Pattern King

Pattern King shows you a grid, takes it away, and asks you to clear specific tile types from memory. That alone would be a decent memory game. The shuffle is what makes it a great one.

Partway through each round the board rearranges itself, so the map in your head stops matching the screen. At Master rank it does this three times in sixty seconds on a twenty-four tile grid, which is about as much as short-term memory can take.

How to play

The full grid is revealed for a short peek — memorise it.
The tiles flip face down and the round timer starts.
Clear the required tile types from memory by tapping them.
The board shuffles at set intervals during the round, moving everything you memorised.
Clear the pattern before the round timer expires.

Scoring and XP

Grid size grows with rank: 4x3 at Beginner, 4x4 at Intermediate, 5x4 at Advanced, 6x4 at Master.
Peek time shrinks: 5 seconds, 4.5, 4, then 3 at Master.
Round time shrinks: 90 seconds, 80, 70, then 60.
Shuffles increase: 1, 2, 2, then 3 — and they come every 9 seconds at Master versus every 20 at Beginner.
Required tile types go from 2 up to 3 at Advanced and above.
Three sessions per run.

How to get better at Pattern King

Memorise positions relative to each other

Absolute positions are destroyed by the shuffle. Relationships survive it better — if you know two target tiles sat next to each other, you can often re-find the pair after a rearrange even when you have lost the grid.

Clear the tiles you are surest about first

Every tile you clear before the first shuffle is a tile you never have to re-find. Front-load your certainty and let the shuffle take your weakest memories rather than your best ones.

Master is a different game

Three seconds of peek on a 6x4 grid is not enough to memorise everything, and it is not meant to be. At that rank you are memorising a region, not a board. Pick a half and own it.

Common questions

What is the shuffle for?

It stops Pattern King being a pure memory test. Anyone can memorise a static grid; holding onto it while the board rearranges under you two or three times is a different skill entirely.

Is Master rank playable?

Just about. Three seconds of peek on a twenty-four tile grid with three shuffles is not enough to memorise everything, so the winning approach is to own one region of the board completely and accept losing the rest.