Daily Queens Game — Monday, June 29, 2026
Monday, June 29, 2026 · 7x7 grid. A brand new puzzle, the same for everyone, resetting at midnight UTC.
About the daily Queens game
A new Queens puzzle every day at midnight UTC — free online, no sign-up. Replay unlimited past challenges from the daily archive or browse 1,800+ Queens puzzles.
How to play Queens
- The board is an N×N grid divided into N colored regions.
- Place exactly one queen (♛) in each row, each column, and each colored region.
- No two queens may touch each other — not horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.
- Tap once to mark a square with an X (where a queen can't go), tap again to place a queen, and once more to clear it.
- There is always exactly one valid solution. Use logic, never guessing, to find it.
Step-by-step solution for puzzle #299
What follows is a complete solve of puzzle #299, worked the way a person works it rather than the way a computer does. It runs to 14 deductions — 7 queen placements and 7 elimination steps that narrow the board between them. Each step names the rule that forces it, so nothing below is a guess, and the hardest idea required is the pairing argument on rows.
Techniques this board needs: region confined to one line, region shadow, pairing argument on rows, last square in a column, last square in a region, line confined to one region.
Show the full walkthrough (10 steps) — contains the solution
Step 1. Amber cannot leave row 2 — every one of its open squares (2 open squares) sits there. That row belongs to amber, so every square on it owned by another colour is dead: 9 squares in all.
Step 2. Blue is down to 4 candidates in rows 1, 3, and 4, columns 6 and 7, and they overlap enough to cover 1 square elsewhere. Cross those out without deciding anything about blue itself.
Step 3. The mint region has 3 squares left, spread across rows 3 and 4, columns 4 and 5. You do not need to know which of them takes the queen: every one of those options attacks the same 2 squares, so they can be crossed out now.
The board after step 3 — 0 of 7 queens placed. Step 4. Here is the pairing argument. The indigo, blue, and mint regions have no open squares outside rows 1, 3, and 4 — 3 colours confined to 3 rows. Between them they must take one row each, in some order, so every other colour is shut out of all of them: 6 squares come off in one stroke.
Step 5. Slate cannot leave column 1 — every one of its open squares (2 open squares) sits there. That column belongs to slate, so every square in it owned by another colour is dead: 3 squares in all.
Step 6. Column 2 now has exactly one open square, row 7, column 2, in the pale yellow region. Columns must each hold a queen, so that placement is forced. That clears row 7, column 2, the rest of the pale yellow region and every square adjacent to it — diagonals included.
Step 7. Only row 5, column 1 is still open in slate, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. Everything else in row 5, in column 1, in slate and in the ring around that square is now dead.
The board after step 7 — 2 of 7 queens placed. Step 8. Every open square left in column 3 (2 open squares) belongs to the indigo region. Since that column must contain a queen, indigo is the colour that supplies it — so indigo squares anywhere else on the board are out, 1 square in all.
Step 9. Column 4 has only mint squares left (2 open squares). The column needs a queen and only mint can provide one, which pins that colour to this column and kills its squares elsewhere: 1 square.
Step 10. From here the board cascades. Keep alternating the region sweep and the line sweep and 5 queens fall out in order without any new idea being needed: column 5 is down to one square, putting a queen on row 2, column 5; mint has one square left, so its queen takes row 4, column 4; indigo has one square left, so its queen takes row 1, column 3; blue has one square left, so its queen takes row 3, column 7; red has one square left, so its queen takes row 6, column 6. After each one, clear that row, that column, the rest of the colour and the ring of neighbours before looking for the next. The last of them seats the queen on row 6, column 6.
The board after step 10 — 7 of 7 queens placed.
That completes the board: 7 queens seated, one in every row, one in every column and one in every colour, with no two of them touching. Notice that nothing in the sequence above required a guess — each placement followed from an elimination already on the grid, which is what “single solution, solvable by logic” actually means in practice.
About 7x7 Queens puzzle #299
7x7 puzzle #299 is rated hard. Seven colored regions cover its 49 squares, and your job is to seat seven queens so that every row, column and color contains exactly one — with no queen touching another, including diagonally.
Puzzle #299 has been checked to admit exactly one arrangement of queens, and every step toward it is deducible from what is already on the board. There is no point at which you are expected to pick a square and hope. The only thing that differs between boards is how quickly the first certainty surfaces, and that depends entirely on the shapes the colors happen to take here.
How the colors divide this board
From smallest to largest, the regions on puzzle #299 are: amber (2 squares), mint (5 squares), blue (6 squares), red (6 squares), indigo (7 squares), slate (9 squares), pale yellow (14 squares). An even split would hand every color 7 squares, so the amber region is running 5 squares under that average while the pale yellow region is the roomiest area on the grid with 14 squares.
One queen per color, regardless of acreage: that is what turns this uneven split into a solving order. Amber is working with 2 squares while pale yellow has 14 to spare, a gap of 12. Attack the cramped end and the roomy regions tend to resolve themselves.
Look at arrangement as well as area. Amber is the densest region on this grid at 100% of a 1×2 frame; indigo is the loosest, occupying only 47% of its 3×5 frame. The loose one reaches into more rows and columns, which is exactly why it usually settles last.
Region by region
The complete breakdown of each region on this board follows, ordered from tightest to roomiest. Skimming the spans first tells you where the board is crowded and where it has slack.
Amber occupies 2 squares within rows 2–2, columns 5–6. It never leaves row 2, so its queen is locked to that row.
Mint: 5 squares across rows 2–4, columns 4–5.
Blue covers 6 squares, spanning 4 rows and 2 columns (rows 1–4, columns 6–7).
Red occupies 6 squares within rows 5–7, columns 5–7.
Indigo: 7 squares across rows 1–3, columns 2–6.
Slate covers 9 squares, spanning 6 rows and 2 columns (rows 1–6, columns 1–2).
Pale yellow occupies 14 squares within rows 4–7, columns 1–6.
Where to start on this board
The most constrained color is where a solve should begin, and on #299 that is amber with 2 squares. It reaches from row 2 to row 2 and from column 5 to column 6 — 1 row by 2 columns. One queen has to live inside that footprint no matter what else happens, which makes those lines the busiest real estate on the board.
Because amber never leaves row 2, its queen must be in that row — and that instantly settles row 2 for everyone else. Sweep along it and X out every square that is not amber. Then look at which colors just lost ground: on a grid this size that one observation usually forces a second region within a move or two.
No region here is pinned to a shallow band of rows, so turn the same idea sideways: slate, blue, mint and amber span only two columns. Two narrow regions sharing the same two columns take one column each and lock everyone else out of both, which is usually enough to crack a board that offers no free opening.
The tightest lines on puzzle #299
A quick way to find the next move is to count how many different colors touch each line. On this board, row 7 is the narrowest, touched by only 2 colors. Columns 1, 3 and 7 are the tightest columns, with 2 colors.
A line with few colors is a line close to resolving. Where only 2 colors appear, one of them owns the row outright and the others must fit into the remaining 6 rows. Row 2 is the crowded extreme at 5 colors — worth revisiting later, not now.
Working through the middle game
Once two or three queens are down, the board changes character. Each queen removes an entire row, an entire column and the ring of up to eight squares around it, so the grid shrinks faster than most people expect. The habit that pays here is marking rather than remembering: after every placement, cross out the full row, the full column and all eight neighbours before hunting for the next move.
With seven queens to seat and seven regions competing over 49 squares, keep two questions in rotation. Does any region now have exactly one open square left? That queen is forced. Does any row or column now have exactly one open square left? That queen is forced too. Alternating between the region view and the row-and-column view is what keeps a solve moving, and it is the clearest difference between players who finish 7x7 boards quickly and players who stall halfway.
Say the reason out loud: "this region has one square left", "this column has one square left". If no such sentence is available, the eliminating is not finished. One more pass of X marks is almost always quicker than committing to a placement you cannot defend.
Why puzzle #299 is rated hard
Ratings track how generous the opening is. On #299 you get one region pinned to a single row or column, a smallest color of 2 squares, a tightest row crossed by 2 colors, and a 12-square gap between the largest and smallest regions. Those four numbers largely explain the hard label.
Rating is a measure of chain length, not of chance. With one guaranteed solution and no guessing required, the only thing that changes across the collection is how many eliminations you must link together before a queen is provably forced.
When a board plays tougher than its label, look for a missed mark before you look for a clever deduction. Walk back over every queen you have placed and confirm the full row, the full column and all eight surrounding squares are crossed out. The diagonal neighbours are the ones players skip, and a single skipped diagonal will hide the next forced move indefinitely.
Techniques that work well at 7x7
At 7x7 the whole grid stays within a single glance, which makes systematic scanning practical. Read the rows in order and count the colors in each — a row touched by two colors is far more constrained than one touched by five, and that is usually where the next forced move hides. The board is small enough that re-scanning from the top after each placement costs almost nothing.
Whatever the grid size, the pairing rule is the technique to internalise. When a pair of regions is boxed into the same pair of rows, they split those rows between them and nobody else may enter — and the same holds for columns, or for any n regions confined to n lines. Look for an instance of it around row 7 on this board.
A non-spoiling distribution check: solved, #299 carries 4 queens on the perimeter against 3 queens inside, with the corners empty. Because no two queens may touch, real solutions always look fairly evenly spread — a lopsided board in progress is a warning sign.
Frequently asked questions
How hard is 7x7 Queens puzzle #299?
Puzzle #299 is rated hard. Its smallest color region holds 2 squares, its tightest row is touched by 2 colors, and one of its regions is confined to a single row or column, which gives you a forced move early.
Does 7x7 puzzle #299 have only one solution?
Yes. Every puzzle in the 7x7 collection, including #299, has been verified to have exactly one valid arrangement of seven queens, and it can always be reached by logic alone — no guessing or backtracking needed.
Where should I place my first queen on puzzle #299?
Start with the amber region — the most constrained color on this board, with 2 squares spanning rows 2–2 and columns 5–6. Narrowing the smallest region first removes the most squares elsewhere on the grid.
What makes the daily Queens game special
The daily Queens game challenge is one carefully chosen puzzle that is the same for every player around the world. A new board goes live every day at midnight UTC and stays as the day's official puzzle until the next reset. Because everyone is solving the identical grid, the daily becomes a shared experience: you can compare how you approached it with friends, talk through the tricky deduction in the middle, or simply enjoy the quiet satisfaction of knowing you cracked the same board as solvers everywhere else.
Like every puzzle on the site, the daily Queens game online is completely free, needs no sign-up and runs instantly in your browser so you can play Queens online in seconds. It is designed to be a perfect bite-sized brain exercise — long enough to feel earned, short enough to fit into a coffee break. Solving it keeps your daily streak alive, and the streak is a gentle nudge to come back tomorrow and keep the logical part of your mind warmed up.
How today's puzzle is chosen
Each day's board is drawn from our larger library of verified puzzles, so the daily inherits the same cast-iron guarantee as the rest of the site: it has exactly one solution and that solution is always reachable by logic alone, never by guessing. The grid size and the specific puzzle rotate from day to day, which keeps the routine varied — some days you will face a brisk smaller board, other days a meatier grid that rewards a slower, more methodical solve.
Because the selection is deterministic and tied to the date, the puzzle you see today is exactly the puzzle every other player sees today, and it is exactly the puzzle that will sit at this date forever in the archive. There is no randomness between players and no way to refresh into an easier board — the challenge is fixed, fair and shared, which is precisely what makes comparing solves with other people meaningful.
Replay the full daily archive
Missing a day is never a problem here. Every past daily challenge is preserved in the archive, so you can step back to any previous date and play that day's board exactly as it appeared. This is something the original LinkedIn-style daily does not let you do, and it turns the daily from a one-shot novelty into a deep, replayable collection you can binge whenever you like.
The archive is also a great way to practice. If today's grid size suits you, browse backward to find more boards of the same shape, or work through the history in order to feel how the puzzles vary over time. You can move directly between consecutive days using the previous and next links, jump to any date from the archive list, or branch out into the full puzzle library whenever you want even more to solve.
A simple daily solving routine
A reliable routine makes the daily quick and stress-free. Begin by reading the colors: find the smallest or most awkwardly shaped region, because a cramped region usually forces its queen into one of very few squares. Then sweep the rows and columns for any line that already has only a single open cell, since a queen must go there. Place those forced queens first and let them do the heavy lifting.
After every placement, immediately mark X's on the squares that queen rules out — the rest of its row, column and region, plus every neighboring square it touches. These marks keep the board honest and constantly expose the next forced move. When easy moves run out, hunt for pairs of regions confined to the same rows or columns; identifying those locked lines is what breaks open the harder daily boards. Work in calm passes, trust the logic, and the final queen will click into place.
More ways to keep playing
If one puzzle a day is not enough, the Queens game online keeps you covered. Dive into the archive to replay history, or open the full library of more than 1,800 puzzles across six grid sizes, from quick 7x7 boards to demanding 12x12 grids. Every one of them follows the same friendly promise: one queen per row, one per column, one per color region, none of them touching, and a single solution you can always reach by reasoning rather than luck.
However you choose to play, the daily challenge is a great anchor for the habit. Solve it each day to protect your streak, use the archive to catch up on anything you missed, and lean on the wider library whenever you want to push your skills further. It is a free, friendly, guess-free logic puzzle that is always ready when you want to think.