Also known as Two Not Touch — place two stars in every row, column, and region without any two touching. Every board has one solution you can reach by pure logic, no guessing ever.
Playing as a guest — create a free account to keep your streak.
Perfect for a coffee break.
A bit more thinking required.
For seasoned puzzle pros.
If you can spot where a star can't go, you can solve every puzzle. No math, no trivia.
Every horizontal row holds exactly two stars.
Every vertical column holds exactly two stars, too.
Each outlined shape gets its own pair of stars.
Stars can't sit side by side — not even diagonally.
New to the game? The interactive tutorial walks you through your first solve, and the strategy guide covers every technique from first eliminations to expert-level patterns.
Star Battle — also called Two Not Touch — is a pure logic puzzle. Place exactly two stars in every row, column and outlined region, and never let two stars touch. Read the full rules to get started.
No numbers like Sudoku, no trivia like crosswords. Every puzzle has exactly one solution and can always be reached by reasoning alone. When you place a star, you know it's right.
Coming from LinkedIn Queens? Star Battle is the harder two-star version with the same no-touching rule. Ours are computer-checked for a single, guess-free solution — with new puzzles every single day.
Ready to go deeper? The strategy guide breaks down every solving technique, the daily solutions show each one in a real solve, and the blog covers everything from the rules to advanced patterns.
That is the whole rulebook. A solve starts with the smallest region: a region squeezed into two rows must hold both of those rows' stars, so every other cell in those rows is empty. Each star you place clears its neighbours, the clears force the next star, and the board unravels from there.
Mark cells you have ruled out with an X. On a hard board you will spend more time placing Xs than stars; that is normal, and it is how you avoid guessing.
The interactive tutorial walks a first board with you. The full rules page covers the controls.
Star Battle and its one-star cousins go by several names, so you may know it from somewhere else. All of these use the no-touching rule. Today's boards are free to play here, and a free account opens every past one.
Three 9×9 boards at easy, medium and hard, an expert board, and three 10×10 Two Not Touch boards. All free, no account needed to play.
The archive holds every puzzle we have released. A free account opens them all and keeps your streak and times.
Each daily puzzle ships with a step-by-step written solution, one deduction at a time, so a stuck board teaches you a technique instead of ending your streak.
Printable packs for the kitchen table and paperback books of 100 puzzles with the answers in the back.
Download ready-to-print PDF puzzle books — Easy, Medium, Hard, Expert, and a Mixed pack that ramps from easy to expert. Perfect for kids, classrooms, road trips, and screen-free solving. Free with an account.
Get the free printable puzzle booksStar Battle is a grid logic puzzle: place exactly two stars in every row, every column, and every outlined region, and never let two stars touch — not even diagonally. Every puzzle we publish has a single solution reachable by pure logic, so you never have to guess.
Yes — Two Not Touch is The New York Times' name for the same puzzle. The rules are identical: two stars per row, column, and region, with no two stars touching. If you enjoy the NYT version, you can play unlimited Star Battle here every day.
Work out where stars cannot go. Small regions squeezed into one or two rows claim those lines, adjacent cells around a placed star get crossed off, and counting rows against regions forces placements. Chain those eliminations and every star clicks into place by logic alone.
Right here. TryHard Puzzles publishes three free Star Battle puzzles every day — easy, medium, and hard — plus a daily expert board, all playable in the browser with no app, no paywall, and no account.
Yes. TryHard Puzzles releases three new Star Battle puzzles every day at midnight UTC (easy, medium and hard), plus a daily expert board and the day's Inkwell Stars puzzle with a step-by-step solution. Every past day stays playable in the archive.
Two. Every row, every column and every outlined region must contain exactly two stars, and no two stars may touch, even at a corner. One-star versions exist (LinkedIn Queens is one), but classic Star Battle is the two-star game.
Our daily boards are 9×9 with nine regions. The Two Not Touch boards are 10×10 with ten regions, the size the New York Times prints. Bigger boards are not harder by themselves; difficulty comes from how the regions are shaped.
Yes. The printable packs put four boards on a page as a PDF, with answers online, and the paperback books hold 100 puzzles each with the solutions in the back.
Want more after today's boards? The archive has every released puzzle.