Grindstone vs Patterned
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Grindstone
Engage in a challenging puzzle-battle game where you slash your way up a treacherous mountain. Cleave through swarms of enemies, battle bosses, and discover blueprints for powerful gear. Over 200 levels of intense puzzle-battling await.
- Sword-slashing puzzle battles
- Over 200 levels
- Battle bosses
- Loot resources
- Discover gear blueprints
- Cleave deadly foes
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GRINDSTONE is a game of sword-slashing puzzle battles from the award-winning creators of Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes and Critter Crunch! Grindstone Mountain is overrun with vicious Creeps! Slay your way up its treacherous peak where fortune, glory (and death) awaits! It’ll take sharp puzzle skills and an even sharper blade to cleave your way through the swarms of bloodthirsty Creeps dwelling within Grindstone’s dungeons. Battle bosses, loot resources, discover long-lost blueprints for powerful gear, all while cleaving the innards from your deadly foes! Now with more than 200 levels of intense puzzle-battling madness!
Patterned
A unique puzzle game where you reassemble scrambled, repeating patterns. Solve intricate designs inspired by global art and enjoy a relaxing soundtrack. Download solved patterns as wallpapers for your device.
- Reassemble repeating patterns
- Visual clue-based gameplay
- Relaxing music soundtrack
- Thousands of handcrafted designs
- Real-time multiplayer
- Downloadable wallpapers
- Cross-device progress saving
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Patterned is a calm, beautiful puzzle game. Rebuild stunning repeating patterns, piece by piece, at your own pace. Inspired by jigsaw puzzles, with a twist… Each pattern starts as a sketch, its tile scrambled and repeating seamlessly across the screen. Whatever leaves one edge comes back on the other, so every piece is a clue. Piece by piece, color and detail come alive, until the finished pattern fills the screen. A new pattern every day… Start your day with the Daily Pattern, a fresh design for a few peaceful minutes. Missed a day? The Daily Archive keeps every available Daily waiting for you. Fresh collections every week… Each week brings a new Featured Collection, a themed set to discover. Past collections stay in the Collection Archive, so you can finish a set or play a favorite again. Picked just for you… Designed for You chooses patterns based on what you love to play. Finish a pattern, and What's Next suggests a lovely one to play next. Thousands of patterns to explore… The Vault holds thousands of handcrafted patterns by more than 100 artists from around the world, in 36 categories from Seasons & Holidays to Sky & Sea. Search with the words you'd naturally use, and watch your progress grow in every category. Beautiful music… Relax to over 6 hours of piano and ambient music by more than 10 composers, including Dear Gravity, Be Still the Earth and Antarctic Wastelands. Made for everyone… From flowers and watercolors to dinosaurs and sushi, there's a pattern for every age and every mood. Wallpapers galore… Save the patterns you finish as beautiful wallpapers on iPhone, iPad and Mac. Play together… Build patterns with anyone, anywhere in the world, in real time. Take your time… No rush, ever. Start a pattern on one device and finish it on another, whenever you like. Always something new… New patterns arrive every week, and we're always adding new features. No ads. No in-app purchases. Just beautiful patterns.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Patterned at every 3 weeks against Grindstone's every 2 months. Patterned also leads on ratings volume (39K vs 7.3K). On price, rating, review sentiment and ads there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for Grindstone against 4.8 for Patterned. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Patterned has 39K ratings behind it against 7.3K, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 78% of Grindstone's written reviews are positive against 71% of Patterned's.
Grindstone ships an update every 2 months, Patterned every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 11, 2026 and November 12, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Grindstone | Patterned |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (7.3K ratings) | 4.8 (39K ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 78.3% of reviews — better | 70.9% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 7.3K | 39K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV, Vision Pro — better |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 990 MB | 774 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Capybara Games Inc. | BorderLeap |
Customer experience
Grindstone
Patterned
User reviews
Grindstone
From 7.3K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Addictive gameplay
- 👍 Unique and charming art style
- 🎨 Excellent soundtrack and sound effects
- 💡 Satisfying chain combos
- 🕹️ Intuitive and challenging mechanics
Room to improve
- 🐛 Occasional crashes and bugs
- 🔋 High battery consumption
- ⏱️ Unskippable animations
- 🔄 Progress loss when switching apps
- 🤔 Difficulty spike in later levels
Patterned
From 39K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🎨 Beautiful artwork and patterns
- 🎶 Calming and relaxing music
- 🧠 Challenging yet satisfying puzzles
- 👍 No ads or in-app purchases
- 🌟 Gorgeous wallpapers from completed puzzles
Room to improve
- 🔍 Difficulty finding incomplete puzzles
- 🎨 Washed out colors on some puzzles
- 🧩 Pieces sometimes snap to incorrect locations
- 🔁 Repeating patterns can be frustrating
- 🐛 Occasional crashes and glitches
Bugs and requests
Grindstone
Reported bugs
3 issues- Freezing on black screen after intro
- Inability to complete certain levels due to glitches
- Disappearing save data after updates
Requested features
5 requests- More levels and content updates
- Ability to save progress mid-level
- Option to disable animations
- Landscape mode support on iPad
- In-game enemy encyclopedia
Patterned
Reported bugs
4 issues- Tutorial puzzle missing final piece
- Some puzzles appear incomplete or have missing pieces
- Multiplayer mode has connectivity issues
- App gets stuck on loading screen for some users
Requested features
5 requests- Add option to view only incomplete puzzles
- Improve contrast and visibility of puzzle pieces
- Allow pieces to be placed anywhere, not just in central grid
- Provide more diverse and representative artwork
- Add ability to download completed puzzles as wallpapers
In-app purchases
Grindstone
No in-app purchases
Patterned
No in-app purchases
