Patches

About Patches

Patches is LinkedIn's seventh game, released on 19 March 2026. LinkedIn says it took more than a year and hundreds of prototypes to settle on the design, which is based on Shikaku, a Japanese puzzle where a grid is divided into rectangles.

Each day you get one board with a few clue cells. A clue shows a shape: a square, a tall rectangle, a wide rectangle, or a freeform shape that can be any of the three. Some clues also carry a number, and then the region must have exactly that many cells. You drag out a region from each clue, and the puzzle is solved when the regions cover every cell of the grid without overlapping.

The game checks your regions as you go and points out a region that is the wrong shape or size. The hint button finds the next cell or shape that is forced and explains why, and if your board has errors it rolls back to the last correct state. Like the other LinkedIn games, finishing shows your time against your connections and adds to your streak, and the puzzles get harder as the week goes on.

Patches suits players who like Queens and Tango and want a puzzle about areas rather than symbols, and anyone who has enjoyed Shikaku in puzzle books.

How to play Patches

1. Open Patches on LinkedIn and press Start game.
2. Look at each clue: its shape tells you whether the region is a square, a tall rectangle, a wide rectangle or any of these.
3. If a clue has a number, its region must cover exactly that many cells.
4. Drag from a clue cell to draw its region on the grid.
5. Keep drawing until every cell belongs to one region and no regions overlap.

Tips

• Start with numbered clues that have only one possible placement, often near edges or between other clues.
• Mark cells that only one clue can reach; they must belong to that clue's region.
• Remember that a tall rectangle must be taller than it is wide, and a wide one the other way round, so a square never fits those clues.

Questions