Crowns is solved by deduction, not guessing. These techniques turn a daunting board into a chain of forced moves, and they work on any Star Battle or Queens-style grid, not just ours.
Small regions, or regions squeezed into one row or column, have the fewest legal crown positions. Solve those first — each crown you place eliminates cells elsewhere.
Whenever you place a crown, X out its whole row, column, region, and all eight neighbors. The X marks reveal the next forced crown far faster than holding it in your head.
If a region fits inside a 2×N band, its crown forbids the adjacent cells of neighboring rows — often forcing a crown elsewhere. Look for rows or columns where only one region remains.
Every Crowns puzzle is solvable by these guess-free deductions, from foundational to advanced: Lone Cell (naked single) — the only legal cell in a row, column, or region must be a crown; Region Lockout — a region confined to one line claims it, clearing other regions there; Claiming — a line whose only options sit in one region forces that region's crown onto the line; Adjacency Squeeze — the no-touch rule chains eliminations through neighbors; and Pairs & Triples (subset elimination) — K regions locked to K lines reserve them, the technique that cracks 10×10 grids and larger.
On Crowns' 2★ Star Battle boards each row, column, and region takes two stars. The same deductions apply, but counting matters more: a region that can only fit its pair in one band locks that band for every other region. Place the forced pair first, then re-scan.
Find the most constrained region, place its forced star, then X out that star's row, column, region and all eight neighbors. Re-scan for the next region or line with only one legal option and repeat — every board resolves as a chain of forced moves.
The no-touch rule. Because a crown blocks all eight neighboring cells, its effect reaches into adjacent rows and regions, which is where most stuck boards actually unlock.
Yes. Every puzzle has exactly one solution and never requires a guess — if no move looks forced, an elimination has been missed rather than the puzzle being ambiguous.
Stop looking for the next crown and look for the next X instead. Marking impossible cells is what exposes forced moves; most stuck boards are under-marked, not unsolvable.
Practice on today's puzzle, or review the full rules first.
Place a crown in every row, column & color region.
A new puzzle every day.