The Field Guide · Queens
How to play Queens — a free, no-signup daily logic game
What is Queens?
Queens is duplixo’s free daily logic puzzle: on an 8×8 grid split into eight colour regions, place exactly one crown in every row, every column and every region, with no two crowns touching — not even on a diagonal. There is one unique solution, and you can always reach it by pure deduction. No guessing, no sign-up, no emoji.
A free, no-signup daily logic game
Queens is the crown-placing deduction puzzle that has become a fixture of the daily-game routine, kept here deliberately simple. There is a new board every day, shared by everyone, so you can compare times with friends. When the daily grid is done, an unlimited practice mode generates fresh, uniquely solvable boards whenever you want more, and the answer archive lets you look back at ones you missed.
Three things set the tone. First, it is free — there is no paywall and no premium upsell. Second, it asks for no account: your streak and statistics live in your own browser, so you can start the moment the page loads without handing over an email address. Third, the interface is quiet — a clean board, a plain-text result you can copy, and zero emoji anywhere in the experience.
It is also built to be read by everyone. Because a Queens board relies on colour to mark its regions, every region is outlined with a thick border as well as a colour, so you can trace where one region ends and the next begins without depending on colour alone — a detail that matters for the roughly one in twelve men who are colour-blind. The whole grid renders before any script runs, so it works on a slow connection and is fully keyboard-operable.
The day’s board is the same for every player and rolls over at midnight in your own time zone. Solve it and your streak ticks up; come back tomorrow to keep it alive. There is no timer pushing you to rush — the game rewards a careful chain of logic over raw speed — and when you finish you can copy a tidy, spoiler-free summary of your solve to share.
How Queens works
The board is an 8×8 grid carved into eight colour regions, one region per colour. Your job is to place eight crowns under three constraints that all apply at once:
| Rule | What it means |
|---|---|
| One per row | Each of the eight rows holds exactly one crown — no more, no fewer. |
| One per column | Each of the eight columns holds exactly one crown. |
| One per region | Each of the eight colour regions holds exactly one crown, whatever its shape or size. |
| None touching | No two crowns may sit in cells that touch — horizontally, vertically or diagonally. |
To play, tap a cell to cycle it through three states: empty, a no-mark (a small × you use to jot down a cell you have ruled out), and a crown. The no-mark is only a memory aid; only crowns count towards the solve. A live tally tracks your crowns, your time and any clashes, and any crown that breaks a rule is ringed so you can see the conflict at a glance.
Two features are there for when you are stuck. Hint places the next forced crown for you, and Show solution reveals the whole grid. Neither is needed to finish a well-formed board — because each puzzle has a single valid arrangement, every crown can be reasoned out from the constraints. The smallest regions and the board edges are usually where the chain of logic begins.
The no-touch rule is the one newcomers underrate, so it is worth stating plainly: a crown blocks all eight of the cells around it. Picture a crown with a one-cell moat — nothing may be crowned inside that moat. Combined with the one-per-row and one-per-column rules, it means two crowns in neighbouring rows can never sit in the same column or in adjacent columns; they must be at least two columns apart.
Two forced crowns, step by step
Deductions in Queens chain together: place one crown and its eliminations often force the next. Here is a short, self-contained example around the top-left corner of a board, using the two workhorse moves — the single-cell region and a no-touch elimination.
Step one — a single-cell region. Suppose the Rose region is just one square, sitting at row 1, column 1. Because every region must contain exactly one crown, and Rose has only this one cell to offer, the crown is forced there. Place it at row 1, column 1. A single-cell region is the friendliest starting point there is: it hands you a crown with no reasoning at all.
Step two — sweep the eliminations. Now spend that crown’s consequences. Cross out the rest of row 1 and the rest of column 1 (one crown each, already used). Then apply the no-touch rule and cross out the touching neighbour at row 2, column 2. Those small × marks are exactly what the no-mark state is for.
Step three — an only-square-left crown. Say the Teal region covers just two cells: row 2, column 2 and row 3, column 2. You just crossed out row 2, column 2 because it touches the Rose crown. That leaves Teal with a single legal cell — row 3, column 2 — so its crown is forced there too. One deduction created the next.
That is the whole rhythm of Queens in miniature: place a forced crown, sweep its row, column, region and eight neighbours, and look for the next region or line that now has only one square left. Repeat until all eight crowns are down. Notice there was never a moment of guessing — each crown followed necessarily from the last.
Queens vs LinkedIn’s original
LinkedIn popularised this crown-placing format as a daily game, and we are happy to say so plainly: our Queens is the same kind of puzzle. What we have done is write our own board generator and solver from scratch, keep it free, add unlimited practice, and tidy up a few rough edges. The table below lays out the practical differences for the standard daily experience.
The gap that matters most is what happens after you solve. With duplixo, finishing the daily board is not the end — an unlimited practice mode spins up fresh, uniquely solvable grids so you can keep playing, and the answer archive lets you revisit boards you missed. There is no “come back tomorrow” wall and nothing to unlock with a subscription.
| Feature | duplixo Queens | LinkedIn’s original |
|---|---|---|
| Cost to play | Free, always | Free daily puzzle |
| New puzzle every day | Yes | Yes |
| Unlimited practice boards | Yes, no streak pressure | Limited |
| Account or sign-in | Not needed | LinkedIn account |
| Region cue beyond colour | Thick border on every region | Colour regions |
| Emoji in the interface | None | Emoji share grid |
| Built-in solver & hints | Yes, step-through | Hints |
LinkedIn and Queens are trademarks of their respective owner, LinkedIn Corporation. duplixo is an independent project built with original code and is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by LinkedIn; those names are used here only descriptively, to explain the kind of game this is.
Want to solve faster?
Queens, frequently asked
Is Queens free?
Yes. Queens is completely free to play. There is no paywall, no premium tier and no charge for the daily puzzle or for unlimited practice boards. Open it in any modern browser and start placing crowns straight away.
What are the rules of Queens?
Queens is played on an 8×8 grid split into eight colour regions. You place exactly one crown in every row, every column and every colour region — eight crowns in total — and no two crowns may touch, including diagonally. Every board has one unique solution you can reason out without guessing.
Does the no-touching rule include diagonals?
Yes. No two crowns may occupy cells that touch, and that covers the four diagonal neighbours as well as the cells directly above, below and beside a crown. In effect each crown keeps a one-cell gap from every other crown.
Do I need an account to play Queens?
No account, sign-up or email is required. Your streak and statistics are stored locally in your own browser, so you can play immediately and privately without handing over any personal details.
Can a Queens puzzle be solved without guessing?
Yes. Every daily Queens grid is built to have exactly one valid arrangement of crowns, and that arrangement can be reached by logic alone. If you ever feel you must guess, there is a forced deduction you have not spotted yet.
Is there a Queens answer page?
Yes. We publish an fresh answer page each morning with spoiler-safe hints first and the full solved grid further down, plus an archive of previous boards. It is there for the days you would rather take a nudge than stay stuck.
Know the rules? Place your crowns.
Most of the work in a Queens board happens in where you choose to look first. Start scanning the smallest colour region and the corners, where the constraints bite hardest, and the early crowns tend to fall out on their own. Get the reading order right and a clean, guess-free solve stops feeling like luck.
Our companion guide breaks down the tactics that separate a five-minute solve from a two-minute one — which region to attack first, how to squeeze the no-touch rule, and the row-and-column exclusions that force a crown. If you only read one more thing, read that. See the full Queens strategy guide, or jump straight in and play today’s board.