Patchwork is a block puzzle set on a quilting table. The quilt is a 9 × 9 grid split into nine 3 × 3 quilt blocks, and you always have three fabric patches to sew on. Fill a whole row, column or block and it is stitched away, making room for more. The game goes on until none of your patches fits.
How to play
- Place a patch: drag it from the tray onto the quilt and let go. On a phone the patch rides a little above your finger so you can see where it lands. You can also tap a patch to pick it and then tap the quilt where you want its middle to go.
- Patches never rotate. Each shape comes in fixed orientations, so a vertical bar and a horizontal bar are different patches.
- Every square of the patch needs an empty square on the quilt, and nothing may hang over the edge.
- Any order: sew the three patches in whatever order you like. When all three are on the quilt, three new ones arrive.
- Stitch away: every full row, full column and full 3 × 3 block empties at once. A square where a full row and a full column cross is only removed once.
- Preview: while you drag, the squares the patch would cover are tinted, and every row, column or block it would complete is outlined in gold.
- Keyboard: press 1, 2 or 3 to pick a patch, move it with the arrow keys, and press Enter to sew it. Escape puts it back.
Every fabric has its own pattern as well as its own colour: red gingham, teal polka dot, mustard stripe, navy cross-stitch, green floral and plum diamond. Colours only decorate; matching fabrics score nothing extra.
The patches
There are 37 patch shapes: a single square; bars of 2, 3, 4 and 5 squares, flat or upright; a 2 × 2 square; small corners of 3 squares; L, J, T, S and Z shapes of 4 squares; big corners of 5 squares; 2 × 3 rectangles; and the 3 × 3 square. Small patches come up most often at the start. The longer you play, the more often the big ones arrive, so a quilt that felt roomy early on fills faster later.
When a new set of three is dealt, the game tries up to 20 times to give you at least one patch that fits somewhere. It does not promise that all three will fit, and it does not look ahead to the patches you still have.
Scoring
- Every square you sew scores 1.
- Stitching away k rows, columns or blocks with one patch scores 20 × k²: 20 for one, 80 for two, 180 for three, 320 for four.
- Combo: if the next patch stitches something away too, the combo grows. The n-th patch in a row of stitches earns an extra 10 × (n − 1) for every unit it clears. A patch that clears nothing ends the combo.
No room? If none of your patches fits, you can watch an optional ad once per game for three small patches (each three squares or fewer) that fit the quilt. Otherwise the game ends and your score counts. Your best score is kept.
Strategy
- Keep a 3 × 3 hole open. The big square and the 5-square bars are the patches that end games. As long as one empty 3 × 3 area and one clear row or column stay open, almost anything fits.
- Think in blocks as well as lines. A 3 × 3 block needs only nine squares, so it is often the quickest thing to finish. A patch that completes a block and a row at once scores 80 instead of 20.
- Avoid single holes. An empty square boxed in on all four sides can only ever take the single-square patch. Fill against walls and other patches so gaps stay at least two wide.
- Place the awkward patch first. If one of your three is an S shape or a big corner, find a home for it while the quilt still has room, and keep the single square for last as a filler.
- Chain your clears. Set up two nearly full lines so that consecutive patches each finish one; the combo bonus grows with every patch in the chain.
We tested the game with a computer player that tries every placement and avoids single holes. It usually lasts several hundred patches (half of its games passed 840), while placing patches at random fills the quilt in about 20. Most people land somewhere in between, which is where good habits like the ones above make the difference.
If you enjoy Patchwork, try Peg Solitaire or Potion Shelf next.
