Queens puzzle helper
download Queens program.

Queens is a daily puzzle on the Linked-In platform.
Below is shown a Queen puzzle: left the unsolved- and right in the solved state.



The puzzle may come in sizes 7*7, ..., 12*12 colums*rows.
Also each cell in the square belongs to a region. Regions are connected cells with the same color.

A n*n puzzle is solved when n queens are placed such that :
    - each column holds 1 queen
    - each row holds 1 queen
    - each region holds 1 queen
and queens do not touch, not horizontally, vertically or diagonal.
So, a queen behaves as a king and as a rook on the chessboard.
The "X" marks indicate cells that cannot hold a queen.

Entering a new game




1. select NEW
2. select game size.
3. position mouse pointer over color selection box and click.
4. position mouse pointer over game and press left mousebutton down over cell.
5. keep left-mousebutton down while moving over game to color the cells of a region.
6. release mouse-button, position over colorbox and click to select color for next region, etc.
7. to clear a cell, move mouse pointer over cells while holding right mouse-button down.
8. if all regions are colored, press PLAY button.

The game is erased by pressing the Clear button.

if all regions are colored, press the Play button.
The game is checked for the corect number of regions (= number of columns and rows)
and the absense of uncolored cells.
If wrong, the PLAY button is released, and the NEW button stays down.

Searching for a solution

In Play mode, move mouse pointer over game.
A mouseclick on an open cell closes the cell by placing an X.
This is just to memorize that this cell cannot hold a queen.
A mouseclick on a closed cell places a queen.
A next mouseclik on a queen opens the cell again.

Warnings

When the warning box is checked, the game is checked after each move.
The checks involve:
    - multiple queens in a column, row or region.
    - closed colums, rows or regions (all cells closed).
    - diagonally touching queens.

Auto X

When this box is checked placement of a queen automatically closes all connected cells.
"Connected" means all cells in the same column, row or region of the queen or diagonally touching the queen.
These automatically closed cells only can be opened by removing the queen that forced the closure.
A manually losed cell is marked X.
Recent addition: A cell that was closed by the Auto X selection is marked by X+

Note : A right mouseclick on a cell opens the cell.

Hints

If the player is lost, the program may generate a hint by a mouseclick on the hint (lamp) image.
There are 2 hint types:
    1. Hint-X: cells that may be closed because they cannot hold a queen.
    2. Hint-Q: this cell must hold a queen.
The hint cells are marked with a black circle.

The reason for a hint is always mentioned. These hints are:
    1. cells in a column, row or region with a queen are not yet closed.
    2. cells diagonally touching a queen are not yet closed.
    3. a queen in this cell would close a another column, row or region.
    4. only open cell in column, row or region (so must hold a queen).
    5. n columns (or n rows) hold all cells of n regions (embedded regions)
Hints 1,2,4 are obvious.
Hint 3 is seen most frequently and this situation may be hard to recognize.
Hint 5 may be difficult to see and requires fair concentration.

Here are some examples:


In the right picture above columns 5,6 hold the open cells of a blue and a green region.
So, these regions eventually will hold the queens for columns 5,6.
Other cells in column 5 and 6 cannot hold a queen and may be closed.

A cell is marked with a black circle if a hint (close or queen) applies.
Press the <ESCAPE< key to cancel the hints.
Press the <SPACE> key to apply the hints and search for a new hint.
Also the hints are applied when pressing the hint (lamp) image again.

Info butten


In the button-down position each cell displays it's position and region number.

Original button

Pressing this button opens all cells of the game.

Save and Open buttons

Press these buttons to save or open a game.
Saved queen files have no extension.
Instead, the file name is prefixed by Q- for easy recognition.

Installation

There is no installation procedure for the queen program.
Just copy the queens.exe file to a folder of choice.

Have fun!