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中文Three 'exactly' constraints and one 'never'. Place stars so that every row, every column, and every colored region ends with exactly the required number of stars — 2★ on the daily 10×10, 1★ on easy 8×8 boards — and no two stars ever touch, not even diagonally. No arithmetic, no numbers: pure placement logic.
Today's verified daily is live — play it now.
| Rule | What it means |
|---|---|
| Rows & columns | Every row and every column contains exactly the required number of stars (2 on the daily). |
| Regions | Every colored region also contains exactly that many stars. |
| No touching | No two stars are adjacent — horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. |
| Notes | The × mark is a player note for 'no star here'; the client uses it for bookkeeping only. |
If k regions fit entirely inside m rows and k×stars = m×stars, those regions own all of those rows' stars — every cell of other regions in those rows is ×.
A 2-cell or 3-cell region with 2★... cannot exist; a small region often has only one legal star layout once adjacency is applied. Solve tight regions first.
Every placed star immediately ×-es its eight neighbors, and a completed row/column/region ×-es all its remaining cells — cascade these before searching anything.
The generator works placement-first: stars are placed, regions are grown around them, then the board is accepted only if a solver proves the solution unique. Acceptance is brutal — about 0.2% of candidate 8×8 1★ boards survive — which is why every one of the 450 daily 10×10 2★ boards (from 2026-08-24) needs no guessing.
Place stars so every row, every column, and every colored region contains exactly the required number of stars (two on a standard 10×10), and no two stars touch each other, not even diagonally.
On the daily 10×10 puzzle here: exactly two per row, two per column, and two per region. Easy 8×8 boards use one star. The count is always printed with the puzzle.
They are the same puzzle family — Queens is a one-star star battle with crown symbols. The classic name for the type, used by puzzle books and championships, is star battle; this site's daily is the harder two-star form.
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