Meta is developing an in-message basketball game for Threads as the company continues expanding features on its text-based platform.

Reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi discovered the feature and shared a screenshot showing the basketball game lets users shoot hoops by swiping their finger. The game appears designed to allow friends to compete for the highest score, similar to other mobile basketball games.

A Meta spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that the company is internally prototyping the game, which is not available to the public. The company has not announced when or if it plans to officially roll out games in Threads messages.

Meta previously explored in-message gaming on Instagram, launching a hidden emoji game in direct messages last year, according to TechCrunch. That game requires users to move a paddle at the bottom of the screen to keep an emoji bouncing. Players lose if the emoji falls and compete to achieve the highest score.

Threads reports 400 million monthly users. The platform recently expanded its Communities feature with additional topics and added a “disappearing posts” feature that automatically archives content after 24 hours.

Despite the user base, Threads lags behind X in U.S. adoption. A Pew Research Center report released in recent weeks found 21% of U.S. adults have used X, compared with 8% who have used Threads and 4% who have used Bluesky.

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