How to play
- One crown per row and per column. An n by n board needs n crowns, one in each row and one in each column.
- One crown per color. The board is split into n color regions, outlined in thick lines, and each region holds exactly one crown.
- Crowns never touch. No two crowns may be neighbours, not even at a corner.
- Tap to play. Tap a cell once to mark it with an X, twice for a crown, a third time to clear it. Drag across empty cells to mark several at once.
Mistakes show straight away: crowns that break a rule turn red, so you never finish a board on a wrong guess without knowing.
Solving techniques, from first to fiendish
Every Crowns board can be solved with the steps below. The difficulty label on a board tells you the hardest step it needs.
- A crown clears its neighbourhood. Once a crown is placed, nothing else can go in its row, its column, its region or the eight cells around it. Mark them all.
- The last cell standing. When a row, column or region has only one cell left that could hold a crown, the crown goes there.
- A region inside one line. If every open cell of a region lies in the same row, that region's crown is in that row, so every other cell of the row can be marked. The same works for columns. This is usually the first move on a fresh board.
- A line inside one region. The reverse: if every open cell of a row lies inside one region, the region's crown must be in that row, so the rest of the region is empty.
- The cell that would wipe out a region. Imagine a crown on a cell. If it would rule out every remaining cell of some region, row or column, that cell cannot hold a crown. Cells right next to a small region are the usual suspects.
- Regions sharing lines. When two regions fit entirely inside the same two rows, those two rows hold both of their crowns, so every other cell in those rows is empty. Three regions in three rows work the same way.
- A short what-if. On the hardest boards, try a crown in a likely cell and follow the simple steps for a move or two. If that empties some row or region, the cell is ruled out.
Levels and dailies
| Levels | Board | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 10 | 5 by 5 | Gentle and easy |
| 11 to 40 | 6 by 6 | Gentle and easy |
| 41 to 120 | 7 by 7 | Up to medium |
| 121 to 220 | 8 by 8 | Easy to hard |
| 221 to 320 | 9 by 9 | Easy to hard |
| 321 to 400 | 10 by 10 | Medium to fiendish |
Difficulty climbs within each stage, with an easier board about every fifth level to catch your breath. The daily puzzle is the same for everyone and changes at midnight where you are. Solve it on the day to build a streak; the last week of dailies stays open in the statistics screen.
Why every board is fair
Boards are generated by our own software in three steps: place crowns that follow the rules, grow color regions around them, then prove the result. A solver confirms there is exactly one way to place the crowns, and a second solver, limited to the human techniques above, must finish the board without guessing. Boards that need a guess are thrown away. That second solver is also what powers the hints, which is why a hint can always tell you the reason for its move.
Questions
- Is Crowns the same as a queens puzzle?
- Yes, it follows the popular queens rules: one per row, one per column, one per color region, and none touching, even diagonally. We use crowns instead of chess queens.
- Do I ever have to guess?
- No. Every board has exactly one solution and can be solved by reasoning alone. Each one is checked by a solver that only uses the techniques described on this page.
- How do the hints work?
- A hint points to the next logical step and explains it in a sentence, such as which region is squeezed into one row. You can apply it with one tap or work it out yourself. Each puzzle has three free hints, and the result screen shows how many you used.
- What does marking with X do?
- An X is your own note that a cell cannot hold a crown. The game does not need them, but marking cells is the fastest way to see what is left. Turn on "Mark around new crowns" in the menu to have the game place them for you.
- How big do the boards get?
- From 5 by 5 in the first levels to 10 by 10 at the end. The daily puzzle is 7 by 7 early in the week, 8 by 8 midweek and 9 by 9 at the weekend.
- Can I play with a keyboard?
- Yes. Use the arrow keys to move, X to mark, C to place a crown, Backspace to clear a cell, U to undo and H for a hint.