Queens game › Guide
Stuck on Queens? Find Your Next Move
When Queens stalls, scan every row, column and region for its last candidate. Then exclude cells that would block an entire unfinished unit. Finally, look for groups of regions whose candidates use all the capacity of the same rows or columns.
These five positions come from different original one-star practice puzzles. Crowns mark placed queens, dots mean excluded cells, and letters identify regions. R1C1 is the top-left cell. A source link opens the starting board, not the intermediate position shown.
A checklist before placing another queen
- Check the required one-per-unit quota, including every colour region.
- Count available cells in unfinished units, rather than empty cells in the entire board.
- Protect a unit even if you do not yet know where its queen goes.
- Use row and column capacity; a valid exclusion is progress even without a new queen.
1. A region with one candidate left
6×6 · easy · after 1 setup deduction.
Available cells in region A: R1C1.
region A has only R1C1 available: place its queen.
Place the queen at R1C1; other outlined changes after the step are exclusions caused by that queen.
Show the board after the deduction
Reconstruct this checkpoint from the blank board
After placing a queen, exclude all other cells in its row, column and region and all touching cells.
- A queen at R1C2 would rule out every candidate in region B: exclude that cell.
2. A cell that would erase a whole region
6×6 · easy · after 0 setup deductions.
Available cells in region B: R1C3, R1C4, R1C5, R2C2, R2C3.
A queen at R1C2 would rule out every candidate in region B: exclude that cell.
Exclude R1C2.
Show the board after the deduction
Reconstruct this checkpoint from the blank board
After placing a queen, exclude all other cells in its row, column and region and all touching cells.
3. An L-shaped group of neighbours
6×6 · easy · after 2 setup deductions.
Available cells in region C: R3C5, R3C6, R4C6.
A queen at R2C6 would rule out every candidate in region C: exclude that cell. The three available cells make an L inside a 2×2 area. A queen in the excluded cell would conflict with every one of those candidates, so that cell must be excluded.
Exclude R2C6.
Show the board after the deduction
Reconstruct this checkpoint from the blank board
After placing a queen, exclude all other cells in its row, column and region and all touching cells.
- A queen at R1C5 would rule out every candidate in region A: exclude that cell.
- A queen at R2C5 would rule out every candidate in region A: exclude that cell.
4. Two regions reserve two rows
6×6 · medium · after 4 setup deductions.
Available cells in region A, region B: R1C1, R1C2, R1C4, R2C1, R1C5, R1C6, R2C6.
region A, region B have all their candidates in row 1, row 2: exclude the other available cells in those destination units.
The 2 unfinished source regions need 2 queens. row 1, row 2 have exactly 2 queen slots. There is no spare slot for the other cells in those destination units.
Exclude R2C3, R2C4.
Show the board after the deduction
Reconstruct this checkpoint from the blank board
After placing a queen, exclude all other cells in its row, column and region and all touching cells.
- A queen at R2C2 would rule out every candidate in region C: exclude that cell.
- A queen at R2C5 would rule out every candidate in region B: exclude that cell.
- A queen at R1C3 would rule out every candidate in region C: exclude that cell.
- A queen at R3C4 would rule out every candidate in region C: exclude that cell.
5. Two regions reserve two columns
6×6 · medium · after 5 setup deductions.
Available cells in region A, region D: R1C5, R1C6, R2C6, R3C5, R3C6, R4C5, R4C6.
region A, region D have all their candidates in column 5, column 6: exclude the other available cells in those destination units.
The 2 unfinished source regions need 2 queens. column 5, column 6 have exactly 2 queen slots. There is no spare slot for the other cells in those destination units.
Exclude R5C5, R6C5, R6C6.
Show the board after the deduction
Reconstruct this checkpoint from the blank board
After placing a queen, exclude all other cells in its row, column and region and all touching cells.
- A queen at R2C3 would rule out every candidate in region C: exclude that cell.
- A queen at R2C5 would rule out every candidate in region A: exclude that cell.
- A queen at R4C4 would rule out every candidate in region C: exclude that cell.
- A queen at R5C6 would rule out every candidate in region E: exclude that cell.
- A queen at R6C4 would rule out every candidate in row 5: exclude that cell.
What if my board still has no next move?
These checks do not certify a player's existing placements. Undo any move you could not justify and return to a known-correct state. Queens does not use a chess queen's whole diagonal attack: only immediate diagonal neighbours are forbidden. Distant pieces on one diagonal can be legal.
Learn the complete Queens walkthrough, practise counting regions against rows, or diagnose common Star Battle mistakes. These constraints match one-star Star Battle; two-star play has a different quota. Solvedle is independent of LinkedIn.