Pips October 28, 2025
Puzzle #72 · Tuesday
This is the pips puzzle for October 28, 2025 — all three boards, free to play, with no subscription and no account. The easy board has 8 squares, 4 dominoes and 3 regions — 2 exact-sum and 1 unconstrained regions.
By Sukie · Puzzle editor
8 squares · 4 dominoes · mostly exact sums
Your dominoes
Tap a domino, then tap a square to place it. Press R to rotate, U to undo. Tap a placed domino to lift it again.
What's on the October 28, 2025 boards
easy
The easy board has 8 squares, 4 dominoes and 3 regions — 2 exact-sum and 1 unconstrained regions.
Start with the "= 6" region. It spreads 6 pips across 3 squares, averaging 2.0 per square, so the halves that can legally sit there are limited before you have placed anything at all.
medium
The medium board has 14 squares, 7 dominoes and 6 regions — 3 exact-sum, 2 less-than and 1 unconstrained regions.
Start with the "= 0" region. It spreads 0 pips across 1 square, averaging 0.0 per square, so the halves that can legally sit there are limited before you have placed anything at all.
hard
The hard board has 20 squares, 10 dominoes and 7 regions — 4 exact-sum, 1 less-than, 1 all-different and 1 unconstrained regions.
Start with the "= 5" region. It spreads 5 pips across 3 squares, averaging 1.7 per square, so the halves that can legally sit there are limited before you have placed anything at all.
Where people get stuck
The all-different region is the one to watch. With 4 squares in the widest region on this board, an all-different rule quietly forbids far more arrangements than it looks like it does.
A note that applies to every board in the archive: a domino can straddle two regions, and each half only has to satisfy the region it lands in. That is the single most common misreading of the format — people assume a tile must sit inside one region, which makes perfectly solvable boards look impossible. The rules page works through it with examples.
More pips
- Pips archive — every date since the archive opened.
- Pips rules — what each region badge means.
- Practice mode — a fresh board whenever you want one.
- Today's pips puzzle