Pick a grid size and difficulty above, then hit Generate new puzzle. You'll land on a fresh 6 × 6 or 8 × 8 Patches board with its own shareable URL — send the link and the person on the other end gets the exact same board.
How the generator works
Every board is produced by a deterministic slicing-tree algorithm. We start with the full grid as one rectangle, then repeatedly pick a random region and split it along an axis until the board holds the right number of patches. The longer axis is usually split first so sub-regions stay interesting — but a random 30% of splits go the other way to keep Wide and Tall shapes in the mix.
Each split is seeded from your chosen size and difficulty plus a short random tail. That tail becomes the URL of your puzzle, so anyone you share the link with gets the exact same board — same clue placements, same solution.
Difficulty knobs
Grid size controls how many cells you're working with. 6 × 6 is the classic LinkedIn size — quick, roughly four to seven patches per board. 8 × 8 doubles the cell count and rewards deeper deduction chains, usually seven to ten patches.
Difficulty controls what each clue reveals. Easy boards show both shape and size on almost every clue. Medium mixes in shape-only and size-only clues so you have to infer one from the geometry. Hard hides one or both on most clues — the grid becomes a logic puzzle more than a matching exercise.
What the generator is not
It's not a solver — we don't check that every generated board has a unique solution, especially on Hard. For most puzzles that's fine because the constraints pile up enough that only one layout fits. If you hit a rare board that feels ambiguous, generate another one.
New to Patches?
Start with the curated catalog. It's 40 hand-picked boards across 6 × 6 and 8 × 8, titled and sorted by difficulty so you can warm up before hitting the generator.