Queens

Queens is LinkedIn's daily logic puzzle, played on a grid split into colored regions where you place crowns by pure deduction. Exactly one crown belongs in every row, every column, and every colored region, and no two crowns may ever touch, not even diagonally. Each day delivers a single fresh board with one guaranteed solution, identical for every player.

What is Queens?

Queens is a daily logic puzzle from LinkedIn, played on a square grid that is carved into colored regions, with the grid size and region shapes changing from one day to the next. The single goal is to place a set number of crowns so the whole board obeys three constraints at once: one crown in every row, one in every column, and one inside each colored region. The catch that gives the puzzle its bite is that no two crowns may touch, not even on a diagonal, so every crown you commit to seals off the eight cells around it.

What separates Queens from word-guessing dailies is that it is pure deduction with no hidden answer and no luck. You are not probing a secret word and reading back colored feedback; the full board is visible from the first second, and every correct move follows logically from the constraints in front of you. Each day's grid is built to have exactly one valid solution, and you can reach it without ever guessing. The interaction is simple: tapping a cell cycles it through empty, an X that marks a cell as ruled out, and a crown, so most of the real work is using X marks to whittle down where crowns can legally live.

Queens arrived in May 2024 as one of the first three games LinkedIn launched, alongside Pinpoint and Crossclimb, and it is published by LinkedIn rather than acquired from an outside app. The game was created by Thomas Snyder, a three-time World Sudoku Champion who serves as LinkedIn's Principal Puzzle Master, and Snyder and his team have designed the puzzles since the start and continue to build them, the same team behind LinkedIn titles such as Tango and Zip. Everyone worldwide gets the identical puzzle each day, which makes the result directly comparable across your network.

The game tracks how fast you solve and keeps a running streak for consecutive days completed, and the social layer is the point: because the board is the same for everyone, finished players can compare their solve time against groups like all members, their company, or even CEOs, and view leaderboards by company or school. Built-in helpers smooth the experience without solving it for you, including a hint button, an auto-check option that flags rule violations with red stripes, auto-placement of X marks around crowns, plus undo and clear. A typical board takes only a minute or two, which is why it has caught on with professionals looking for a quick logical reset between tasks that also sparks a little friendly competition across their network.

How to play Queens

1. Open the daily grid and read its colored regions, noting how many crowns are needed; on an N-by-N board there are N regions, and you place N crowns, one for each row, column, and region.
2. Tap any cell once to drop an X, marking it as a spot where a crown cannot go.
3. Tap the same cell again to place a crown there; tap once more to clear it back to empty.
4. Work toward exactly one crown in each row, one in each column, and one inside each colored region.
5. Keep every pair of crowns apart, so none are adjacent horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.
6. When the board satisfies all the rules with no conflicts, the puzzle locks as solved and shows your solve time and streak.

Tips and strategy

• Lead with the smallest or most cramped regions, because a region that only spans one row or one column forces its crown onto that line and instantly clears the rest of that row or column elsewhere.
• Treat X marks as your main tool, not an afterthought; every crown you place eliminates its full row, its full column, and all eight surrounding cells, so mark those out immediately to expose the next forced move.
• Hunt for rows or columns that pass through the open cells of just one region, because that region's crown is then pinned to the overlap, which often cascades into several more placements.
• Use the no-touch rule offensively: when two regions share a tight cluster of cells, placing a crown in one frequently knocks out the only candidates in a neighbor, collapsing it.
• When a region is squeezed into a 2-by-2 or L-shaped pocket, test where a crown there would block adjacent regions; the placement that avoids stranding a neighboring region without any legal cell is usually the right one.
• If you stall, scan column by column for any line down to a single open cell, since that lone survivor must hold the crown and will reopen the chain of deductions.

Good to know

Publisher

LinkedIn

Created by

Thomas Snyder, LinkedIn's Principal Puzzle Master

Launched

May 2024 (with Pinpoint and Crossclimb)

Resets

Daily at midnight Pacific Time

Cost

Free

Scoring

Solve timer plus a consecutive-day streak and leaderboards

Official archive

None; past puzzles expire and are not replayable on LinkedIn

Queens FAQ

Is Queens free to play?

Yes. Queens is free on LinkedIn, playable in the mobile app or in a web browser. You do need a LinkedIn account to track your streak and compare scores.

When does Queens reset?

A new Queens board is released every day at midnight Pacific Time. The previous day's puzzle expires at that moment and can no longer be played on LinkedIn.

Is there a Queens archive of past puzzles?

LinkedIn does not offer an official archive, so once a board expires you cannot replay it there. Various fan-made sites keep their own archives, but those are not run by LinkedIn.

Is Queens related to Wordle?

No. Both are once-a-day puzzles with one shared board for everyone, but Queens is a deduction-based logic grid with no hidden answer or color-coded guess feedback, so it plays nothing like Wordle.

How many crowns do I place, and is there a guess limit?

There is no guess limit; Queens is solved by logic, not guessing. The number of crowns matches the board size, so an N-by-N grid has N colored regions and takes N crowns, one in every row, column, and region.

Who makes the Queens puzzles?

Queens was created by Thomas Snyder, a three-time World Sudoku Champion who is LinkedIn's Principal Puzzle Master. Snyder and his team have designed the puzzles since launch and continue to build them, along with other LinkedIn games such as Tango and Zip.