Pips December 3, 2025

Hints and answers for December 3, 2025

Stuck? Take it in stages. A nudge costs less than the full answer, and the answer is here if you want it — each diagram below is the verified solution our generator built this board from, using tiles drawn from the standard double-six domino set. On the looser boards other valid arrangements can exist too; any filling that covers every square and satisfies every region counts as solved.

Pip budget

Your tray carries 60 pips in total, and the exact-sum regions between them demand 56 across 19 squares. That leaves 4 pips to absorb elsewhere. Running that subtraction before you place anything tells you whether the unconstrained squares are going to be a dumping ground or a tight squeeze.

The same check on the medium board: your tray carries 47 pips in total, and the exact-sum regions between them demand 27 across 8 squares. That leaves 20 pips to absorb elsewhere. Running that subtraction before you place anything tells you whether the unconstrained squares are going to be a dumping ground or a tight squeeze.

Reading the outline

This is a distinctly irregular outline, filling only 67% of its 5×6 bounding box. Narrow arms are the danger: a square at the end of a one-wide corridor has exactly one possible partner, so if that partner gets covered the board becomes unsolvable regardless of what else you do.

Reading the constraints

The hard board uses 2 of the six possible region rules. What each one is actually demanding here:

= 12

Spreads exactly 12 pips over 3 squares, an average of 4.0 each. Anything that pushes the running total past 12 is already lost, so this is the region to count before you commit.

≠

Forbids any repeat across its 1 squares. Note that this constrains values, not tiles — two different dominoes both contributing a 4 still breaks it.

The full badge vocabulary, including the ones this board happens not to use, is on the pips rules page.

The usual dead end

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.

The all-different region is the one to watch. With 5 squares in the widest region on this board, an all-different rule quietly forbids far more arrangements than it looks like it does.

If you have genuinely stalled, undo back to the last tile you were confident about rather than reshuffling everything. Most dead ends on a board this size trace to one early placement made on a guess, and everything after it inherits the mistake.

About this date’s boards

Is the December 3, 2025 pips puzzle free to play?

Yes. All three boards for this date are free, with no account and no subscription, and they stay available permanently.

How many dominoes does the December 3, 2025 hard board use?

10 dominoes across 20 squares. Every tile in the tray must be used, and the count is always exactly half the number of squares.

Where do the doubles go on this board?

This tray holds 5 doubles (5-5, 2-2, 0-0, 6-6, 3-3). A double puts the same value on both of its squares, so it cannot sit inside an all-different region and it is the fastest way to overshoot a tight sum. Place them where the arithmetic has slack.

Can I replay this puzzle later?

Yes. Boards are generated deterministically from the date, so this URL always shows this exact puzzle. Your progress saves in your own browser, and Reset clears it whenever you want a fresh attempt.

Where the regions meet

There are 7 distinct region-to-region boundaries on this board, which is a lot for 6 regions. Almost every tile you place is going to land half in one region and half in another, so treating regions as separate sub-puzzles will not work here — think in pairs.

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.

The three boards in detail

How the three boards differ

These are three separate boards, not one board with hints removed, so playing all three on December 3, 2025 gives you three genuine attempts rather than three views of the same solution.

easy

8 squares, 4 dominoes, 4 regions, 3 region boundaries. 50% of its regions carry something other than an exact total, and the widest region spans 3 squares.

medium

14 squares, 7 dominoes, 5 regions, 6 region boundaries. 40% of its regions carry something other than an exact total, and the widest region spans 5 squares.

hard

20 squares, 10 dominoes, 6 regions, 7 region boundaries. 17% of its regions carry something other than an exact total, and the widest region spans 4 squares.