishment that Wordle once delivered—only through numbers instead of letters.
The Daily Puzzle Structure
Every day, Pips presents three new puzzles at three difficulty levels:
- Easy: A short exercise with just a handful of dominoes to get you familiar with the mechanics.
- Medium: A mid-sized board with 8–10 dominoes and trickier constraints.
- Hard: A full-scale grid requiring up to 16 dominoes, which often feels like solving a mini logic marathon.
While Wordle allows only a single daily play, Pips follows a slightly more generous model by offering three boards at once. Still, heavy puzzle fans quickly burn through them—hence the popularity of the unlimited alternative site. This daily rhythm is intentional; the Times has said they want each puzzle to feel like a “short, satisfying coffee-break activity” rather than a marathon session (Fast Company).
Why the Name “Pips”?
The name is a nod to the small dots on a domino, which are called “pips.” In a clever bit of branding, it’s short, memorable, and perfectly tied to the puzzle’s visual identity. The design of the game leans heavily into clean lines and bold color blocks, making it easy to play on a phone, tablet, or desktop. The Verge noted that the game rolled out on both web and mobile simultaneously—a sign that the Times expects strong adoption across platforms.
Pips vs. Wordle: Can It Be the Next Viral Hit?
Ever since Wordle exploded in late 2021, every new Times puzzle gets compared to it. The truth is, Pips probably won’t generate the same viral wave. Wordle’s green-and-yellow square grid was tailor-made for social media sharing. Pips, by contrast, produces a finished board that doesn’t translate as neatly to a tweet or group chat. TechRadar pointed this out in their coverage, suggesting that while Pips is clever, it’s unlikely to dominate timelines the way Wordle once did (TechRadar).
That said, virality isn’t everything. Wordle brought in millions of new NYT Games subscribers, but the company’s real strategy is diversity. By offering a range of games—crosswords, spelling challenges, word associations, logic puzzles—they give players reasons to stick around long-term. In that sense, Pips doesn’t need to be the “next Wordle.” It just needs to find its own loyal niche.
Community Reactions
Within days of launch, puzzle communities lit up with first impressions. On Reddit, players debated the difficulty levels, shared screenshots, and traded strategies. Some loved the freshness of a logic-first puzzle, while others felt the difficulty scaling needed refinement:
“The beta testing was a couple months ago… I definitely enjoy the game and happy it’s back now for everyone to play!” — Reddit user Blaze
“Yeah, I just tried Easy/Medium/Hard, and the difficulty was basically the same for all of them. The ‘harder’ ones just took longer to drag all the pieces around.” — Reddit user elevengu
This kind of feedback is normal for new puzzles. Over time, the NYT Games team often adjusts mechanics and polish based on how players interact. Connections, for example, went through several tweaks after its first launch in 2023. There’s every reason to think Pips will evolve too.
Early Strategies
For beginners, the puzzle can feel daunting. Here are a few strategies that help unlock it:
- Prioritize the strictest zones first. If a region only allows one possible domino, lock that in before working elsewhere.
- Use adjacency to your advantage. Every domino covers two tiles, so each placement shapes your options for neighboring regions.
- Eliminate the impossible. Just as in Sudoku, ruling out invalid options is as powerful as finding the right one.
- Don’t fear mistakes. The built-in error highlighting is a teaching tool—use it to learn why something doesn’t fit.
Once you get into the rhythm, Pips becomes less about trial-and-error and more about crisp deduction. That’s when it gets truly satisfying.
Design Philosophy Behind Pips
One reason Pips stands out is the level of care that went into its design. According to Fast Company, the NYT Games team experiments with dozens of puzzle prototypes each year. Very few make it to public release. Pips succeeded because it felt both original and intuitive. From the first move, you understand what the puzzle wants from you, yet solving it requires real thought. That balance between accessibility and depth is a hallmark of the Times’ most successful puzzles.
Visually, the game reflects the Times’ clean design language. Colored zones are bold without being distracting. Domino tiles are easy to drag and drop on desktop or mobile. And, importantly, the interface communicates mistakes without scolding the player. Rather than punishing wrong moves, it nudges you toward better reasoning—a subtle design choice that keeps players coming back instead of giving up in frustration.
Pips in the Classroom
Beyond casual play, Pips has genuine educational potential. Its reliance on simple arithmetic makes it a natural fit for math classrooms. Teachers could use it to strengthen number sense, introduce inequality concepts, or help students see math as a puzzle rather than a chore. Because it’s visual and tactile, it appeals to different learning styles—kinesthetic learners can “see” and “move” the logic, while visual learners process the colors and numbers.
It’s also language-independent. While many NYT puzzles assume English fluency, Pips is universal. Numbers and domino dots are the same in any culture. That opens the door for broader adoption globally and makes it a tool educators could use regardless of native language.
Where Pips Falls Short
Even with its strengths, Pips isn’t without flaws. Early reviews point to a difficulty curve that doesn’t quite live up to expectations. The Hard puzzles take longer, but they aren’t always logically more complex. Players looking for the kind of escalating challenge found in advanced Sudoku variants may find Pips a bit tame.
Another limitation is shareability. Wordle’s colored grid was a stroke of design genius—it allowed for instant bragging rights and created a viral loop. Pips doesn’t have a comparable sharing mechanic. A screenshot of your completed domino board just doesn’t have the same impact. That may not bother core puzzle fans, but it does reduce the game’s chances of crossing into the mainstream cultural zeitgeist.
Potential for Expansion
That said, Pips has room to grow. The most obvious route is a premium version. The Times already offers a Games subscription that unlocks extras for Spelling Bee, Sudoku, and crosswords. Pips could easily follow suit with a larger puzzle archive, bonus modes, or even themed challenges.
Another avenue could be competitive or cooperative play. Imagine two players racing to solve the same Pips grid, or a group mode where friends collaborate on a large board. These ideas aren’t part of the current release, but the game’s mechanics lend themselves to experimentation.
A Broader Puzzle Renaissance
Pips also represents a larger trend: the revival of puzzles as mainstream digital entertainment. During the pandemic, millions of people rediscovered the simple pleasure of structured brain teasers. Wordle’s viral success showed that puzzles can still capture a mass audience in an age of fast-paced apps and endless scrolling. Pips taps into that same appetite, but with a slower, more contemplative flavor.
There’s a historical resonance too. Dominoes as a game date back centuries, originating in China before spreading through Europe. By repurposing that age-old object into a digital puzzle, the Times is doing what it has often done best—taking something traditional and giving it a sleek, modern twist. Just as the crossword brought 20th-century wordplay into print, Pips could help define 21st-century logic play on screens.
What the Future Holds
The big question isn’t whether Pips will be a runaway viral hit like Wordle—it almost certainly won’t. The bigger question is whether it can establish itself as a reliable daily habit for a dedicated audience. If it does, then it fulfills its role in the NYT Games ecosystem: keeping subscribers engaged, attracting logic lovers, and diversifying the Times’ puzzle portfolio.
Conclusion
Pips isn’t trying to be the new Wordle—it’s carving out a quieter, more thoughtful niche. For players who love the crisp certainty of logic puzzles, it’s an instant fit. For educators, it’s a hidden gem with classroom potential. And for the New York Times, it’s another smart step in building a diverse gaming platform that appeals to many different types of players.
So the next time you open the NYT Games app, don’t just check Wordle or Connections. Give Pips a try—you might discover your new favorite daily ritual.
