Here are the NYT Pips answers for Wednesday, December 31, 2025, with separate solutions for Easy, Medium, and Hard. The year matters: these answers are for the final Pips puzzle of 2025, not December 31, 2026.
Spoilers: The placements below give away each board’s solution. Dominoes are written in the order and orientation reported by the answer guides; “vertical” and “horizontal” describe placement, not a coordinate on the board.
How to read the December 31 answers
NYT Pips is a domino-placement logic puzzle: fill the grid using every available domino while meeting the condition in each colored region. Conditions can require equal or different pip values, a total, a greater-than or less-than relationship, or no particular value. Some boards may allow more than one solution. The December 31 answers below are grouped by the game’s three difficulty tiers.
The guides report region labels and domino placements, but not a complete coordinate-by-coordinate transcription of the board images. Use the region name and orientation alongside the game board rather than treating these lists as a map.
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Easy answers
- Number 7 region: 1–5, vertical.
- Number 8 region: 4–4, horizontal.
- Number 18 region: 2–6, 6–3, and 6–0, all horizontal.
- Equal 3 region: 3–3, horizontal.
- Number 3 region: 6–3, horizontal.
Medium answers
- Equal 4 region: 4–5, vertical; 4–4, horizontal.
- Number 11 region: 5–6, horizontal; 3–3, vertical.
- Number 7 region: 5–6 and 1–6, horizontal.
- Equal 6 region: 6–6, vertical; 1–6, horizontal.
Hard answers
Region-by-region placements
- Greater Than 1: 2–4, horizontal.
- Equal 4: 2–4 and 4–5, horizontal; 4–3, vertical.
- Equal 5: 4–5 and 5–6, horizontal; 5–3, vertical.
- Greater Than 2: 5–6, horizontal.
- Equal 3: 1–3, horizontal; 4–3 and 5–3, vertical; 3–3, horizontal.
- Number 12: 2–6, vertical; 6–3, horizontal.
- Number 3: 6–3, horizontal.
- Number 1: 1–2, horizontal.
- Number 2: 1–2, horizontal.
- Number 5: 0–5, vertical.
A useful starting sequence
Forbes’ walkthrough starts with two constrained connections: place 2–1 from Blue 2 to Pink 1, then 3–6 from Purple 3 to the first Green 12 region. It then uses 6–5, 5–4, 2–4, 4–3, and 5–3 to bridge the described equality groups. The final placements in that walkthrough are 3–3 in the right two Dark Blue equal cells, 5–0 from Orange 5 into the first free cell, 3–1 across the Dark Blue group and second free cell, and 6–2 from Green 12 into the last free cell.
The region list and walkthrough describe some placements in different contexts. They are separate guides, not a single coordinate map, so follow the region labels and colors visible on your board. Forbes characterizes the bottom single-cell placements as an obvious starting point and says the puzzle may have no alternative; those are the author’s assessments, not a verified difficulty measure or proof of a unique solution.
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Why puzzle number alone may not identify the board
A Reddit discussion labels this date’s puzzle #136 and notes that numbering can vary by location. Match the date and the board’s region labels rather than relying only on the number. The available guides identify the date and solutions, but do not establish current archive access, regional availability, or account and subscription requirements.
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Sources
- Forbes: NYT Pips Today: Hints, Answers And Full Solution For Wednesday, December 31 (December 30, 2025), for rules and the Hard walkthrough.
- Mashable, syndicated by AOL: NYT Pips hints, answers for December 31, 2025 (updated December 31, 2025), for the tier-by-tier placements.
- Reddit: Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025 – Pips #136 Thread, for the community date label and numbering caveat.
- Wikipedia: The New York Times Games, for general Pips context.
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