TablewitHow do you solve a Star Battle puzzle?
Put stars on the grid so every row, every column and every colored area has exactly one star (two on some bigger boards), and no two stars touch, not even diagonally. You solve it by elimination: rule out the cells that can't hold a star, find a row, column or area with a single free cell left, place that star, and repeat until the board is full, with no guessing
What are the rules of Star Battle?
- Every row has one star
- Every column has one star
- Every colored area has one star
- Two stars never touch, not side by side and not corner to corner
If you've played Queens on LinkedIn, it's the same idea with stars instead of crowns. Competition puzzles often ask for two stars per row, column and area on a 10×10 board, but the method below works for any count
How do you solve it step by step?
- Start with the smallest areas. An area with one or two cells has almost no choices, so its star is the easiest to pin down
- Clear around every star you place. A star rules out the rest of its row, its column, its area and the eight cells around it, so mark all of them at once
- Look for an area stuck in one line. If every free cell of an area sits in the same row or column, that line's star belongs to the area, and every other cell of the line is out
- Look for a line stuck in one area. It works the other way too: if a row's free cells all sit inside one area, the rest of that area is out
- Test a cell by what it would block. If a star in a cell would rule out every free cell of some row, column or area, that cell can't hold a star
- Repeat. Each new mark opens the next move, and the last stars usually fall into place in a few seconds
Can you show a worked example?
Here's a small 5×5 board. Rows are counted from the top and columns from the left, and thick lines separate the areas: blue down the left edge, green winding through the middle, yellow in the top right, purple in the bottom right and a small orange area of two cells in the bottom left
- The blue area is column 1, rows 1 to 4, so column 1's only star is a blue one. That rules out the orange cell at row 5, column 1
- Orange has just one free cell left, row 5, column 2, so the star goes there. It rules out the rest of row 5, all of column 2 and the three cells above it
- Green winds through columns 2 and 3, but column 2 is taken and row 4 and row 5 are blocked by the orange star, so green's only free cell is row 3, column 3. Star
- Row 4 now has a single free cell, column 5 in the purple area. Star
- Row 2 has only column 1 left, the blue cell. Star
- Row 1 has only column 4 left, in yellow. Star, and every row, column and area has its one star
No step needed a guess, and that's true of every well made Star Battle: there's always a cell you can prove
What if you get stuck?
- Recheck the marks around each star, a missed neighbor is the most common reason a board feels impossible
- Count: with one star per line, five rows need five stars, so if two areas fit entirely inside two rows, those two rows are theirs and no other area can use them
- Pick the area with the fewest free cells and try each cell in your head, if one leads to an empty row or area, rule it out
- Take a short break, a fresh look often finds the move in seconds
How does Tablewit help you learn Star Battle?
In Tablewit, Star Battle is called Stars. There's a new daily Stars board every day, the same for everyone, from 6×6 on Monday up to 9×9 on Sunday, a 5×5 Mini you can solve right on your Home Screen widget or your Apple Watch, and 200 levels that start at 4×4 and grow slowly. A move that breaks a rule shows a dashed outline so you can see why, it counts as a slip in your stats and never ends the game, and your mascot drops a tip under the board when you want one. Every puzzle has one solution you can reach without guessing