Daily Queens Game — Tuesday, June 30, 2026
Tuesday, June 30, 2026 · 8x8 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 #225
What follows is a complete solve of puzzle #225, worked the way a person works it rather than the way a computer does. It runs to 15 deductions — 8 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 line confined to one region.
Techniques this board needs: last square in a region, region shadow, region confined to one line, line confined to one region, last square in a row.
Show the full walkthrough (9 steps) — contains the solution
Step 1. Only row 4, column 4 is still open in mint, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. That clears row 4, column 4, the rest of the mint region and every square adjacent to it — diagonals included.
Step 2. Indigo is down to 3 candidates in rows 1 and 2, columns 5 and 6, and they overlap enough to cover 2 squares elsewhere. Cross those out without deciding anything about indigo itself.
Step 3. The blue region has 4 squares left, spread across rows 1–3, columns 7 and 8. You do not need to know which of them takes the queen: every one of those options attacks the same 1 square, so they can be crossed out now.
The board after step 3 — 1 of 8 queens placed. Step 4. Wherever red ends up among its 3 squares, the same squares fall within reach of it — 2 squares in total, impossible regardless of how the colour resolves.
Step 5. Khaki cannot leave row 8 — every one of its open squares (2 open squares) sits there. That row belongs to khaki, so every square on it owned by another colour is dead: 7 squares in all.
Step 6. All of the pale yellow region's remaining squares (2 open squares) lie in column 1. Its queen therefore has to be somewhere in that column, which means no other colour may use it: 5 squares come off.
The board after step 6 — 1 of 8 queens placed. Step 7. Wherever red ends up among its 2 squares, the same squares fall within reach of it — 1 square in total, impossible regardless of how the colour resolves.
Step 8. Every open square left in row 5 (3 open squares) belongs to the slate region. Since that row must contain a queen, slate is the colour that supplies it — so slate squares anywhere else on the board are out, 8 squares in all.
Step 9. From here the board cascades. Keep alternating the region sweep and the line sweep and 7 queens fall out in order without any new idea being needed: row 7 is down to one square, putting a queen on row 7, column 1; row 6 is down to one square, putting a queen on row 6, column 3; row 3 is down to one square, putting a queen on row 3, column 7; khaki has one square left, so its queen takes row 8, column 8; slate has one square left, so its queen takes row 5, column 6; indigo has one square left, so its queen takes row 1, column 5; amber has one square left, so its queen takes row 2, column 2. 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 2, column 2.
The board after step 9 — 8 of 8 queens placed.
That completes the board: 8 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 8x8 Queens puzzle #225
Puzzle #225 is one of the medium-rated boards in the 8x8 set. Eight colors divide its 64 squares, and you win by placing eight queens so that each row, each column and each color holds exactly one, with no two queens adjacent in any direction.
There is exactly one way to finish #225, and it has been verified. More importantly, you can reach it without ever gambling: at every stage some square is provably right or provably wrong. Boards differ only in how deep you must dig before that proof appears, and the geometry of these eight regions is what sets the depth.
How the colors divide this board
From smallest to largest, the regions on puzzle #225 are: mint (1 square), khaki (2 squares), indigo (3 squares), blue (5 squares), red (6 squares), pale yellow (7 squares), amber (15 squares), slate (25 squares). An even split would hand every color 8 squares, so the mint region is running 7 squares under that average while the slate region is the roomiest area on the grid with 25 squares.
Why does the split matter? Because a region's square count has no bearing on how many queens it gets — the answer is always one. So mint, with 1 square, is under far more pressure than slate with 25. A 24-square gap like this one rewards players who start where the choices are fewest.
Look at arrangement as well as area. Mint is the densest region on this grid at 100% of a 1×1 frame; pale yellow is the loosest, occupying only 58% of its 3×4 frame. The loose one reaches into more rows and columns, which is exactly why it usually settles last.
Region by region
Here is the full footprint of every color on puzzle #225, smallest first. Reading these spans before you place anything is the quickest way to see which parts of the grid are genuinely contested.
Mint: 1 square across rows 4–4, columns 4–4. It never leaves row 4, so its queen is locked to that row.
Khaki covers 2 squares, spanning 1 row and 2 columns (rows 8–8, columns 7–8). It never leaves row 8, so its queen is locked to that row.
Indigo occupies 3 squares within rows 1–2, columns 5–6.
Blue: 5 squares across rows 1–3, columns 7–8.
Red covers 6 squares, spanning 4 rows and 2 columns (rows 3–6, columns 2–3).
Pale yellow occupies 7 squares within rows 6–8, columns 1–4.
Amber: 15 squares across rows 1–5, columns 1–5.
Slate covers 25 squares, spanning 6 rows and 6 columns (rows 3–8, columns 3–8).
Where to start on this board
Open on the tightest color. Here that is mint, confined to 1 square between rows 4 and 4 and columns 4 and 4. Its queen has nowhere else to go, which means those 1 row and 1 column carry more constraint than anywhere else on #225.
Because mint never leaves row 4, its queen must be in that row — and that instantly settles row 4 for everyone else. Sweep along it and X out every square that is not mint. 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.
Work outward to the other flat regions next. Khaki and indigo are no more than two rows tall, so their queens are confined to a narrow band. When two flat regions overlap the same pair of rows, those rows are spoken for and every other color is locked out of both — the single most productive pattern in the game, and it is live on this board.
The tightest lines on puzzle #225
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 and 6 are the tightest columns, with 2 colors.
Those lines matter because a row touched by few colors gives its queen away sooner. If a row meets only 2 colors, then one of those regions has to own it, and every other region is competing for the remaining 7 rows. By contrast row 4 meets 4 colors — the most crowded line here, and the one least likely to resolve early. Spend your attention accordingly.
Working through the middle game
Past the opening, treat this as an elimination exercise rather than a placement exercise. Each queen takes out a row, a column and its eight neighbours, and the value of a move is measured by how much it removes. Cross everything out as you go and let the board do the remembering.
Two checks, run alternately, will carry you through the 64 squares of this grid. First: has any of the eight regions been reduced to a single open square? Second: has any row or column? Either answer forces a queen. Players who stall on 8x8 boards almost always run one of those checks and forget the other.
Resist the plausible-looking queen. On #225 every correct placement has a stated reason behind it, and any move you cannot justify is a guess wearing a disguise. Backing out of a wrong guess on a single-solution board takes far longer than finding the real deduction would have.
Why puzzle #225 is rated medium
The rating reflects how much the board concedes up front. Puzzle #225 has three regions confined to a single row or column, its smallest color holds 1 square, its tightest row meets just 2 colors, and the gap between its largest and smallest regions is 24 squares. Flat, lopsided boards open quickly; even, sprawling ones make you earn the first placement.
Nothing about the rating involves computation or chance. Each grid has a single solution reachable by pure logic; the rating simply measures how far ahead you have to reason. Easy boards resolve a queen every step or two, while hard ones can ask you to carry three unfinished lines of thought before any of them pays off.
Stuck on #225 despite the medium rating? The odds strongly favour a bookkeeping error over a hard chain of logic. Re-check each placed queen for its complete set of eliminations, paying particular attention to the four diagonal squares — those are the ones that get overlooked, and one of them is usually sitting on the answer.
Techniques that work well at 8x8
At 8x8 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.
Learn the pairing argument and you will use it on every board, this one included. If two colors can only sit inside the same two rows, between them they consume both rows and every other color is shut out. It generalises to any matching count — three colors across three rows, four across four. On #225, start hunting for it near row 7.
As a sanity check rather than a spoiler: the finished solution to #225 puts 3 queens on the outer border and 5 queens in the interior, 1 of them in an actual corner. If your part-finished grid has queens bunched into one area while whole stretches sit empty, something probably went wrong a few moves back.
Frequently asked questions
How hard is 8x8 Queens puzzle #225?
Puzzle #225 is rated medium. Its smallest color region holds 1 square, its tightest row is touched by 2 colors, and three of its regions are confined to a single row or column, which gives you a forced move early.
Does 8x8 puzzle #225 have only one solution?
Yes. Every puzzle in the 8x8 collection, including #225, has been verified to have exactly one valid arrangement of eight queens, and it can always be reached by logic alone — no guessing or backtracking needed.
Where should I place my first queen on puzzle #225?
Start with the mint region — the most constrained color on this board, with 1 square spanning rows 4–4 and columns 4–4. 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.