8x8 Queens Puzzle #26
Difficulty: easy. Place 8 queens on this 8x8 board so that no two share a row, column or color region and none touch — including diagonally. This puzzle has exactly one solution, and it has been verified solvable by deduction alone: the complete 18-step reasoning is written out below.
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Step-by-step solution for puzzle #26
What follows is a complete solve of puzzle #26, worked the way a person works it rather than the way a computer does. It runs to 18 deductions — 8 queen placements and 10 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 column.
Show the full walkthrough (13 steps) — contains the solution
Step 1. Only row 1, column 8 is still open in indigo, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. That clears row 1, column 8, the rest of the indigo region and every square adjacent to it — diagonals included.
Step 2. The pale yellow region is down to one open square, at row 7, column 7. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Cross out the whole of row 7 and column 7, the remaining pale yellow squares, and the ring of neighbours around row 7, column 7.
Step 3. The amber region has 5 squares left, spread across rows 2 and 3, columns 1, 3, and 5. 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.
Step 4. Wherever blue ends up among its 5 squares, the same squares fall within reach of it — 2 squares in total, impossible regardless of how the colour resolves.
The board after step 4 — 2 of 8 queens placed. Step 5. Amber is down to 4 candidates in rows 2 and 3, columns 3 and 5, and they overlap enough to cover 1 square elsewhere. Cross those out without deciding anything about amber itself.
Step 6. The mint region has 7 squares left, spread across rows 2–6, columns 4–6. 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.
Step 7. Khaki cannot leave row 8 — every one of its open squares (3 open squares) sits there. That row belongs to khaki, so every square on it owned by another colour is dead: 2 squares in all.
Step 8. All of the red region's remaining squares (2 open squares) lie in row 6. Its queen therefore has to be somewhere on that row, which means no other colour may use it: 5 squares come off.
Step 9. The mint region has 5 squares left, spread across rows 2–5, columns 5 and 6. 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 9 — 2 of 8 queens placed. Step 10. Wherever amber ends up among its 3 squares, the same squares fall within reach of it — 1 square in total, impossible regardless of how the colour resolves.
Step 11. Slate is down to 3 candidates in rows 4 and 5, columns 2–4, and they overlap enough to cover 1 square elsewhere. Cross those out without deciding anything about slate itself.
Step 12. Every open square left in column 6 (3 open squares) belongs to the mint region. Since that column 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 13. From here the board cascades. Keep alternating the region sweep and the line sweep and 6 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 6; slate has one square left, so its queen takes row 5, column 2; blue has one square left, so its queen takes row 3, column 1; red has one square left, so its queen takes row 6, column 4; khaki has one square left, so its queen takes row 8, column 3. 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 8, column 3.
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 #26
Board #26 of the 8x8 bank carries a easy rating. Its 64 squares are shared between eight colored regions, and the solution places eight queens: one per row, one per column, one per region, none of them side by side or corner to corner.
As with every puzzle in this collection, #26 has a single verified solution and needs no guesswork. Each queen follows from something already visible. What the board controls is tempo — how soon the first forced move shows up and how far apart the rest are spaced — and that is a direct consequence of how these colors are cut.
How the colors divide this board
From smallest to largest, the regions on puzzle #26 are: indigo (1 square), pale yellow (4 squares), khaki (4 squares), blue (5 squares), slate (9 squares), mint (13 squares), amber (14 squares), red (14 squares). An even split would hand every color 8 squares, so the indigo region is running 7 squares under that average while the red region is the roomiest area on the grid with 14 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 indigo, with 1 square, is under far more pressure than red with 14. A 13-square gap like this one rewards players who start where the choices are fewest.
A region's outline can constrain it more than its size does. Here indigo is the most solid, filling 100% of its 1×1 box, and slate the most diffuse at 45% of its 5×4 box. Solid blocks give clean eliminations; diffuse ones spread across the board and stay open longer.
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 easy board.
Indigo occupies 1 square within rows 1–1, columns 8–8. It never leaves row 1, so its queen is locked to that row.
Pale yellow: 4 squares across rows 6–8, columns 7–8.
Khaki covers 4 squares, spanning 2 rows and 3 columns (rows 7–8, columns 1–3).
Blue occupies 5 squares within rows 2–5, columns 1–2.
Slate: 9 squares across rows 2–6, columns 1–4.
Mint covers 13 squares, spanning 5 rows and 5 columns (rows 2–6, columns 4–8).
Amber occupies 14 squares within rows 1–3, columns 1–8.
Red: 14 squares across rows 5–8, columns 2–7.
Where to start on this board
Indigo is the natural opening on #26: it is the smallest region on the grid at 1 square, boxed into rows 1–1 and columns 8–8. Since one of those squares must hold a queen, that block of 1 row and 1 column is the most contested part of the board.
Because indigo never leaves row 1, its queen must be in that row — and that instantly settles row 1 for everyone else. Sweep along it and X out every square that is not indigo. 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 is no more than two rows tall, so its queen is 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 #26
A quick way to find the next move is to count how many different colors touch each line. On this board, row 1 is the narrowest, touched by only 2 colors. Columns 5 and 6 are the tightest columns, with 3 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 6 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.
The whole middle game reduces to two sweeps. Sweep the eight colors looking for one with a single square left; sweep the eight rows and eight columns looking for the same. Each sweep feeds the next, and switching between them deliberately — rather than drifting — is what separates a fast 8x8 solve from a stalled one.
A placement without a reason is a guess. Because this board has exactly one solution, a guess that happens to be wrong will not announce itself for several moves — and unwinding it is slower than simply finishing the eliminations first.
Why puzzle #26 is rated easy
The easy label comes out of four measurable things about #26: 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 13. 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.
A board that feels above its rating is nearly always a board with a missing X. Audit every queen on the grid: full row cleared, full column cleared, all eight touching squares cleared. Diagonals are the common omission, and missing one is far more often the cause of a stall than any genuine difficulty in the puzzle.
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 #26, start hunting for it near row 1.
As a sanity check rather than a spoiler: the finished solution to #26 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.
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.
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Questions about this puzzle
How hard is 8x8 Queens puzzle #26?
Puzzle #26 is rated easy. 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 #26 have only one solution?
Yes. Every puzzle in the 8x8 collection, including #26, 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 #26?
Start with the indigo region — the most constrained color on this board, with 1 square spanning rows 1–1 and columns 8–8. Narrowing the smallest region first removes the most squares elsewhere on the grid.