⭐ Star Battle
🧩 Logic · 0 playsStar Battle
Place the stars so that every row, column and region holds its quota, and no two touch.
About Star Battle
The grid is divided into bold-edged regions, and stars must be placed so that every row, every column and every region holds exactly the required number — with the single further rule that no two stars may touch, even diagonally. That adjacency rule carries most of the weight: each placed star sweeps the eight cells around it clean, and a region squeezed into two rows can force placements far outside its own borders. The puzzle yields nothing to guessing and everything to elimination, and marking the cells a star cannot occupy is as important as placing the stars themselves. Later levels raise the quota to two stars apiece.
How to Play
Tap a cell to place a star, and tap again to mark it with a dot as impossible. Each row, each column and each bold region must hold exactly the stated number of stars. No two stars may touch one another, not even at a corner.
💡 Tips & Strategy
The adjacency rule is the engine, so drive with it. Every star you place clears all eight surrounding cells, and every cleared cell narrows a row, a column and a region at once. Dot the impossible cells as diligently as you star the certain ones — the puzzle is solved in the dots.
Hunt for cramped regions. A region confined to a single row or column pins its stars there, which strips that line's quota from every cell outside the region. More generally, if N regions live entirely inside N rows, those rows' stars all belong to those regions, and every other cell in those rows is dead. This counting argument, small and large, is the strongest tool in the puzzle.
Use the geometry of two-star lines. Two stars in one row need at least one empty cell between them, so a row whose candidates sit in one block of three has its ends forced and its middle dead. A two-by-two square can hold at most one star anywhere on the board — tiling a stubborn area with dominoes and two-by-twos often proves a cell impossible faster than direct trial.
When a region has exactly as many candidate cells as stars, fill it and cascade the consequences. When it has one spare, test which candidate's removal would strand the quota — the cell whose removal breaks the region is not necessarily a star, but the cells adjacent to all remaining candidates are certainly empty. Keep alternating between region-counting and adjacency sweeps; hard puzzles yield to the rhythm, not to staring.