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Lizely

Star Battle

Solve a compact, uniquely determined one-star logic puzzle with an original connected region map, clear touch controls, keyboard play, and deterministic scoring.

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How to use

  1. 1.Read the heavy borders and region letters, then remember that every row, column, and outlined region must contain exactly one star.
  2. 2.Place stars in forced cells and mark excluded cells empty, making sure no two stars touch by a side or corner.
  3. 3.Decide all 25 cells, then choose Check battle or press Enter to earn exactly 1,000 points for the unique solution.

About Star Battle

Star Battle is a placement puzzle on a square grid divided into irregular outlined regions. This fixed game uses a five-by-five board, five regions, and the one-star ruleset. Place exactly one star in every row, exactly one in every column, and exactly one in every region. Stars may not touch one another horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. The last restriction is local: two stars separated by more than one row or column can lie on the same longer diagonal. It does not ban an entire diagonal as chess movement might suggest.

The board starts with every cell unknown. Select a cell and mark it as a star when your deductions require one, or mark it empty when a star cannot go there. Unknown, star, and empty are distinct states so your reasoning remains visible. Clicking or tapping a cell cycles through the three states. The three explicit controls let you place a star, mark the selected cell empty, or clear it without cycling. The Check action waits until all 25 cells are decided, so an unfinished thought never counts as a failed attempt.

Region borders are the central clue. Each cell carries a small region letter from A through E, and the heavier outline shows where one connected region ends and another begins. Region A has two cells, B has eight, C has two, D has five, and E has eight. The unequal shapes create the deductions; region size does not change the requirement of exactly one star. Every cell belongs to one and only one region, and every region is connected through shared sides rather than isolated pieces.

This region map was authored specifically for Lizely. It was not taken from the World Puzzle Championship booklet, Puzzle Star Battle, a newspaper, a puzzle book, or another playable site. Those references establish only the standard rule language. The product fixture is encoded as the region rows 00111, 11142, 11442, 33444, and 33344, where digits identify regions. Automated invariants verify 25-cell coverage, five non-empty region IDs, the expected region sizes, and orthogonal connectivity for every region.

A fixed puzzle also needs a uniqueness proof. The implementation includes an independent bounded backtracking solver rather than trusting the stored answer. It visits one row at a time because the rules require one star in every row. For each candidate cell, it rejects a column or region already used and rejects a column adjacent to the previous row's star. That final check covers vertical and diagonal touching between neighboring rows. When all five rows are placed, a separate validator recounts every row, column, and region and checks every pair for king-move adjacency. The search stops as soon as a second answer appears. For this exact map, it finds one solution.

The unique star coordinates are row 1 column 1, row 2 column 3, row 3 column 5, row 4 column 2, and row 5 column 4. That answer is disclosed here to make the fixed product fixture auditable, although the game surface does not reveal it while you play. Independent tests confirm that the five coordinates give counts of one across all rows, columns, and regions. They also exercise horizontal, vertical, and diagonal contact failures, plus a pair farther apart on a diagonal that remains legal under the local adjacency rule.

Checking follows a deterministic two-strike flow. If any cell is unknown, the game reports that the board is incomplete and leaves the mistake counter unchanged. A fully decided but invalid board consumes one mistake and remains editable. This gives you a chance to repair a mistaken deduction. A second invalid complete check deadlocks the run until Restart. A valid complete board awards exactly 1,000 points and freezes the controls. Completion does not depend on elapsed time, random generation, hidden bonuses, or network state.

Restart always returns to the same original region map with all 25 cells unknown, zero mistakes, zero score, and the first cell selected. The repetition is intentional: this is a short fixed logic exercise with reproducible acceptance checks, not an endless generator. Once you remember the answer, use the board to rehearse the interaction and rule structure rather than treating repeat scores as comparable performance data.

Keyboard operation mirrors every touch control. Use the arrow keys to move the selected cell. Press S or Space to place a star, X to mark the cell empty, Delete or Backspace to clear it, and Enter to check the board. Native buttons expose each cell's row, column, region, and current state to assistive technology. A visible selection outline tracks the keyboard cursor, controls meet the shared minimum touch height, and the five-column board stays inside a narrow mobile container without horizontal scrolling.

The shared game shell supplies score display, locally stored best score, Restart, and the double-Escape boss key. Press Escape twice quickly to cover the puzzle with a spreadsheet-style screen, then press it twice again to return. All moves, checks, uniqueness logic, and best-score storage run in the browser. The game uploads nothing, requires no account, requests no device permission, calls no paid service, and adds no package dependency.

The World Puzzle Championship instruction booklet is the primary authority cited for the familiar Star Battle constraints. Puzzle Star Battle provides an independent specialist cross-check of the same one-star counting and no-touch model. Neither source supplies this board's regions, answer, score, attempt policy, interface, or wording. Keeping rules provenance separate from product-fixture provenance makes the evidence precise and avoids implying that a published rules reference endorses this specific implementation.

This puzzle is recreational. It is not a standardized test of intelligence, attention, memory, educational readiness, visual processing, or health. The 1,000-point result only means the one fixed board matched its deterministic rules before the second invalid complete attempt. It should not be used to compare, rank, diagnose, or label people.

Methodology & sources

Encode the original five-by-five board as a 25-entry region array and validate exact coverage by IDs 0 through 4. For each region, flood through orthogonal neighbors and require the visited count to equal the region's full cell count. Prove uniqueness with independent row-by-row backtracking: choose one cell in each row, reject reused columns and regions, and reject stars in adjacent columns on consecutive rows. Cap the solver at two answers, then require a count of one. Validate a completed board separately by counting one star in every row, column, and region and checking every star pair for horizontal, vertical, or diagonal adjacency. Keep unknown, star, and empty as explicit states; ignore incomplete checks, permit one editable wrong complete attempt, deadlock after the second, award exactly 1,000 points for the unique answer, and freeze all terminal input.

Frequently asked questions

Can two stars be on the same diagonal?
Yes, if they are not in diagonally adjacent cells. The rule forbids touching at a corner; it does not ban an entire diagonal line.
Does an unfinished check count as a mistake?
No. Every cell must be marked as a star or empty before the game judges the placement.
Does this Star Battle puzzle have one solution?
Yes. Independent bounded backtracking validates the connected region map and finds exactly one legal five-star placement.
Can I play without a mouse?
Yes. Use arrows to move, S or Space for a star, X for empty, Delete to clear, and Enter to check.

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