How to play the Queens puzzle
Logic is Octopuzzle's daily Queens puzzle. The board is split into colored regions, and you place queens so that every row, every column and every region has exactly one, with no two queens touching. The board grows through the week, from 6×6 on Monday to 9×9 on Sunday.
The rules
- 1
One queen per row
Every row gets exactly one queen.
- 2
One queen per column
Every column gets exactly one queen.
- 3
One queen per color region
Every colored region gets exactly one queen. A board of size N has N rows, N columns and N regions.
- 4
Queens never touch
No two queens can sit in neighboring cells, and that includes the four diagonal neighbors. Unlike chess queens, they can share a diagonal as long as they aren't touching.
- 5
There is one answer
Every puzzle has exactly one solution, so it can always be solved by logic without guessing.
- 6
Mark cells as you go
Tap a cell once for an ✕ to rule it out, twice for a queen, and a third time to clear it. Drag across empty cells to mark several ✕ at once. Queens that break a rule are shown with stripes, and Undo steps back.
A solved 6×6 board
Tips for solving
- Start with the smallest region. A region of two or three cells leaves few places for its queen, and every one of those choices rules out cells around it.
- When you place a queen, mark ✕ on its whole row, its whole column, its region and the eight cells around it.
- If a region sits entirely inside one row or one column, its queen takes that line. Mark ✕ on the rest of the row or column.
- Count lines and regions. If two regions fit inside the same two rows, those two rows are used up by them, so every other cell in those rows is an ✕.
- Look at a region's possible cells together. If every option touches or shares a line with the same cell, that cell can't hold a queen.
How scoring works
A solve starts at 1,000 points and loses 1 point for every second on the clock, down to a floor of 100.
Each hint takes 100 points off. Giving up scores 0.
Your daily scores add up to your points for the week in groups and in your weekly league.
| Solved in 1:00 | 940 |
|---|---|
| Solved in 2:30 | 850 |
| Solved in 2:30 with 1 hint | 750 |
| Solved in 15:00 or slower | 100 |
| Gave up | 0 |
Streaks
Play any of the three daily puzzles to the end, solved or not, and your streak grows by a day. One puzzle is enough; you don't need all three.
Every 7 days in a row earns a freeze, and you can hold two. A freeze covers a missed day on its own, with nothing to tap.
If your streak breaks anyway, you can get it back for two days. Play the missed puzzle from yesterday or the day before on the Today screen, and the streak is restored.
Questions
Get the app
Word, Number and Logic arrive fresh every day, and Unlimited has classic Sudoku whenever you want more. Free, no ads, and it plays offline. Octopuzzle is coming to iPhone first, with Android planned.
