Star Battle Puzzle - Hoshi

Name: Star Battle Puzzle - Hoshi
Rating: 4.8 (243 reviews)
Author: Simon Schuster

The NYT logic puzzle classic

Free · In‑App Purchases · Designed for iPad. Not verified for macOS.

243 Ratings
Ages

4+
Years
Category

Puzzle
Developer

Simon Schuster
Language

EN
English
Size

65.5
MB

Hoshi (星, Japanese for star) is a free and competitive Star Battle game with daily challenges. Star Battle, also known as "Two Not Touch", is regularly published in the New York Times logic puzzle section. If you enjoy playing tricky puzzles and brain-teasing games and seek a new challenge, then you should give Hoshi a try. If you have never played the Star Battle logic game before, don’t worry the rules are straight forward: Similar to other logic puzzles you have a grid that you need to fill. In a normal 2 star “Two Not Touch” game each row, column, and region must have exactly 2 stars. Stars are not allowed to touch, even not diagonally. Hoshi includes Star Battles with 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 stars, but games with more stars are yet to come ;) Hoshi offers you: - Everyday we release a new number game (daily puzzle challenge) - Track your solving time and compete against other players (leaderboards) - There is also a weekly challenge for geniuses (3 star plus games) - There are 5 different difficulties (easy to diabolical) - Packs with hand-selected logic puzzle (e.g. for beginners) - Guide with solving strategies - Profile with stats about your skill level & progress Coming soon: - Add your friends and play with them a numbers puzzle - Star Battle games with more than 5 stars Privacy policy: https://guriddo.app/hoshi/legal/privacy Terms of use: https://guriddo.app/hoshi/legal/tos

Ratings & Reviews

4.8

out of 5

243 Ratings

Pleasantly Puzzling
05/12/2025

Bucho
I tried a couple of other apps for this type of puzzle but none had the same sort of elegance in design. The included packs have kept me busy for hours and I love the weekly challenges. The real standout here is the clean user interface where you can mark your guesses and sub-guesses with a variety of colors. There’s even a relaxing music track which I put on when playing at night. Great game, great app. Very happy with my purchase.

Developer Response
Thank you so much, Bucho! 😊 Your review made my day. As a solo developer, I put a lot of love into the small things — clean UI, flexible note-taking, a bit of calm music — so it’s really rewarding to hear that those details stood out to you. Glad Hoshi found a cozy place in your puzzle routine! ❤️✌️
Pleasantly Puzzling
05/12/2025

Bucho

I tried a couple of other apps for this type of puzzle but none had the same sort of elegance in design. The included packs have kept me busy for hours and I love the weekly challenges. The real standout here is the clean user interface where you can mark your guesses and sub-guesses with a variety of colors. There’s even a relaxing music track which I put on when playing at night. Great game, great app. Very happy with my purchase.
Developer Response 05/19/2025
Thank you so much, Bucho! 😊 Your review made my day. As a solo developer, I put a lot of love into the small things — clean UI, flexible note-taking, a bit of calm music — so it’s really rewarding to hear that those details stood out to you. Glad Hoshi found a cozy place in your puzzle routine! ❤️✌️
Daily puzzles; ridiculous ads
04/03/2025

stl44853
First, the good: the puzzles are usually very good. I like the daily puzzles and the streak aspect. It is fun to play every day. The UI is good and easy to use. The bad: the ads are frankly insane. The daily puzzles requires a token to play, one every day. Of course you can pay, or you can choose to watch ads. When you watch ads you get three tokens, meaning three puzzles. But that’s not the real problem. It’s that the ads are not 15, 20 or even 30 seconds, they are usually a minute long! For me this is a ridiculous amount of time for three puzzles which usually take less and a minute each to play. If the puzzles are really easy (which they sometimes are) the ads can be longer than the puzzles. The daily puzzles are also often way too easy. They are often “one star” puzzles. These really take no thought.

Developer Response
Hi stl44853, thanks for your detailed feedback! I’m really glad you enjoy the puzzles and the daily streaks! ❤️ As for the ads, I totally get your frustration with the long ones, but I don't have control over their length—they come from an ad provider. I rely on ads to keep Hoshi free, as there are high maintenance and development costs. For the easier daily puzzles, I’ll definitely work on mixing it up to keep things interesting, usually there are only 1-2 one star games per week ✌️
Daily puzzles; ridiculous ads
04/03/2025

stl44853

First, the good: the puzzles are usually very good. I like the daily puzzles and the streak aspect. It is fun to play every day. The UI is good and easy to use. The bad: the ads are frankly insane. The daily puzzles requires a token to play, one every day. Of course you can pay, or you can choose to watch ads. When you watch ads you get three tokens, meaning three puzzles. But that’s not the real problem. It’s that the ads are not 15, 20 or even 30 seconds, they are usually a minute long! For me this is a ridiculous amount of time for three puzzles which usually take less and a minute each to play. If the puzzles are really easy (which they sometimes are) the ads can be longer than the puzzles. The daily puzzles are also often way too easy. They are often “one star” puzzles. These really take no thought.
Developer Response 04/06/2025
Hi stl44853, thanks for your detailed feedback! I’m really glad you enjoy the puzzles and the daily streaks! ❤️ As for the ads, I totally get your frustration with the long ones, but I don't have control over their length—they come from an ad provider. I rely on ads to keep Hoshi free, as there are high maintenance and development costs. For the easier daily puzzles, I’ll definitely work on mixing it up to keep things interesting, usually there are only 1-2 one star games per week ✌️
The ads need to be fixed
04/16/2025

Me94atany
Update to the developers comment - I just played it and had to wait 50 seconds then hit done and waited another 15 seconds. It is better but shouldn’t be more than 30 seconds. For that I’m changing this review from 2 to 3 thanks. Original review: The developer responded to another review saying it’s out of their control but that’s not true. In the past the app had shorter ads and other similar apps have shorter ads. I paid full year for another of your apps and I don’t get ads now which is great. I also paid for a pack here and I still get insane ads. There also aren’t that many games to play to justify these ads. After awhile there’s nothing else to play.

Developer Response
Hey Me94atany, thanks for the feedback! ❤️ I wouldn’t lie about ads—honestly, there was a misconfiguration that made some rewarded ads unskippable, but I’ve fixed that! Now, they’re skippable after 30 seconds. As for the puzzles, there are 356 daily puzzles per year, which should keep you busy for a while? 😊
The ads need to be fixed
04/16/2025

Me94atany

Update to the developers comment - I just played it and had to wait 50 seconds then hit done and waited another 15 seconds. It is better but shouldn’t be more than 30 seconds. For that I’m changing this review from 2 to 3 thanks. Original review: The developer responded to another review saying it’s out of their control but that’s not true. In the past the app had shorter ads and other similar apps have shorter ads. I paid full year for another of your apps and I don’t get ads now which is great. I also paid for a pack here and I still get insane ads. There also aren’t that many games to play to justify these ads. After awhile there’s nothing else to play.
Developer Response 04/13/2025
Hey Me94atany, thanks for the feedback! ❤️ I wouldn’t lie about ads—honestly, there was a misconfiguration that made some rewarded ads unskippable, but I’ve fixed that! Now, they’re skippable after 30 seconds. As for the puzzles, there are 356 daily puzzles per year, which should keep you busy for a while? 😊
Big Fan of the App Itself - Not the Subscription Model
10/07/2025

DreamingofRoses
This app is absolutely gorgeous, the graphics and UI design is very pleasing and being able to save a game mid-puzzle to come back to later is amazing. The variety of puzzle-modes is great as well. That being said, the fact that you can’t buy additional puzzle packs outright and need to subscribe to access them caused me to uninstall. To be fair, the fee is very reasonable, but I’ve done this with subscription games before and I dislike the fact that I will abruptly lose access to the additional packs I got if I step away from the game for a while and then pick it back up
Big Fan of the App Itself - Not the Subscription Model
10/07/2025

DreamingofRoses

This app is absolutely gorgeous, the graphics and UI design is very pleasing and being able to save a game mid-puzzle to come back to later is amazing. The variety of puzzle-modes is great as well. That being said, the fact that you can’t buy additional puzzle packs outright and need to subscribe to access them caused me to uninstall. To be fair, the fee is very reasonable, but I’ve done this with subscription games before and I dislike the fact that I will abruptly lose access to the additional packs I got if I step away from the game for a while and then pick it back up

- New Packs: Fresh puzzle packs are here! - Update: Some quality-of-life improvements.

Version 1.6.6 Mar 26

Data Used to Track You

The following data may be used to track you across apps and websites owned by other companies:
- Location
- Identifiers
- Usage Data
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Data Linked to You

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Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More

Accessibility

Information

Seller: Simon Schuster
Size: 65.5 MB
Category: Puzzle
Compatibility: Requires iOS 15.6 or later.

iPhone
Requires iOS 15.6 or later.

iPad
Requires iPadOS 15.6 or later.

iPod touch
Requires iOS 15.6 or later.

Mac
Requires macOS 12.5 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later.

Apple Vision
Requires visionOS 1.0 or later.
Languages: English
Age Rating: 4+

4+

Learn More

Contains
Advertising
In-App Purchases: Yes

Supporter (Annual) $14.99

Supporter (Monthly) $2.49

Supporter (Weekly) $0.79

Beginner Pack 3 $1.99

Advanced Pack 2 $2.99

Expert Pack 2 $2.99

Beginner Pack 4 $1.99

Genius Pack 2 $3.99

Genius Pack 3 $3.99

Advanced Pack 3 $2.99

Learn More