Pips Archive: Play Every Past Pips Puzzle

What you get on every date

Each day in the archive carries three separate boards rather than three difficulty settings on one board. They are genuinely different puzzles, not the same layout with hints removed:

Easy — 8 squares, 4 dominoes

Most regions carry an exact sum, so there is almost always a square you can fill by arithmetic alone. Two to four minutes once the rules click.

Medium — 14 squares, 7 dominoes

About half the regions trade their exact sum for a looser hint like < 5 or ≠. You will need to hold two or three possibilities open at once.

Hard — 20 squares, 10 dominoes

Most regions are loose, and several dominoes straddle two regions at once, so a tile that satisfies one constraint often breaks another. This is where the format earns its reputation.

How to get the most out of an old puzzle

An archive is more useful than a daily puzzle for one specific reason: you can pick the difficulty of your practice instead of taking whatever the day hands you. A few approaches that work better than shuffling through dates at random:

• Run a difficulty ladder. Take one date and play easy, then medium, then hard on the same day. Because the boards are unrelated, you get three clean reps rather than three views of one solution.
• Repeat a board you failed. Come back to it two days later. The second attempt is where you find out whether you learned the technique or just guessed your way through it the first time.
• Work a whole month of hards. Thirty consecutive hard boards will teach you the constraint patterns far faster than thirty scattered ones, because you start recognising region shapes.
• Start from the constrained end. On any board, the region with the smallest exact sum or the tightest < bound has the fewest legal tiles. That is where the forced move usually lives — see the full rules for why.

Pips archive questions

Is the pips archive free?

Yes. Every puzzle in this archive is free to play, with no account, no subscription and no paywall. All three difficulties are open on every date.

How far back does the archive go?

The archive starts on August 18, 2025 and adds a new puzzle every day. Nothing is ever removed, so a date you played months ago is still there.

Why is there no archive on some pips sites?

Most daily puzzle publishers deliberately limit back-catalogue access, either removing old puzzles entirely or putting them behind a paid subscription, because the daily habit is what drives their signups. This site takes the opposite approach: the archive is the product, so it stays open.

Can I replay a puzzle I already finished?

Yes, as many times as you like. Your progress is saved per date and per difficulty in your own browser, and the Reset button clears a board so you can start it fresh.

Are these the same boards as the New York Times pips puzzles?

No, and we are careful about this. EnergyPips is not affiliated with The New York Times. Every board here is produced by our own generator and verified solvable before publication. What is shared is the format — dominoes placed into regions with sum, equal, not-equal and comparison constraints — because game mechanics are not something anyone owns.

Does every archive puzzle definitely have a solution?

Yes. Each board is built outward from a real domino layout, so a valid arrangement is guaranteed before any constraints are added, and the stored solution is re-verified against the region rules before the puzzle is written to disk.

Do I need to solve puzzles in order?

No. Every date is independent. Jump to any day in any month, in any order.

Keep going

• Pips rules — every region constraint, with worked examples.
• How to play pips — a first-board walkthrough from an empty grid to a solve.
• Past pips games — how the back catalogue is organised and what to replay first.
• Hardest pips puzzles — the boards that break people, and why.
• Practice mode — unlimited fresh boards when you have finished the archive.
• Today's pips puzzle — back to the daily board.