This is the archived NYT Pips puzzle for Wednesday, December 17, 2025, identified by players as puzzle #122. Start with the spoiler-free hints below; the hard-board walkthrough follows, while exact easy and medium tile placements are not transcribed in the available date-specific guide.
How to use these hints without spoiling the board
NYT Pips is a digital domino-placement logic puzzle. Fill every board square using all the supplied dominoes, while meeting the rule shown for each colored region. The puzzle offers Easy, Medium, and Hard boards. If you want to preserve the challenge, read the rules and general approach first, then stop before the hard walkthrough.
Open NYT Pips to play online or in the app.
How Pips works
Each domino has two pip values, and its halves can be rotated to fit the board. A colored region’s badge tells you what values its squares must contain:
- Equal: all values in the region match.
- Not equal: all values in the region differ.
- Exact total: the values add up to the displayed number.
- Greater than or less than: the marked group must satisfy the displayed comparison.
- Unmarked square: it has no additional value condition.
Every square must be covered and every provided domino used. A tile can cross a boundary between regions, so check each half against the rule for the square it occupies.
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General hints for the December 17 boards
- Begin with the most restrictive region: a zero or low total, an equality group, or a narrow corridor can sharply reduce possible placements.
- Compare the required values with the available dominoes. Doubles and repeated pip values can be especially informative when a region requires matching values.
- Rotate a tile when needed; its two halves do not have to follow a fixed orientation.
- Recheck both halves of any domino that crosses between regions. The constraints apply to squares, not to the tile as a whole.
These are general solving techniques, not a transcription of the Easy or Medium layouts.
Easy and Medium answers
The date-specific Forbes guide displays Easy and Medium solutions as board images, but its accessible text does not spell out their tile placements. Exact placements for those two NYT boards are therefore not provided here. EnergyPips explicitly says its board is independently generated, so it is not a reliable substitute answer key for the December 17 NYT puzzle.
Hard-board walkthrough
Spoilers below: the sequence describes the hard board’s placements. Forbes’ text walkthrough says the repeated values required by the equality regions drive much of the solution: use 2s in the blue equality group, 1s in the orange equality group, and blanks in the blue zero group.
- Place the 2/5 domino from the blue equality group into the purple 5 tile. Place 2/3 into the pink less-than-4 tile.
- Put 2/2 into the next two blue-equality squares. Place 2/6 in the green all-different group, preserving 2/4 for the dark-blue exact-4 tile.
- Place 0/0 on the two blue zero squares.
- Move 5/1 from pink 10 into orange equality. Place 5/3 from pink 10 into purple equality, then 3/1 from purple equality into orange equality. Use 1/1 to complete the orange group.
- Finish with 3/0 from purple equality in the first open tile, 4/2 from dark-blue exact 4 in the second open tile, and 5/6 from green not-equals in the last open tile.
This is the textual sequence reported in the Forbes December 17 guide. Its accompanying board diagrams are images. The author’s impression that the hard puzzle had no alternative solution is not a verified uniqueness proof.
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Sources and puzzle identity
The date-specific answer sequence and puzzle identity come from the Forbes guide and player discussion identifying the board as #122. Tom’s Guide explains the general mechanics and gameplay controls. EnergyPips describes strategies for its own independently generated board, not the NYT answer key. The three difficulty tiers are established, but there is no reliable standardized difficulty measure for these particular boards.
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