Printable object-placement puzzles with simple rules and satisfying logic.
Solving guide
How To Solve Star Battle
Star Battle rewards careful counting, clean notation, and a habit of checking rows, columns, regions, and adjacency together.
If you are new to the puzzle, start with 1-Star grids. The same habits carry over to 2-Star and 3-Star puzzles, but the interactions become denser.
What to look for
- Forced placements when only a few legal cells remain.
- Blocked cells around every confirmed star, including diagonals.
- Rows, columns, or regions where the remaining spaces exactly equal the remaining stars.
- Overlaps that eliminate cells even before you know the exact star location.
A solid beginner approach
- Start by scanning each row, column, and region for places where a star must go because there are too few legal cells left elsewhere.
- After placing a star, immediately mark the surrounding cells as blocked, including diagonal neighbors, because stars may not touch.
- Count how many stars each row, column, and region still needs, then look for areas where the remaining legal cells exactly match that count.
- Use overlap logic: if every possible placement in a region or row blocks the same cells, those blocked cells can be eliminated with confidence.
- Work back and forth between local clues and global counts until each row, column, and region reaches its required number of stars.
Common beginner mistakes
- Forgetting that diagonal touching is also forbidden.
- Looking only inside one region instead of checking the row and column at the same time.
- Jumping to guesses before counting the remaining legal cells carefully.
- Ignoring easy eliminations after placing a star.
Practice and related resources
Printable Star Battle puzzles
Print 1-Star, 2-Star, and 3-Star books and work through them in order.
Star Battle tutorial
Use the existing on-site tutorial for a guided introduction to the basics.
Two Not Touch tutorials
Follow the New York Times-flavored version through beginner-level examples.
Printable places to practice
The New York Times variant of Star Battle, with extra resources and printable books.