LinkedIn announced a new addition to its suite of in-app puzzle games, with Patches, in which players use spatial reasoning to solve shape-based designs.
As explained by LinkedIn: “Patches is a spatial logic puzzle. There’s a grid with a bunch of incomplete shapes, and you complete the shapes based on the rules presented. Once you have every shape completed with no cells remaining on the grid, you win.”
The design is based on a Japanese puzzle game called Shikaku, and was designed by LinkedIn’s Principal Puzzlemaster Thomas Snyder, who will also now provide regular updates on the platform’s puzzle game innovations and changes in a revised “Gametime” newsletter.
On that front, LinkedIn also announced coming updates to its games leaderboards, with members who play games now also able to react to scores posted by connections, track competitors’ performance, and view the previous day’s leaderboard to see who’s climbing.
LinkedIn added its first in-app puzzle games in May 2024, and it has since added a range of additional titles and features, in order to capitalize on the popularity of its competitive games.
But do games actually fit on the professional social network?
According to LinkedIn, the proof is in the data, with its puzzle games growing to become one of the largest drivers of conversations in the app, with millions of users playing every day.
Though as per its usual approach, LinkedIn is pretty vague with the actual numbers here.
In March last year, LinkedIn also reported that “millions of professionals” are playing its in-stream games daily, though that could mean two million or a hundred million. We have no insight into the actual data.
Either way, LinkedIn is clearly happy with their performance, and the additional engagement that it’s getting from these in-stream puzzles, and as such, you can expect to see it add more games features in future.
