8x8 Queens Puzzle #279
Difficulty: hard. 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 #279
What follows is a complete solve of puzzle #279, 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 proof by contradiction.
Techniques this board needs: last square in a region, region shadow, region confined to one line, pairing argument on columns, pairing argument on rows, proof by contradiction.
Show the full walkthrough (14 steps) — contains the solution
Step 1. Only row 2, column 6 is still open in amber, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. That clears row 2, column 6, the rest of the amber region and every square adjacent to it — diagonals included.
Step 2. The indigo region is down to one open square, at row 1, column 8. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Cross out the whole of row 1 and column 8, the remaining indigo squares, and the ring of neighbours around row 1, column 8.
Step 3. The mint region has 3 squares left, spread across rows 4 and 5, columns 5 and 7. 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 red ends up among its 4 squares, the same squares fall within reach of it — 2 squares in total, impossible regardless of how the colour resolves.
Step 5. Mint cannot leave row 4 — every one of its open squares (2 open squares) sits there. That row belongs to mint, so every square on it owned by another colour is dead: 3 squares in all.
The board after step 5 — 2 of 8 queens placed. Step 6. All of the blue region's remaining squares (3 open squares) lie in row 3. Its queen therefore has to be somewhere on that row, which means no other colour may use it: 1 square come off.
Step 7. Mint and pale yellow are now boxed into columns 5 and 7 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 2 squares at once.
Step 8. All of the red region's remaining squares (2 open squares) lie in column 4. Its queen therefore has to be somewhere in that column, which means no other colour may use it: 4 squares come off.
Step 9. Slate cannot leave column 2 — every one of its open squares (3 open squares) sits there. That column belongs to slate, so every square in it owned by another colour is dead: 3 squares in all.
The board after step 9 — 2 of 8 queens placed. Step 10. The blue region is down to one open square, at row 3, column 1. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Cross out the whole of row 3 and column 1, the remaining blue squares, and the ring of neighbours around row 3, column 1.
Step 11. Khaki cannot leave column 3 — every one of its open squares (2 open squares) sits there. That column belongs to khaki, so every square in it owned by another colour is dead: 1 square in all.
Step 12. Here is the pairing argument. The slate and red regions have no open squares outside rows 5 and 6 — 2 colours confined to 2 rows. Between them they must take one row each, in some order, so every other colour is shut out of all of them: 2 squares come off in one stroke.
Step 13. Test row 4, column 7 for mint: place a queen there, run the forced consequences through, and row 6 runs out of open squares entirely. The assumption breaks, so the square is eliminated.
Step 14. 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: mint has one square left, so its queen takes row 4, column 5; red has one square left, so its queen takes row 6, column 4; slate has one square left, so its queen takes row 5, column 2; khaki has one square left, so its queen takes row 8, column 3; pale yellow has one square left, so its queen takes row 7, 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 7, column 7.
The board after step 14 — 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 #279
8x8 puzzle #279 is rated hard. Eight colored regions cover its 64 squares, and your job is to seat eight queens so that every row, column and color contains exactly one — with no queen touching another, including diagonally.
Like every board on this site, #279 has been verified to have exactly one valid solution, and that solution is reachable by deduction alone. You never have to guess and then unwind; every queen can be justified by something already visible on the grid. What changes from puzzle to puzzle is where the first certainty appears and how long the chain of reasoning runs before the next one — and that is entirely a product of how these particular colors are shaped.
How the colors divide this board
From smallest to largest, the regions on puzzle #279 are: amber (1 square), indigo (5 squares), red (5 squares), mint (8 squares), slate (8 squares), khaki (9 squares), pale yellow (13 squares), blue (15 squares). An even split would hand every color 8 squares, so the amber region is running 7 squares under that average while the blue region is the roomiest area on the grid with 15 squares.
One queen per color, regardless of acreage: that is what turns this uneven split into a solving order. Amber is working with 1 square while blue has 15 to spare, a gap of 14. Attack the cramped end and the roomy regions tend to resolve themselves.
Shape matters as much as size. The amber region is the most compact color here, filling 100% of the 1×1 box that encloses it, while red is the most scattered at 56% of its 3×3 box. Compact regions are easy to eliminate around; straggling ones reach into more rows and columns and tend to stay unresolved until late.
Region by region
Here is the full footprint of every color on puzzle #279, smallest first. Reading these spans before you place anything is the quickest way to see which parts of the grid are genuinely contested.
Amber: 1 square across rows 2–2, columns 6–6. It never leaves row 2, so its queen is locked to that row.
Indigo covers 5 squares, spanning 2 rows and 3 columns (rows 1–2, columns 6–8).
Red occupies 5 squares within rows 5–7, columns 4–6.
Mint: 8 squares across rows 3–5, columns 5–8.
Slate covers 8 squares, spanning 5 rows and 2 columns (rows 3–7, columns 2–3).
Khaki occupies 9 squares within rows 5–8, columns 1–4.
Pale yellow: 13 squares across rows 4–8, columns 5–8.
Blue covers 15 squares, spanning 4 rows and 5 columns (rows 1–4, columns 1–5).
Where to start on this board
Begin where the choices are fewest. On this board that means amber, which owns just 1 square inside a 1×1 window running from row 2 to row 2 and column 6 to column 6. A queen is guaranteed somewhere in there, so every line that window crosses is under pressure from the very first move.
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.
Work outward to the other flat regions next. Indigo 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 #279
A quick way to find the next move is to count how many different colors touch each line. On this board, rows 1 and 8 are the narrowest, touched by only 2 colors. Column 1 is the tightest column, 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 5 meets 5 colors — the most crowded line here, and the one least likely to resolve early. Spend your attention accordingly.
Working through the middle game
The middle of #279 is where careless play costs time. Every queen you place kills a row, a column and the eight surrounding squares; if you do not mark all of that immediately, you will later "discover" a move that was available several turns ago. Mark first, then look.
Keep alternating between two views of the board. In the region view you ask which of the eight colors is down to one open square. In the line view you ask the same of each row and column. Both produce forced queens, and each placement refreshes the other view, so cycling between them deliberately is how a 8x8 board unwinds.
The trap on a board like this is placing a queen that is merely plausible. Every placement should be traceable to an elimination you can point at. If you cannot name the rule that forced it, you are guessing — and on a single-solution grid a guess costs more to unwind than the deduction would have taken to find.
Why puzzle #279 is rated hard
The rating reflects how much the board concedes up front. Puzzle #279 has two 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 14 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.
If #279 feels harder than its rating suggests, the usual culprit is incomplete marking rather than a difficult deduction. Check that every queen already on the grid has its full cross of eliminations recorded — including the diagonal neighbours, which are by far the easiest to miss. More stalled solves come from one forgotten diagonal X than from any genuinely deep chain of logic.
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.
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 1 on this board.
As a sanity check rather than a spoiler: the finished solution to #279 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 #279?
Puzzle #279 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 #279 have only one solution?
Yes. Every puzzle in the 8x8 collection, including #279, 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 #279?
Start with the amber region — the most constrained color on this board, with 1 square spanning rows 2–2 and columns 6–6. Narrowing the smallest region first removes the most squares elsewhere on the grid.