Patterns With Friends
Free · play online in your browser, no download
Build lines of tiles that share a colour or a shape, live with friends, at your own pace or against the computer.
Official site patternswithfriends.com, verified Nov 3, 2026. Submitted by the developer as the URL of their own Show HN post on Hacker News.
Rights holder / original work: Qwirkle (board game designed by Susan McKinley Ross)
The developer describes the game as a web version of the tile-laying board game Qwirkle, made to keep playing it after a holiday: players build lines of tiles that share a colour or a shape. The site does not use the Qwirkle name, logo or artwork, and no source shows a licence from the game's designer or publisher. (Hacker News (heliostatic))
VibeGameDB lists this game only to document that it was made with AI coding tools. We do not host it, we do not represent the rights holder, and listing it does not mean it is licensed.
Where to play
Every platform this game is on. Links are checked against official sources; we never host or mirror games.
- Play free — official siteBrowserReleasedFree
Runs in a desktop or mobile browser. No download.
Browser (no download) · Mobile · Official link verified Nov 3, 2026.
About Patterns With Friends
A free multiplayer tile game in the browser. Players take turns building lines of tiles that share a colour or a shape, two to four players at a time, with bots to fill seats or to play against alone. There are no accounts: your identity is an anonymous ID kept in the browser, which you can move to another device with a QR code or a unique link. You start a game and text someone its link (game addresses are three-word phrases), or play the computer straight away, and games wait happily for a day between moves, with web push notifications when it is your turn. There is also an offline mode against the computer. The developer, heliostatic, says they made it after a holiday with friends spent playing Qwirkle, to keep playing afterwards, and that it was built almost entirely with Claude Code: they directed and reviewed, and it wrote nearly all the code, going from nothing to playable in a day plus two weeks of tweaks. No sign-up, no ads and no tracking; the developer says there are no analytics or monetization now or planned.
How it was built
Partially verifiedIn a Show HN post on Hacker News (7 Jul 2026, UTC) the developer writes: “Disclosure: this was built almost entirely with Claude Code. I directed and reviewed; it wrote nearly all the code.” They call it “not really a proud coding project, but very fun for going from 0-playable in a day (plus two weeks of tweaks)”, and offer to talk about the workflow.
Per the developer: one Node process on a small virtual machine running Next.js and Socket.IO, with no database. The server and the client use the same game engine, so moves validate optimistically, and the bots go through the same functions, so their moves are always legal. Game state lives in memory and is snapshotted to a JSON file so that deploys do not reset games, which the developer added after three game resets nearly cost them their beta testers. Turn notifications use web push. The bots are the game's own rule-based players; no AI service is used during play.
- Engine / framework
- None (Next.js web app)
- Languages
- Not disclosed
- Team size
- Not disclosed
- Initial build time
- A day to playable, plus two weeks of tweaksDeveloper ReportedHacker News (heliostatic)
- Development time
- Not disclosed
- Development cost
- Not disclosed
- AI-written code
- Not disclosed
“Disclosure: this was built almost entirely with Claude Code. I directed and reviewed; it wrote nearly all the code.”Verification notes: AI use, stack and origin from the developer's Show HN post by heliostatic (7 Jul 2026, 13:55 UTC) and the developer's reply under it, read through the Hacker News API on 8 Nov 2026; the post links patternswithfriends.com. “Almost entirely” and “nearly all the code” are the developer's words; no share is recorded. Features and the offline mode from the site and its web app manifest, read on 8 Nov 2026. Developer: the Hacker News account heliostatic (created 2011) links a Keybase profile of the same name; no personal name, team size or location is given. The post is the earliest date found for the site, so no release date is recorded. The developer says the game is a web version of the board game Qwirkle, which they played on holiday; the site itself does not use the Qwirkle name or artwork (see the IP notice). The bots run the game's own rules engine. The post had a score of 3 and two comments (observed; not metrics). The game was not played.
Development history
The developer posts the game as a Show HN on Hacker News, saying it was built almost entirely with Claude Code.
DeveloperHacker News (heliostatic)
Game performance
Each figure measures something different — concurrent players, owners, downloads and sales are never interchangeable and are never added together. Labels show where each number comes from.
Browser (official site)
Free in the browser on computers and phones, with no sign-up, no ads and no tracking; it can be installed as a web app. Live or asynchronous games with friends, solo games against the computer and an offline mode.
No public metrics recorded for this listing.
Not publicly available: Concurrent players (site), Monthly revenue, Gross revenue.
Sales & revenue (all platforms)
Browser game — there are no downloads to count.
Reviews & rankings
Not yet reviewed by our editors.
Not currently ranked.
Sources
| Source | Type | Published | Accessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Show HN: Patterns with Friends – free multiplayer tile game (no sign-up, no ads) Hacker News (heliostatic) | Social post | Jul 7, 2026 | Nov 3, 2026 |
| Patterns With Friends patternswithfriends.com | Official site | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
| Official game page (language check) heliostatic | Official site | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
Get your badge
Made this game? Add a “Featured on VibeGameDB” badge to your site, GitHub README or itch.io page.
<a href="https://vibegamedb.com/en/games/patterns-with-friends" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="View Patterns With Friends on VibeGameDB – the database of AI-built games">
<img src="https://vibegamedb.com/badges/featured-light.svg" width="250" height="54" alt="Featured on VibeGameDB – Patterns With Friends, an AI-built game" />
</a>
