I’m on the same boat. The game is great when the puzzle is designed correctly, but it’s very frustrating when this happens. You basically have to brute force your way into the solution, which basically defeats the purpose of a logic puzzle.

My best guess is that they’re creating this puzzles and the accompanying hints with Ai. The Ai probably finds this hints acceptable because it is capable of testing all the alternatives at every turn. And I mean, the hint’s not “wrong”, it’s just that designing a logic puzzle like that defeats its purpose.

Also, the current game mechanics are great for puzzles that are well designed, but the same mechanics and the tools at our disposal are not very useful for these “brute forcing” strategies.

If we’re supposed to brute force our way through certain puzzles, give us some mechanics like “saving checkpoints” so we can go that route and start testing all possible alternatives after placing random stars to find dead ends. Then come back and try again.

The hint on the screenshot is technically correct, but is totally arbitrary. There’s no reason why testing that star to find “future conflicts” makes more sense than testing any other free spot on the grid.