The Doppit Almanac · No. 20
Stellit, a daily Star Battle
Stars in every row, column and region
What it is
Stellit is Doppit's daily Star Battle, filed at No. 20. The grid is carved into coloured regions, and every row, every column and every region must hold the same count of stars: one apiece on Easy and Medium, two apiece on Hard.
Stars are solitary by temperament. None will stand beside another, not even corner to corner, so each one you place settles far more of the board than its own cell.
How it plays
Three rules keep the heavens tidy.
- Every row, column and region holds its exact quota of stars, no more and no fewer.
- No two stars ever touch, not even diagonally.
- Cross marks are your own bookkeeping for cells that cannot hold a star; the rules never read them.
- Tap to place, switch between Star and Mark under the board, and drag to sweep several cells at once. Stars that touch or break a count glow red.
The difficulties
The observatory posts three skies a day and keeps a fourth back for practice. Easy resolves in thirty seconds to a minute. Medium is one to three minutes of counting and crossing off. Hard runs three to six and asks for two stars in every line, which changes the arithmetic entirely. Expert is the same eleven-wide two-star sky, and it qualifies only when the solution needs one what-if nested inside another, a step hard never reaches. A fresh board is charted every day, and nobody charges for looking up.
Play today's board