Games Like Pips
You have finished today's NYT Pips and you want another one. That is the whole problem: Pips gives you three puzzles a day and then stops.
This page is an honest attempt to answer what else is worth playing. I build dotio, which is the closest thing to Pips there is, so treat the recommendation accordingly. The rest of the page covers the alternatives properly, including the ones that beat dotio at their own thing.
Try it before you download
The rules are the same as Pips, and you don't need the app to have a go. Three full dotio puzzles run free in your browser every day.
Play a puzzle free You don't have to download anything or make an account.
What actually makes a game feel like Pips
Pips is three things at once, and most puzzles labelled "like Pips" only have one of them.
You place pieces, not numbers
A domino is two values joined together, so every placement commits you in two places at once. That coupling is what makes Pips feel different from filling in a grid, and it is the ingredient most alternatives are missing.
Regions carry rules, not just totals
Each coloured region says something about the pips inside it: all equal, all different, an exact sum, or greater or less than a number. Several rules overlapping on one domino is where the difficulty comes from.
One solution, reachable by logic
A real Pips puzzle never asks you to guess and see. There is exactly one answer and a chain of deductions that gets you there. A puzzle that can be brute-forced, or that has two valid answers, is a different and much less satisfying game.
The closest match
dotio
dotio is the same game: dominoes on a grid, coloured regions with rules, solved by pure deduction. If you can play Pips you can play dotio without reading anything.
What it adds is depth and volume. There are 4,800+ puzzles across four difficulty tiers, including an Expert tier harder than anything NYT publishes, plus three daily challenges with global leaderboards, friend groups and offline play.
The part that matters most is invisible: every puzzle is generated and then verified by a solver to have exactly one solution reachable by logic alone. Nothing that needs a guess ever ships. It is a one-time purchase with no ads and no subscription.
Best if you want more Pips and you want it to be properly made.
Handcrafted puzzles across four difficulty tiers, each one solvable by working it out rather than guessing.
The free web clones
Since Pips took off, a number of free browser versions have appeared offering unlimited puzzles. They recreate the mechanic accurately enough and they cost nothing, which is a genuine advantage if you just want another grid right now.
The thing to check before you invest much time is whether the puzzles are verified. Generating a Pips grid is easy; proving it has exactly one solution that logic can reach is the hard part, and it is the step that on-the-fly generators tend to skip. The symptom is a puzzle where you get most of the way and then find two placements both work, or none do. If a site does not say its puzzles are checked for a unique solution, assume they are not.
Fine for a quick fix. Worth checking how the puzzles are made before you rely on them.
Same deduction, different pieces
None of these are Pips, but each one takes a piece of what Pips does and builds a whole puzzle out of it. Ordered by how close they get.
- Dominosa · The other genuine domino logic puzzle. You are given a grid of numbers and you split it into dominoes so that every possible pair from the set appears exactly once. It shares the tile-placement feel and the single-solution guarantee, but it runs backwards from Pips: instead of choosing values to satisfy rules, you work out where the boundaries between fixed values must lie. Closest thing to Pips that is not a Pips clone.
- Futoshiki · A Japanese puzzle whose name means "inequality". You fill a grid so each row and column has one of each digit, with greater-than and less-than signs between some cells that must point from the smaller number to the larger. It is essentially Pips' > and < rules given a puzzle of their own, and chains like A > B > C resolve in the same satisfying way.
- KenKen · Sudoku-style placement, but the grid is divided into cages and each cage has an arithmetic target. That is Pips' exact-sum region rule as an entire game. If the regions were always your favourite part of Pips, this is the one to try.
- Kakuro · A mathematical crossword. You fill cells with digits 1 to 9 so each horizontal and vertical run sums to its clue, with no digit repeated in a run. Combines the sum constraint with the all-different constraint, which is two of Pips' five rules working together.
- Sudoku · The baseline. No placement, no sums, just the all-different constraint repeated across rows, columns and boxes. Worth naming because it is the deduction habit everything else is built on, and because a good Sudoku has the same one-solution guarantee Pips does.
More logic puzzles
Two others I've built. Neither plays like Pips, but both are solved by working out the next move rather than guessing at it.
loopr
A yajilin puzzle game. Draw loops, follow the arrows, fill the grid.
Visit playloopr.com →
reina
A queens puzzle game. Place queens, respect the constraints, solve through logic.
Visit playreina.com →
Want the detailed feature-by-feature breakdown? See dotio vs NYT Pips.
Frequently Asked Questions
What games are similar to Pips?
The closest is dotio, which uses the same dominoes-on-a-grid mechanic with coloured region rules. Beyond direct alternatives, Dominosa shares the domino placement, Futoshiki is built on greater-than and less-than constraints, and KenKen and Kakuro are built on sum constraints. Each takes one ingredient of Pips and makes a full puzzle from it.
Is there an unlimited Pips game?
Yes. dotio has 4,800+ domino logic puzzles plus three new daily challenges every morning, and an Endless mode that keeps serving puzzles at your chosen difficulty. Free browser clones also offer unlimited play, though their puzzles are usually generated on the fly rather than verified.
What is the best Pips alternative app?
For the same game with far more of it, dotio. It matches the mechanic exactly, adds an Expert tier above anything NYT publishes, works offline, and every puzzle is checked to have a single solution reachable by logic. Try today's free puzzle before deciding.
Are there free games like Pips?
Several free web versions exist, and dotio's daily puzzles are free to play in your browser with no download and no account. Three go up every day at Easy, Medium and Hard.
Why do some Pips clones feel broken?
Because generating a grid is easy and proving it has exactly one logically reachable solution is not. Generators that skip the verification step produce puzzles that need guesswork or have several valid answers. If you have hit a puzzle where two placements both seemed to work, that is what happened.
Can I play Pips-style puzzles offline?
Browser clones need a connection. dotio bundles its whole library in the app, so it works on a plane or underground with no signal.
Is dotio the same as Pips?
It is the same kind of puzzle, not the same product. Both place dominoes on a grid to satisfy coloured region rules. dotio is an independent app with a much larger library, four difficulty tiers, leaderboards, friend groups and offline play. It is not affiliated with The New York Times.
Ready for more Pips puzzles?
Every puzzle checked for a single logical solution, four difficulty tiers, daily challenges and leaderboards. One payment, no ads, no subscription.