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Solving the NY Times "Pips" game with F#

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Re: Solving the NY Times "Pips" game with F#

#2

Post by ematth »

Hey Brian, I really enjoyed reading your work on the Pips game! I found myself applying a similar backtracking algorithm to my Pythonic solution (https://github.com/ematth/pips). I focused on finding a single solution for each puzzle as opposed to all possible solutions. For hard puzzles with longer run times, I found that running multiple processes, each with the domino list shuffled, gets the solve time down to <15 seconds.

Re: Solving the NY Times "Pips" game with F#

#3

Post by brianberns »

ematth wrote: post #2

Hey Brian, I really enjoyed reading your work on the Pips game! I found myself applying a similar backtracking algorithm to my Pythonic solution ( https://github.com/ematth/pips ). I focused on finding a single solution for each puzzle as opposed to all possible solutions. For hard puzzles with longer run times, I found that running multiple processes, each with the domino list shuffled, gets the solve time down to <…

Thanks! I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who went down this rabbit hole. :)

I considered parallelizing my solution as well, but the problem is that it only gives a linear speedup, while the problem space increases exponentially. I decided to focus on pruning the search tree instead, and that seemed to work pretty well (after much thinking).

Re: Solving the NY Times "Pips" game with F#

#4

Post by prb »

brianberns wrote: post #3
ematth wrote: post #2

Hey Brian, I really enjoyed reading your work on the Pips game! I found myself applying a similar backtracking algorithm to my Pythonic solution ( https://github.com/ematth/pips ). I focused on finding a single solution for each puzzle as opposed to all possible solutions. For hard puzzles with longer run times, I found that running multiple processes, each with the domino list shuffled, gets the solve time down to <…

Thanks! I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who went down this rabbit hole. :) I considered parallelizing my solution as well, but the problem is that it only gives a linear speedup, while the problem space increases exponentially. I decided to focus on pruning the search tree instead, and that seemed to work pretty well (after much thinking).

It's getting crowded down here in the rabbithole... One more to peek at: https://github.com/prb/pips-solver/blob/main/README.md

Re: Solving the NY Times "Pips" game with F#

#5

Post by munchler »

prb wrote: post #4
brianberns wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who went down this rabbit hole. :) I considered parallelizing my solution as well, but the problem is that it only gives a linear speedup, while the problem space increases exponentially. I decided to focus on pruning the search tree instead, and that seemed to work pretty well (after much thinking).

It's getting crowded down here in the rabbithole... One more to peek at: https://github.com/prb/pips-solver/blob/main/README.md

That's great! Your experience with the 2025-09-15 and 2025-10-14 puzzles was very similar to mine, I think. I'm impressed that you were able to get AI models to solve this game effectively. I coded it the old-fashioned way myself, mostly, with occasional help from Gemini Pro.

Re: Solving the NY Times "Pips" game with F#

#6

Post by prb »

munchler wrote: post #5
prb wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's getting crowded down here in the rabbithole... One more to peek at: https://github.com/prb/pips-solver/blob/main/README.md

That's great! Your experience with the 2025-09-15 and 2025-10-14 puzzles was very similar to mine, I think. I'm impressed that you were able to get AI models to solve this game effectively. I coded it the old-fashioned way myself, mostly, with occasional help from Gemini Pro.

I did write the spec first — data model, algorithm, etc. That may have helped the agents get traction.

Re: Solving the NY Times "Pips" game with F#

#7

Post by eszed »

I really enjoy the Pips game, but it doesn't appear on the games page in my (Android) NY Times app. I'm a subscriber, and the app is up to date. I can get to it by searching for the article announcing it a few months back, and then clicking through from there, and it works just fine.

Presumably it's there in the separate NYT Games app, but I'd rather not install a separate app.

Does anyone know why they exclude it from the regular games section? I realize this is the silliest of all first-world problems, but still: Why?

Re: Solving the NY Times "Pips" game with F#

#8

Post by atombender »

eszed wrote: post #7

I really enjoy the Pips game, but it doesn't appear on the games page in my (Android) NY Times app. I'm a subscriber, and the app is up to date. I can get to it by searching for the article announcing it a few months back, and then clicking through from there, and it works just fine. Presumably it's there in the separate NYT Games app, but I'd rather not install a separate app. Does anyone know why they exclude it fr…

It's in the separate Games app. I believe Pips isn't a "full" member of the games section yet (it has no archive, leaderboard or achievement badges), which is probably why they're not including it.
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