On an average day, tens of millions of people visit The New York Times Games section to solve the latest crossword puzzle, keep their Wordle streak alive, or see if they can figure out the mystery of that day’s Connections puzzle. Two-thirds of the site’s weekly visitors play two or more games. Half play four or more.
Despite that, or perhaps because of it, The Times only occasionally releases new game offerings—typically one per year. So that makes Monday’s release of Pips, the latest permanent addition to the collection especially significant. It’s not only new, it’s a new kind of puzzle, eschewing wordplay for logic. And if the reactions to the beta test (which launched in Canada in April)—and the outcry when The Times took the game offline for final polishing—are any indication, the company might have found its next big hit.
Reddit users have been mourning its absence for over a month, debating whether the game would return and when. Reviews of the beta were glowing, calling it “a brilliant fusion of classic gaming elements and modern puzzle design.”
“We wanted to do something that was original and fresh, but still familiar,” says Jonathan Knight, general manager and head of games at The New York Times.
Pips was first proposed last year and the team has been working on it throughout 2025. It’s a puzzle-based take on dominoes that lets users choose between three difficulty levels. Each game board has a series of conditions (for instance, in some regions, you must have the same number of pips, the dots on a domino, in each box, while in others, the pips must add up to a certain number). Like sudoku, it’s about balance. You have to place your dominoes in a pattern that satisfies all of the different requirements.
Easy puzzles in Pips have players placing four or five dominoes. Hard ones will have up to 16. There are no time limits. If you get the puzzle wrong, you can go back and continue working on it. And the game will show you the areas you need to correct.
“It’s very hard in life to finish anything,” says Ian Livengood, puzzle editor of Pips. “So there’s something very satisfying about being able to finish [this game].”
[Image: The New York Times]
Hooking the player
In a world where it’s increasingly difficult to capture people’s attention, The Times has had incredible success. Last year, its puzzles were played 11.1 billion times. Of that number, nearly half was focused on Wordle, which was played 5.3 billion times in 2024. (Every minute, the company says, more than 2,000 people share their Wordle score.) Connections, introduced in 2023, was played 3.3 billion times.
The Games team says it doesn’t focus on those numbers, but it does challenge itself to create titles that draw people back again and again. Most ideas don’t make the cut.
Several dozen concepts are pitched each year, from all corners of the company via hackathons and other initiatives. The majority of those concepts don’t get too far. Some, like Zorse (a phrase-guessing game introduced last year) get as far as public beta tests before they’re rejected. It comes down, generally, to the elusive fun factor.
“We focus very much first on the mechanics and finding the fun,” says Knight.
With Pips, he says, there weren’t a lot of major changes from the game’s concept to its final execution. Most of the evolution was in how the game visually communicated the requirements of the puzzle to the player.
Livengood says the hook for Pips as well as other Times games is their level of visual clarity. They’re not designed to overwhelm you. You can look at the games and generally figure out what you’re supposed to do in a very short amount of time.
While games like Candy Crush use AI to create and optimize levels, puzzles at The New York Times, whether in Pips, Wordle, or any other game, are handcrafted. “There’s always a person behind the game,” Livengood says. “And increasingly, with AI and computer-generated algorithms, that feels almost refreshing. It’s comforting knowing there’s a person behind it.”
A less-is-more approach also helps draw people back in. Times games are designed to only take a few minutes, then you’re free (and encouraged) to go about your day.
“It fits into your life,” says Knight. “We’re not trying to get you to stay in our app 24 hours a day. We’re not nagging you constantly. A healthy, time well-spent cadence has been what makes us so successful.”
Pips could get people to stick around a little longer, though. With three possible daily puzzles, people who get hooked could opt to play more than once per day. Pips is also the first new game from the Times team that will launch simultaneously on both the web and on the app. (Traditionally, games would launch on one first, then the other months later.)
“That represents us getting stronger and better at what we’re doing,” says Knight.
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