Crowns Hive
Crowns on a hexagonal board. Put one crown in every coloured region, every row and every diagonal in both directions.
- Four levels: Easy to Extra Hard
- 7 techniques on its ladder
How Crowns Hive Works
The board is a hexagon of six-sided cells, split into as many coloured regions as it has crowns. Every cell sits on three lines: its row, a diagonal leaning right and a diagonal leaning left. Each of those lines, and each region, holds exactly one crown.
The deductions are the ones from Crowns, with the same names on the hint cards, so a player who learned Colour Points on the square board will recognise it here. The difference is the third direction: every check has to be made along a row and two diagonals.
To help with that, you can long-press any cell, or turn on Highlight under the board, to outline the row and both diagonals through it. The outline changes nothing, costs nothing, and goes away with your next move.
Crowns Hive is played in practice. It is not part of the daily set.
The Rules
- 1
One per Region
Place exactly one crown in each shaded colour region.
- 2
Three Directions of Line
Every cell sits on a row and on two diagonals, one leaning each way. Each of those lines holds exactly one crown.
- 3
No Touching
Crowns never sit side by side. On a hex board two touching cells always share a line, so the line rules already keep crowns apart.
- 4
Marks and Crosses
Tap a cell to cross it off, and tap it again to take the cross back. The board also crosses off the cells your crowns already rule out. You can turn that off in Settings if you would rather mark every cell yourself.
- 5
Double-Tap to Crown
A crown takes two quick taps, and a right crown settles into place in gold. A crown that clashes with another, or that would leave the board impossible to finish, is not placed: the cell gets a terracotta cross instead, and that costs a heart. Each board gives you three hearts. A single tap takes a crown back off.
- 6
Sweep With a Drag
Drag across the board to cross off a whole run of cells at once. Start the drag on a cell you already crossed off and it clears the run instead.
- 7
Light Up the Lines
Long-press any cell, or turn on Highlight under the board, to light the row and both diagonals through it. It changes nothing, costs nothing, and turns off with your next move.
- 8
Follow Lines to the Edge
Cells far apart can still share a line. Two cells of one colour with empty cells between them can rule out a distant cell together, because each shares a line with it. When you check which cells a colour rules out, follow its cells' lines all the way to the edge of the board, not just to their neighbours.
- 9
Use Logic
Every puzzle has one valid arrangement, and you can reach it by deduction without guessing.
The real screens.
Every picture on this page is the app itself, on a board from the game.
Where Crowns Hive Comes From
Crowns Hive is Crowns, Dayzle's one-crown Star Battle, moved onto a hexagon. Chess made the same move in 1936, when Władysław Gliński of Poland devised hexagonal chess. It went on to have more than half a million players, and was most popular in Eastern Europe, above all in Poland. On a hex board a straight line runs three ways instead of two, so a puzzle about one piece per line gains a whole extra direction to check.
Dayzle built Crowns Hive in August 2026 on the same solver and hint engine as Crowns. Three things changed. Columns became two sets of diagonals. The no-touching rule stopped needing to be a rule, because touching cells always share a line. And the first playtest found the lines hard to follow across a honeycomb, which is where the long-press outline came from.
One technique name changed as well: the square game's Only Square Left is Only Cell Left here, because the board has no squares.
How the Levels Differ
Easy is a hexagon of 19 cells with 5 crowns, Medium 37 cells with 7, Hard 61 cells with 9, and Extra Hard 91 cells with 11. As in Crowns, size is the smaller change, and the bands are cut by the hardest step a board needs.
Easy never needs more than Only Cell Left and Colour Points. Medium adds Line Points, needed at least once. Hard adds the Squeeze and the two-colour Locked Set, at least two such steps per board, and at least one of them must be a Squeeze over cells that are not next to each other, or a Locked Set. Extra Hard adds wider Locked Sets, including sets read from the lines. No board in any band needs a Dead End.
7 techniques, easiest first.
In Dayzle the hint and the solver are one engine, so these are the steps it takes to solve a Crowns Hive board, from the first you'll meet to the rarest. Open one for a worked example and a clip of the hint teaching it on a real board.
Crown Scope Beginner Cross off every cell a crown already rules out: its row, both its diagonals and its colour.
Every row, every diagonal in both directions and every colour gets exactly one crown. A crown on Row 3 rules out the rest of Row 3, the rest of the right diagonal and the left diagonal through it, and every other cell of its colour. That includes the six cells touching it, because each of them shares one of those three lines.
Crossing them off is what makes the next step easy to see. The board does this for you by default, and this hint only appears when that setting is off.
Only Cell Left Beginner Find a row, diagonal or colour with only one open cell left. Its crown goes there.
Left Diagonal 2 still needs a crown, and every cell on it has been ruled out except one. That cell takes the crown, and nothing else needs checking.
The same holds for a row, a right diagonal or a colour. When you are stuck, look for any of them with a single open cell.
Colour Points Basic Find a colour whose open cells all sit on one line. No other colour can have a crown on that line.
Every open cell the yellow region has left sits on Right Diagonal 3. Yellow's crown will be on that diagonal, whichever cell it turns out to be, and a line holds only one crown.
So every other colour's cells on Right Diagonal 3 can be crossed off.
Line Points Intermediate Find a line whose open cells are all one colour. That colour can't have a crown anywhere off that line.
Left Diagonal 5 still needs a crown, and its three open cells are all green. So that diagonal's crown is green's crown, and every green cell off Left Diagonal 5 can be crossed off.
The same check works on a row or a right diagonal.
Squeeze Advanced Find a cell that every remaining option of some line or colour would rule out. It can't have a crown.
Row 2 still needs a crown, and only two cells are open in it, side by side. The cell in Row 1 that touches both of them shares a line with each, so whichever one gets Row 2's crown, that cell is ruled out. Cross it off.
On bigger boards the options can be far apart, each reaching the cell along a different row or diagonal. Follow each option's lines to the edge of the board.
Locked Set Advanced Find a group of colours whose open cells fit on the same number of lines. Those lines are used up.
The grey and purple regions have open cells only on Row 3 and Row 4. Two colours need two crowns, and two rows can hold only two, so those rows are used up. Every other colour's cell on Row 3 or Row 4 can be crossed off.
The same counting works along either diagonal direction, and with lines against lines: three rows that only reach three right diagonals use those diagonals up.
Dead End Expert Suppose a crown on a cell and follow the moves it forces. If a colour runs out of cells, that cell can't have a crown.
Suppose a crown went on a cell. It rules out its three lines and its colour, which may force other crowns. Follow those forced moves, and if some colour ends up with no open cell while it still needs a crown, the first crown was wrong and its cell can be crossed off.
No board in the game needs this step. It stays on the hint ladder so a hint can always be given, even from a position the board's own solution never passes through.
More visual games.
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Mirror
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