Pips Analyzer
Welcome to Pips Analyzer. Select from the tabs above to perform one of the following actions, or use the links below to go directly to a desired tab (now or on future visits).
Play (Direct link: #play)
Select a date and difficulty level to play a domino puzzle yourself.
In addition to the NYTimes Pips UI elements you are probably familiar with, Pips Analyzer implements a number of enhanced features:
- Rearrange Dominoes
- Rearrange dominoes in the unplaced area by dragging to an empty spot (move) or an occupied spot (swap). You may also have as many rotated dominoes as you like.
- Undo
- Undo actions such as domino placement and placed and unplaced domino rotation.
- Redo
- Redo actions that were previously undone.
- Reset
- Like the NYTimes "Clear" but the Undo list is maintained and you can Redo actions up to any desired point.
- Forced Placement
- Click pairs of adjacent cells on the board to mark them as being forced placement. Click the cell pair again to remove the marking. If you place a domino that does not align with your marked forced placement cells, that domino will be higlighted to show the mismatch.
Solutions (Direct link: #solutions)
Select a date and difficulty level to see computer-generated solutions to a puzzle.
If there are multiple solutions, use the arrow buttons to page through them. If you have the Highlight solution differences setting enabled, then for:
- Solution 1
- The yellow domino borders indicate all dominoes that have different positions in other solutions.
- Other solutions
- The red domino borders indicate dominoes that are in different locations as compared to the previous solution and the yellow borders indicate dominoes that did not change from the previous solution.
Design (Direct link: #design)
Design your own puzzle.
Note: Not yet implemented.
Email (Direct link: #email)
Subscribe to daily Pips-Analyzer messages providing information and/or solutions to each day's puzzles, sent to you at a time of your choosing.
About (Direct link: #about)
Information about the history, current status, and future of Pips-Analyzer.
Settings Menu (Gear icon)
Configure settings. These will be stored on the Pips-Analyzer server and will persist until you change them.
- Highlight solution differences
- Yellow and Red domino borders indicate solution differences as described in Solutions above.
- Highlight double dominoes
- Double dominoes in the unplaced domino area will have a Purple border to make it easier to spot them.
- Colorful pips
- Each Pips value has its own color to make it easier to see how many of each you have.
- Use numerals instead of pips
- Draw dominoes with arabic numerals, not pips.
- Show timer when playing
- See how long you've been working on a puzzle.
- Date range
- Choose which puzzles can be selected: Past only (excludes today), Past and present (includes today), Past, present and future (includes unreleased future puzzles). ⚠ Future puzzles can change before release, and may be invalid or have no solutions..
Puzzle designer will be implemented here.
Email Subscription
You may choose to receive one or two daily Pips-Analyzer email messages containing puzzle information and/or solutions. To subscribe, fill out the form below with the subscription type, the time (in your local timezone) you would like the email to be sent, as well as the email address you want messages sent to. When you hit Subscribe, you will be sent a verification email. Click the link in that email to verify your email address and start your subscription.
Things to consider when selecting the delivery time(s):
- Info messages contain both puzzle info and links to images of the unsolved puzzle. No solution info is included.
- Solutions messages contain everything in Info messages plus all solutions.
- The puzzle info includes things like the total count of pips on the dominoes, all the domino weights, and the total sum of the fixed constraints on the board. Having these in advance can save you time and effort during your play.
- Click here for detailed info about every item in the info/solutions messages.
- A common choice is to receive puzzle info before your normal Pips play time and solutions after.
- ⚠️ Choosing delivery times affected by Daylight Saving Time (DST) transitions will result in either duplicate messages or skipped messages for that day, depending on the direction of the transition ("spring forward" → skipped, "fall back" → duplicate).
For most users, "Days in advance" should be 0 (the default), so that the daily message contains info/solutions for the current date. If you need to receive info/solutions in advance, e.g., a content creator recording their solve early, then set this to the number of days early you need, in which case you will almost certainly also want to enable future puzzles in Settings.
About Pips Analyzer
History
The idea for this project began shortly after I first learned about Pips, just a few days after its worldwide launch in September 2025, when several of the YouTube creators I knew from their Wordle and Connections videos started playing Pips too. What I noticed right away was that for some puzzles, I could see a logical sequence of domino placements, and my solve times for these puzzles was pretty good. For other puzzles, especially for the Hard difficulty level, it seemed like trail-and-error was required, and my solve times were often poor. What I wondered was "why?". Was there something about the puzzles themselves that was different? And my next question was, "do all puzzles have a single solution, and if not, does this correlate with my solution times?".
Not long after this, I learned about the work of Ken Shirriff, who had the brilliant idea of using a constraint solver to solve Pips puzzles. You can read all about his work in his October 2025 blog post.
Future Features
- Allow players to select, play, and see solutions for user-created custom Pips puzzles
- Allow players to design custom Pips puzzles
- Present a subset of the puzzle info that is in the Puzzle Info email to the player while playing the puzzle, including placed/available counts that update as dominoes are placed
- Present puzzle-solving statistics such as min/max/avg solve time to the player including comparisons to other players
- Add a "human" solver that uses only logical deductions that an ordinary human player is likely to try
- Allow the player to ask the "human" solver for hints
Source Code
All source code for this project is publicly available on GitHub here.
Sync Across Browsers
Use this link to access your settings and progress from another browser:
⚠️ This link provides full access to your account, including your email address (if you have entered it on the Email tab). Treat it like a password—do not share it publicly. Links expire after 7 days.