Name That Pattern is a game that you can play to help review what you know about Patterns.

There are different ways of playing the game. Name That Pattern was invented by Ward Cunningham with variations contributed by Joshua Kerievsky.

If you come up with a new variation, we’d love to hear about it.

Variations Of Play

We will describe the major variations of play.

  • Name That Pattern.
    Give each person one pattern and ask them to describe the Pattern without giving too much away. People in a group must decide which Pattern the person is describing. It is important to not give away too much. For example, if you’re giving the Pattern, Iterator, you would not want to use the term “iterate” in your description.
    Difficulty: Easy to Moderate
  • Name That Solution
    Same as Name That Pattern, but each player must describe some problem which the Pattern helps to solve.
    Difficulty: Moderate to Difficult
  • Name That Diagram
    Same as Name That Pattern but each player must draw a diagram and see if anyone can guess which Pattern exists in the diagram.
    Difficulty: Moderate to Difficult