How to Play Queens

Queenwise is a logic puzzle on a square board divided into colored regions. Your goal: place crowns so that three simple rules hold at once.

Try the guided board

The three rules

1. One crown per row. Every horizontal row holds exactly one crown.
2. One crown per column. Every vertical column holds exactly one crown.
3. One crown per region. Each colored region holds exactly one crown.

And the rule that ties it all together:

• No two crowns touch. Crowns may not sit on neighbouring cells — not even diagonally. Only the eight cells directly around a crown are forbidden; a distant diagonal is perfectly fine.

How solving feels

Look for a crown you can prove, then follow its consequences. Every placement rules out cells in its row, column and region, as well as nearby diagonals. The hint button highlights the cells behind a supported deduction — a one-spot region, a claimed line or a reserved set — and explains the reasoning before you apply it.

Keep personal X notes separate from proof. If a manual mark hides a forced crown, the hint warns you. A wrong crown can create a dead end; Undo restores the earlier position.

Controls

• Tap or click a cell to place a crown; tap it again to remove.
• Mark mode (or right-click) crosses out cells you have ruled out. Drag through several cells to mark them in one move; Undo reverses the whole stroke.
• Auto-mark exclusions marks cells ruled out by crowns already on the board. Region letters help you tell the colored areas apart.
• Undo steps back through your moves; Restart clears the board after a confirmation.

Common beginner mistakes

• Blocking a whole diagonal. Only the four touching diagonal cells are forbidden. A crown two or more cells away on a diagonal is allowed — this is not chess.
• Placing a crown that “looks right”. Every crown should be proved. A region with two candidates is not a forced move; look for a line lock instead.
• Forgetting rows and columns. Players scan regions and miss a row or column that has only one legal cell left.
• Trusting unproved X marks. A hopeful X can hide a region's real last cell. Mark only what a rule rules out.
• Hunting for a forced crown first. On a fresh board there usually is none: in our analysis of 4,000 boards, 93% start with a region confined to a single row or column.

Queens puzzle glossary

Crown (queen)

The piece you place. Each row, column and colored region needs exactly one, and no two may touch.

Region (kingdom)

A group of same-colored cells. A board of size N has N regions.

Candidate

A cell that could still hold a crown: it shares no row, column or region with a placed crown and does not touch one.

Forced crown

A crown in the only candidate left in a region, row or column.

Line lock

When all of a region's candidates lie in one row or column (or all of a line's candidates lie in one region), the rest of the line or region can be ruled out.

Region group

Two regions confined to the same two rows or columns (or three to three); those lines are reserved for them.

Unique solution

A proper Queens puzzle has exactly one solution reachable by logic, so guessing is never required.

Choose what to play next

Play the four-board daily set to build a streak, choose any board in the puzzle library, or explore Expedition: 33 stages and 66 possible stars. Each route's boards unlock in order. A first completion earns a star; a hint-free completion earns another. Use hints while learning, then replay to earn the mastery star.

For practice without a schedule, Unlimited draws from a published, prechecked pool across 5×5–12×12. A whole pool cycle avoids repeats before starting another. To test speed, Survival adds time after every solve, while the three-board sprint has one fixed countdown. Timed runs never repeat a board within the same run.

Get help on today's board

Open today's daily set, choose a grid and press Hint. Read the highlighted evidence first, then apply the step if you want. Each requested hint is counted in your result. These hints describe your current board position; they are not generic tips labeled as today's solution.

Learn the same deductions in the strategy exercises. Each exercise starts from a real published position and lets you select one proved placement or elimination, with a small clue, an explanation and an optional answer highlight.

Play the tutorial puzzle Read the strategy guides

Frequently asked questions