The New York Times has done it again. After the massive success of Wordle, Connections, and their steady lineup of puzzles, they’ve introduced Pips — a clever little game that’s deceptively simple but surprisingly hard to put down.
It starts with a clean grid and a handful of dots (“pips”). Your goal? Clear them with smart moves, open up space, and chase a higher score each time. The rules are easy to grasp, but the strategy keeps pulling you back for “just one more round.”
Like many NYT games, Pips comes with a built-in limit: you only get three puzzles per day — easy, medium, and hard. It’s a neat routine for a coffee break or a quick brain warm-up, but if you’ve got the time (or the itch) to keep going, that cap can feel a bit restricting.
And that’s where things get interesting: just like Wordle inspired a wave of variations, Pips is already sparking spin-offs and similar games. Some of them keep the same satisfying mechanics but let you play without limits.
One example is PipsPuzzle.com — a site inspired by the original where you can dive in and play as many rounds as you want. It’s not about replacing the NYT version, but it scratches the same itch when the daily puzzles run out.
