How to play Queens

Queens is LinkedIn's daily logic puzzle on a coloured grid. Place one crown in every row, every column and every colour region, without any two crowns touching.

The rules

1. The grid is split into colour regions; a 5×5 grid has 5 of them.
2. Put exactly one crown in each row, each column and each colour region.
3. No two crowns may touch, not even diagonally.
4. Every official board has exactly one solution, so you never need to guess.

A new puzzle comes out every day at 12:00 AM Pacific Time. In the game, tap once to mark a cell with an X and twice for a crown.

A small example

This board is ours, not LinkedIn's:

1. The bottom-right region is a single cell, so its crown goes there. That rules out the bottom row, the right column and the cell touching it.
2. The left region sits in column 1, rows 3–5. Row 5 is gone, so its crown is in row 3 or 4 of column 1, and column 1 belongs to it: cross out the rest of column 1.
3. The big region now has room only in rows 3 and 4. Together with the left region that uses up rows 3 and 4, so nothing else can go there.
4. The two top regions share rows 1 and 2, and only one arrangement keeps the crowns apart.

Strategy

1. Start small

The smallest region, or one squeezed into a single row or column, has the fewest places for its crown. Place it first or mark the line it owns.

2. Count regions against lines

If two regions fit entirely inside the same two rows, those two rows are theirs: every other region's cells in those rows can be crossed out. The same works for three regions in three rows, and for columns.

3. Cross out around every crown

A crown rules out its row, its column and all eight cells around it. Marking them right away is what turns the next region into a single choice.

4. Test a cell by its consequences

If placing a crown would leave some region with no free cell, that cell is an X. This is the move that cracks the harder weekend boards.

Where to go next

Today's Queens answer with hints · Past Queens answers

Want practice? Play Queens Game Unlimited: our own crown puzzles, as many as you like, each checked to have exactly one solution.