Show HN: Patches.cafe, an offline rectangle-covering puzzle

Patches.cafe launched this week as a free, offline-capable browser puzzle game featuring 1,000 campaign levels built around a rectangle-covering mechanic, according to a Show HN post by the game's creator, HN user murzynalbinos.

The game is a solo side project, published at patches.cafe, with no account required. Player progress is saved in local storage, and the game ships as a Progressive Web App (PWA), meaning it can be played without an internet connection — a feature the creator says was added at the request of a friend who wanted something to play on a plane.

The concept draws directly from LinkedIn's built-in game also called Patches. Per the Show HN post, the creator found the original "bland, short and empty," and set out to build a version with more depth — combining the patches puzzle format with a café theme to arrive at the name. Campaign mode includes obstacles alongside the core rectangle-covering rules, intended to make both short and long play sessions engaging.

The creator notes the project has already gone through one round of iteration: feedback collected from Reddit prompted fixes before the HN launch. No team size, funding, or company affiliation is mentioned in the source materials — this appears to be an individual developer project.

Per the Show HN post, the creator is actively soliciting feedback from players and is looking for people to try the game.