Guide
How to play the queens puzzle
To play a queens puzzle, place one crown in every row, every column, and every colored region, and never let two crowns touch — not even at a corner. The board is an n×n grid split into n regions, and it has one solution you can reach by deduction, so you never have to guess. Coronet publishes a new board each day.
Rules
- Place one crown per color, row, and column — Every connected color is one region. You may put exactly one crown in each colored region, each horizontal row, and each vertical column.
- Crowns cannot touch — even diagonally — You cannot let two crowns share an edge or a corner. All eight neighbors around a crown are blocked.
- Mark X’s, then upgrade to a crown — Tap an empty square to place an X. Tap again to place a crown. Drag across empty cells to paint several X’s at once.
- Do not guess — You cannot brute-force these boards. Every daily and practice puzzle has one logical solution — if two cells look equal, a confinement is still hiding.
Tips
- Start with tiny regions — A 1-cell region is a forced crown. Place it, then X every cell that shares its row, column, or a touching neighbor.
- A one-cell region, worked — Suppose one region is a single cell. That cell is the crown: place it, then mark X on the rest of its row, the rest of its column, and every cell that touches it, including corners. If another region now has only one open cell, that cell is the next crown. Repeat. When two cells still look legal, a confinement is still hiding — do not guess.
- Row / region overlap — If a region only has leftover cells in one row, that row’s crown is inside the region. X the rest of the row.
- The no-touch sandwich — Two crowns a knight-move apart often force X’s between them. Scan diagonals after every placement.
- Never guess — If two cells look equally legal, you missed a confinement. Check columns that still have several open region leftovers.
Where it comes from
The placement idea comes from the n-queens chess problem (1848). Puzzle magazines later turned it into Star Battle: symbols that cannot touch, one or more per row, column, and outlined region. The one-star, colored-region form is the version most people meet today, and Coronet publishes an independent daily in that family.
How it differs from similar puzzles
Star Battle allows two-star and three-star boards, where each region holds more than one symbol. Two Not Touch is the same puzzle drawn in black and white. Chess n-queens attacks along whole rows, columns, and diagonals. Each Coronet row, column, and region contains exactly one crown. Crowns cannot touch, including diagonally. Crowns farther apart may share a diagonal. Coronet’s daily and ordinary practice boards, from 5×5 up, are free. The optional Arcade Pass adds a 60-day archive and expert practice through 12×12.
Also known as
Searchers call this a queens puzzle, a color-region puzzle, Star Battle, Two Not Touch, or Crowns. Coronet is our name for the same ruleset.
- Queens puzzle
- Star Battle (1-star)
- Two Not Touch
- Color-region queens
- Crowns puzzle