Daily Queens Game — Tuesday, October 6, 2026
Tuesday, October 6, 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 #241
What follows is a complete solve of puzzle #241, worked the way a person works it rather than the way a computer does. It runs to 17 deductions — 8 queen placements and 9 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 proof by contradiction.
Techniques this board needs: last square in a region, region shadow, region confined to one line, line confined to one region, pairing argument on columns, proof by contradiction.
Show the full walkthrough (13 steps) — contains the solution
Step 1. Only row 6, column 2 is still open in red, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. That clears row 6, column 2, the rest of the red region and every square adjacent to it — diagonals included.
Step 2. The khaki region is down to one open square, at row 8, column 1. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Cross out the whole of row 8 and column 1, the remaining khaki squares, and the ring of neighbours around row 8, column 1.
Step 3. Only row 7, column 5 is still open in pale yellow, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. Everything else in row 7, in column 5, in pale yellow and in the ring around that square is now dead.
Step 4. Wherever indigo ends up among its 4 squares, the same squares fall within reach of it — 1 square in total, impossible regardless of how the colour resolves.
The board after step 4 — 3 of 8 queens placed. Step 5. Blue is down to 2 candidates in rows 1 and 3, columns 4 and 6, and they overlap enough to cover 2 squares elsewhere. Cross those out without deciding anything about blue itself.
Step 6. All of the indigo region's remaining squares (3 open squares) lie in column 3. Its queen therefore has to be somewhere in that column, which means no other colour may use it: 1 square come off.
Step 7. Slate cannot leave row 5 — every one of its open squares (2 open squares) sits there. That row belongs to slate, so every square on it owned by another colour is dead: 4 squares in all.
Step 8. Every open square left in row 4 (2 open squares) belongs to the mint region. Since that row must contain a queen, mint is the colour that supplies it — so mint squares anywhere else on the board are out, 2 squares in all.
Step 9. Blue and mint are now boxed into columns 4 and 6 and nothing else. That is 2 colours needing 2 columns, so they fill those columns between them — which locks every remaining colour out and removes 1 square at once.
The board after step 9 — 3 of 8 queens placed. Step 10. Now a short proof by contradiction. Suppose the indigo queen went to row 2, column 3. Follow the forced moves that would create and row 3 runs out of open squares entirely — impossible. So that square is ruled out for good.
Step 11. Row 2 has only amber squares left (2 open squares). The row needs a queen and only amber can provide one, which pins that colour to this row and kills its squares elsewhere: 2 squares.
Step 12. Now a short proof by contradiction. Suppose the indigo queen went to row 3, column 3. Follow the forced moves that would create and column 4 runs out of open squares entirely — impossible. So that square is ruled out for good.
Step 13. 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: 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 4; mint has one square left, so its queen takes row 4, column 6; slate has one square left, so its queen takes row 5, column 8; amber has one square left, so its queen takes row 2, column 7. 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 7.
The board after step 13 — 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 #241
Puzzle #241 is one of the hard-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 #241, 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 #241 are: red (1 square), amber (6 squares), blue (6 squares), slate (6 squares), khaki (6 squares), indigo (10 squares), pale yellow (10 squares), mint (19 squares). An even split would hand every color 8 squares, so the red region is running 7 squares under that average while the mint region is the roomiest area on the grid with 19 squares.
Every color takes one queen and one only, whatever its size — which is why the 18 square difference between red and mint is worth noting before you touch the grid. The cramped colors resolve first and hand you information; the roomy ones absorb whatever is left over at the end.
Look at arrangement as well as area. Red is the densest region on this grid at 100% of a 1×1 frame; pale yellow is the loosest, occupying only 40% of its 5×5 frame. The loose one reaches into more rows and columns, which is exactly why it usually settles last.
Region by region
Each region's exact extent on this grid is listed below, starting with the most constrained. Knowing which lines a color can and cannot reach is most of the work on a hard board.
Red covers 1 square, spanning 1 row and 1 column (rows 6–6, columns 2–2). It never leaves row 6, so its queen is locked to that row.
Amber occupies 6 squares within rows 1–3, columns 6–8.
Blue: 6 squares across rows 1–3, columns 4–6.
Slate covers 6 squares, spanning 4 rows and 2 columns (rows 5–8, columns 7–8).
Khaki occupies 6 squares within rows 5–8, columns 1–2.
Indigo: 10 squares across rows 1–3, columns 1–4.
Pale yellow covers 10 squares, spanning 5 rows and 5 columns (rows 4–8, columns 1–5).
Mint occupies 19 squares within rows 3–8, columns 3–8.
Where to start on this board
Open on the tightest color. Here that is red, confined to 1 square between rows 6 and 6 and columns 2 and 2. Its queen has nowhere else to go, which means those 1 row and 1 column carry more constraint than anywhere else on #241.
Because red never leaves row 6, its queen must be in that row — and that instantly settles row 6 for everyone else. Sweep along it and X out every square that is not red. 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: khaki and slate 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 #241
A quick way to find the next move is to count how many different colors touch each line. On this board, row 4 is the narrowest, touched by only 2 colors. Columns 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 8 are the tightest columns, with 3 colors.
Count colors per line and you have a ranking of where to look. The narrowest rows here see only 2 colors, so one of that handful must take the row and the rest are squeezed into the other 7 rows. Row 6 sits at the far end with 5 colors crossing it; it will almost certainly be among the last to settle.
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 #241 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 #241 is rated hard
The hard label comes out of four measurable things about #241: two of its regions are locked to one row or column, its smallest color spans 1 square, its least crowded row meets 2 colors, and its largest and smallest regions differ by 18. Boards that score tight on those measures give up their first queen fast.
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.
Stuck on #241 despite the hard 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.
There is one technique that repays study at every grid size. Two regions restricted to the same two rows must occupy one row apiece, which excludes all other regions from those rows entirely; the identical logic applies to columns and to larger matched sets. It converts slow boards into fast ones, and the likeliest place to find it on #241 is row 4.
Use this as a rough check on your progress: the completed board has 3 queens around the border and 5 queens in the middle, including 1 in a corner. Solutions spread out; if yours is bunching up in one region of the grid, retrace a few moves.
Frequently asked questions
How hard is 8x8 Queens puzzle #241?
Puzzle #241 is rated hard. Its smallest color region holds 1 square, its tightest row is touched by 2 colors, and two of its regions are confined to a single row or column, which gives you a forced move early.
Does 8x8 puzzle #241 have only one solution?
Yes. Every puzzle in the 8x8 collection, including #241, 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 #241?
Start with the red region — the most constrained color on this board, with 1 square spanning rows 6–6 and columns 2–2. 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.