Welcome to Star Battle grid logic puzzles!
If you enjoy grid puzzles like Sudoku or have tried LinkedIn’s popular daily game Queens or the New York Times puzzle ‘Two Not Touch’, you are in for a treat.
Star Battle (often referred to simply as Two Not Touch or Queens) is a classic, deeply satisfying logic puzzle. While Sudoku relies on placing numbers 1 through 9, Star Battle replaces numbers with stars! Don’t let its visual simplicity fool you, though—it’s a pure test of spatial reasoning, deduction, and elimination.
If you’ve played LinkedIn’s Queens, you already know the core concept: placing visual markers on a grid divided into irregular shapes so that no two touch. Star Battle expands on this foundation, in addition to the one star puzzles, this is sometimes extended using 2 stars per row, column, and region instead of just 1, opening up even deeper logic and strategy.
The Goal & Grid Layout
A standard Star Battle puzzle consists of a square grid (commonly 8×8 or 10×10) divided into irregularly shaped, colored or outlined regions (also called zones or shapes).
Your objective is simple: Place a specific number of stars into the grid while strictly following the placement rules.
Most standard puzzles call for 2 Stars per line and region (a “2-Star Battle”), but smaller beginner puzzles may only require 1 Star (a “1-Star Battle”).
What Are Star Battle /Queens Game Rules?
Star battle logic puzzles, like so many other puzzles of this type, has deceptively simple rules!
There are just three fundamental rules that govern every move:
- No Touching! Stars can never touch each other, not even diagonally. Every star must have an empty 8-cell perimeter around it.
- Row & Column Limits: Every single row and every single column must contain exactly the required number of stars.
- Region Limits: Every outlined region must also contain exactly the required number of stars
Pro Tips & Strategies for Solving Star Battle Puzzles for Beginners
1. The ‘Diagonal ‘No Touching’ Rule
Since stars cannot touch diagonally, if you place a star in a cell, each the eight cells around it are automatically blocked out (X).
2. Look for Narrow/Thin Regions
Look for regions that are very narrow or compact.
- If a 2-star region is only 3 cells wide, placing a star in the middle cell would block both ends—making it impossible to get 2 stars into that region. Therefore, the middle cell must be an
X!
3. Block out Completed Regions & Row/Columns
When the required number of stars have been placed you can then block out the rest of that region AND the row/column that the star/s appear in. This will help you by reducing your options for the next move.
Star Battle Walkthrough
This is the pùzzle grid we are going to use for this walkthrough. One star will be placed per region. If you would like to follow along, you can download it here
Star Battle Walkthough
Step1:
Look for Narrow/Thin regions and block the cells you know can’t contain stars in other regions.
In the example we’re using, there are two regions which are just one cell deep. Therefore we know that no other stars can be placed in the corresponding rows.
I have also started to block out cells where I know a star can’t be placed to avoid the ‘no touching’ rule.
Step 2: Look for Clues in Regions
The regions will also give us some clues and allow for more cells to be blocked out. In the example we’re working through we can see that the region highlighted can only have a star on the second row. We don’t know yet which cell will hold the star, but we know it will be one of the remaining two in this region – therefore we can block out the rest of the cells in the second row.
We can do the same in the bottom left region. The only possible place for stars in this region is the penultimate row – so we can block out the rest of these rows too.
Step 3: Remember the Regions!
As more cells get blocked out – we can start to see clearly where stars should go and the regions make this super-straightforward to see. We’ve blocked out where we know stars can’t go on the second row – which means that only place that the star for the top right region must be here:
Look for New Opportunities
Once a star is placed, block out the cells you know can’t be filled with a star and then take a look to see how this changes things.
In the last step we added our first star – and by eliminating the places we know the stars can’t go – immediately new opportunities for placing stars appears.
Continue working through like this.
Remember the Rules!
Keep viewing the grid with the rules in mind – no stars can touch (even diagonally), each row and column must contain the designated number of stars (in this instance 1), each region must contain only one star.
Keeping in mind the ‘no touching’ rule, we know that a star can’t go where I’ve circled the X below. Therefore we also know that the two regions with arrows must contain a star, and we know that only one star can be in each row/column. Therefore by the process of elimination we can place the next two stars.
Follow the Rules, Don’t Guess!
Keep blocking the cells you know can’t feature a cell and keep looking for what new opportunties have opened.
There is never any need to guess 🙂 Remember – no touching stars, the designated number of stars per column/row – the designated number of stars per region. Follow these rules and you’re well on your way to solving the Star Battle puzzles 🙂
