8x8 Queens Puzzle #77

Difficulty: medium. 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 12-step reasoning is written out below.

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Step-by-step solution for puzzle #77

What follows is a complete solve of puzzle #77, worked the way a person works it rather than the way a computer does. It runs to 12 deductions — 8 queen placements and 4 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 columns.

Techniques this board needs: last square in a region, region confined to one line, region shadow, pairing argument on columns, last square in a column.

Show the full walkthrough (6 steps) — contains the solution

  1. Step 1. Only row 7, column 4 is still open in pale yellow, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. That clears row 7, column 4, the rest of the pale yellow region and every square adjacent to it — diagonals included.

  2. Step 2. All of the indigo region's remaining squares (2 open squares) lie in row 1. Its queen therefore has to be somewhere on that row, which means no other colour may use it: 7 squares come off.

  3. Step 3. The red region has 3 squares left, spread across rows 5 and 6, columns 1 and 2. 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.

    Puzzle #77 after step 3: 1 of 8 queens placed
    The board after step 3 — 1 of 8 queens placed.

  4. Step 4. All of the khaki region's remaining squares (2 open squares) lie in row 8. Its queen therefore has to be somewhere on that row, which means no other colour may use it: 3 squares come off.

  5. Step 5. Red and khaki are now boxed into columns 1 and 2 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 6 squares at once.

  6. Step 6. 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: slate has one square left, so its queen takes row 5, column 3; amber has one square left, so its queen takes row 2, column 5; red has one square left, so its queen takes row 6, column 1; khaki has one square left, so its queen takes row 8, column 2; column 6 is down to one square, putting a queen on row 4, column 6; blue has one square left, so its queen takes row 3, column 8; indigo has one square left, so its queen takes row 1, 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 1, column 7.

    Puzzle #77 after step 6: 8 of 8 queens placed
    The board after step 6 — 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 #77

Puzzle #77 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.

As with every puzzle in this collection, #77 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 #77 are: pale yellow (1 square), indigo (2 squares), khaki (4 squares), blue (7 squares), slate (7 squares), red (7 squares), amber (14 squares), mint (22 squares). An even split would hand every color 8 squares, so the pale yellow region is running 7 squares under that average while the mint region is the roomiest area on the grid with 22 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 pale yellow, with 1 square, is under far more pressure than mint with 22. A 21-square gap like this one rewards players who start where the choices are fewest.

Square count is only half the story — how a color is arranged counts too. Indigo is the tidiest shape on #77, packing 100% of its 1×2 bounding box, whereas red straggles across its 4×4 box at just 44%. Tidy blocks are easy to work around; scattered ones touch more lines and resist resolution.

Region by region

Here is the full footprint of every color on puzzle #77, smallest first. Reading these spans before you place anything is the quickest way to see which parts of the grid are genuinely contested.

Pale yellow occupies 1 square within rows 7–7, columns 4–4. It never leaves row 7, so its queen is locked to that row.

Indigo: 2 squares across rows 1–1, columns 7–8. It never leaves row 1, so its queen is locked to that row.

Khaki covers 4 squares, spanning 2 rows and 2 columns (rows 7–8, columns 1–2).

Blue occupies 7 squares within rows 2–4, columns 6–8.

Slate: 7 squares across rows 3–5, columns 1–4.

Red covers 7 squares, spanning 4 rows and 4 columns (rows 5–8, columns 1–4).

Amber occupies 14 squares within rows 1–4, columns 1–6.

Mint: 22 squares across rows 3–8, columns 4–8.

Where to start on this board

Open on the tightest color. Here that is pale yellow, confined to 1 square between rows 7 and 7 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 #77.

Because pale yellow never leaves row 7, its queen must be in that row — and that instantly settles row 7 for everyone else. Sweep along it and X out every square that is not pale yellow. 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 and khaki 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 #77

A quick way to find the next move is to count how many different colors touch each line. On this board, rows 1, 2 and 6 are the narrowest, touched by only 2 colors. Column 5 is the tightest column, with 2 colors.

The fewer colors a line touches, the sooner it surrenders its queen. A row meeting just 2 colors has to be claimed by one of them, which pushes every remaining region into the other 7 rows. Row 7, meeting 4 colors, is the opposite case — the busiest line on #77 and the last one you should expect to crack.

Working through the middle game

The middle of #77 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.

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 #77 is rated medium

The rating reflects how much the board concedes up front. Puzzle #77 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 21 squares. Flat, lopsided boards open quickly; even, sprawling ones make you earn the first placement.

The scale has nothing to do with maths or luck — every puzzle here is solvable by deduction and has exactly one answer. It measures reasoning depth: how many eliminations must stack up before a placement becomes provable. That depth is what separates a medium board from the rest.

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 #77, start hunting for it near row 1.

Here is a shape check that gives nothing away: when #77 is solved, 4 queens sit on the outer edge of the grid and 4 sit inside it, and no queen lands in a corner. A work-in-progress board that clusters its queens in one quadrant while leaving others bare is usually carrying a mistake.

How to play Queens

  1. The board is an N×N grid divided into N colored regions.
  2. Place exactly one queen (♛) in each row, each column, and each colored region.
  3. No two queens may touch each other — not horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.
  4. 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.
  5. 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 #77?

Puzzle #77 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 #77 have only one solution?

Yes. Every puzzle in the 8x8 collection, including #77, 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 #77?

Start with the pale yellow region — the most constrained color on this board, with 1 square spanning rows 7–7 and columns 4–4. Narrowing the smallest region first removes the most squares elsewhere on the grid.