2048

11 years ago (gabrielecirulli.github.io)

Hey, author here! I'm pretty overwhelmed that this made it to the top of HN without me even thinking of posting it here :)

I made this game as a fun weekend project, inspired by another game called 1024 (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/1024!/id823499224) and a spinoff called 2048 (http://saming.fr/p/2048/). I did mine to add animations to the latter, which was a bit hard to play without them.

I discovered Threes only today, and I had no idea it looked so similar. I searched a bit and it appears as if 1024 is also inspired by Threes, so my game is probably the last of a long chain of clones :P

The code is also open-source. You can find it here: https://github.com/gabrielecirulli/2048

Feel free to ask me anything, and thanks to everyone for the attention! :)

By the way, my highscore is somewhere around 6000. Admittedly, I'm quite bad at playing my own game :P

EDIT: Make sure not to get addicted!

EDIT 2: The game now has swipe gestures and vim keys support (added by @rayhaanj)!

No one has mentioned it yet, but this is an in browser version of the excellent iOS app Threes: http://www.joystiq.com/2014/01/30/addictive-ios-puzzling-com... (no affiliation, just a fan)

  • It's similar, but different. With Threes you combine 1s and 2s to make 3s, then similar numbers to double them. Also, the tiles in Threes only shift at most one spot at a time - with this game, everything's flung to the other side of the board.

  • I had more fun with this than Threes. I think it's how the tiles slide all the way over.

    • I agree, there's something satisfying about sliding all the things with just one keystroke. I wonder if it's like that desire to chuck things in parabolic arcs that made Angry Birds so popular? I actually bought Threes from the iOS App Store but I've spent much more time on this game for whatever reason.

Not many posting winning scores, so here's mine: 2048 and 20368 points

http://imgur.com/c3aHuT4

I'm not going to claim it was first try. Probably my tenth. However, I got much better at avoiding the key mistakes:

- Always keep your highest number in a corner

- Use the rest of that edge as a "staging area" for the components that can next double the highest tile. Work the other tiles toward the opposite corner on that side and then double them upward into the highest corner.

- When you double the highest corner, you'll expose the "staging area" side. During this time, quickly work number back to fill that side so you avoid being forced to move the highest number out.

- NEVER let yourself fill a 3x4 grid. This will force you to move the highest column away from the edge and will probably end the game in a handful of turns.

  • These are some great tips. By keeping the highest number in corner and making sure I am not forced to move it, I have been able to get till (~20000 score) 1024, 512, 256 etc and then game over :( Going to try again.

    LOVE the game. Who knew I could single-mindedly focus on one task for hours and not get distracted.

  • 20484 after about two hours. A few close calls and at times I felt like I was playing Tower of Hanoi leveling up areas. Only pushed up twice.

    Final part was fast as all you need is two 128 blocks, one 256, a 512 and the 1024.

  • Won with a score of 20252 thanks to your tips. And 3x4 grid isn't impossible to get out of, but you need some luck and a plan (like your staging area)

  • With this technique, the lowest I've scored is in the 6,000s, and that was when I veered from the protocol. (That bloody 3×4)

First of all, kudos on a well designed game. It's obvious you've made something pretty addictive, as evident by the place on HN and the responses you're getting here.

One thing I've found out is that you can pretty easily get to at least 512 or higher just by repeating the following pattern:

  right + down + left + down

Try it out and you'll quickly see how it works. Any other similar pattern would also work:

  right + down + right + up
  up + right + up + left
  left + down + left + up

I will also sometimes break the pattern to consolidate some of the larger numbers when opportunities present themselves. But other than that, I usually stick to the pattern.

Of course, it will only get you so far, because you will eventually run out of space to keep the pattern working. But it will get you past the first few thousand points (512 or higher).

  • I managed to beat it following a basic pattern similar to yours:

    1) Mash up-left (or towards any corner) until blocks stop moving

    2) Press right

    3) Start over

    The trick is to keep the high numbers in the top corner so the new numbers don't spawn behind it, you basically start building towards that corner and things start to work themselves out.

    Like you, I had to do a bit of actual logic near the end, you can see that I overshot by a small margin and ended up with a 128 block too....

    http://i.imgur.com/NA92d3G.png

    • This works remarkably well. There are some spots where you have to apply logic -- in particular, I found that I progressed best when I built out the top row with my highest blocks (and then push/cascade my next highest block into the top when it got to be high enough) and I occasionally had to mash up-right rather than up-left to make that happen.

  • Yeah, same here. As long as you keep your high numbers against once side and the low numbers against the other, it's not hard. Pick one direction that you never ever use and you do fine.

  • Lol I'm kind of sad that the right+down+left+down trick got me further than all of my previous actual attempts hahaha.

For those "playing" in the javascript console, here's one way to get a handle on the (inaccessibly scoped) game objects:

    GameManager.prototype.__actuate = 
        GameManager.prototype.actuate;
    
    GameManager.prototype.actuate = function() { 
        window.gm = this; 
        this.__actuate();
    }

On the next move, the game object will exfiltrate itself into the global window namespace.

    gm.grid.eachCell(function(x,y,_) { 
        gm.grid.cells[x][y] = new Tile({x:x, y:y}, 1024); 
    });
    
    gm.actuate();

Made it to 1024: http://imgur.com/QQUXzCN. Here's my routine:

1. "tumbler" until 128: up right down left, repeat

2. Get 128 on the top in the middle two slots. Really any edge works, but I'll say top for simplicity. Keep a semi-large value on the side with one open slot in top row to prevent sliding. The other side on top is used for staging

3. Only use left, right and up. Never let a smaller value get trapped. This rule can only be violated to avoid filling the top three rows with the fourth empty.

I lost this game because I mistakenly filled the top three rows, forcing me to use a down. I think this strategy is viable to win however

  • That's cool! My current strategy is just to keep going until I lose. Admittedly, I'm pretty bad at my own game :P

  • Won on my first try after my original post! http://imgur.com/rnGYLY9

    Here's the new routine: 1. "tumbler" until 128 can move to the upper left corner.

    2. The highest number on the board is always in the upper left. Make the top row descend left to right.

    3. Before combining values on the top row, keep hitting up until one of the lower rows will not combine from a left.

    4. Often, the slot you are filling (eg, top right or one below top right) will have a two. Alternate pressing "left" and "right" until a two appears, allowing you to combine

    5. Keep the second row locked as soon as possible with unique values ASCENDING left to right. This way you can use up, left and right without moving the slot you are filling on the far left of the second row.

    There are a few other pattern recognition tricks that you'll pick up to aid in filling a slot for higher values. A few other misc tips:

    * try to keep high number squares close together, and merge up to the top row as soon as possible. Otherwise, they will just close off a slot

    * You may get a 2 trapped on the top row blocked by a higher value below it. Unfreeze the second row by combining squares & hope that a two appears in the new opening

    * only 2's or 4's will appear. They (always") appear in the space left behind by the previous movement

  • This strategy worked quite well for me up until right around where you got to, 11532. Certainly much more effective than just trying to wing it without a strategy.

  • used the same strategy, lost at about 11.5K after I had to use a down after filling my top two rows. definitely works well.

Great game! Love the simplicity!

I played a round, and got to 512. But toward the end I wasn't sure if I was actually playing with a strategy, or just pressing buttons randomly with some thinking involved.

So I built a script to randomly press the arrow keys[0]! I let it play a few games, and the highest it got to was 128 before consistently losing. So I guess you'll need some decent strategy to get to 2048.

0 - https://gist.github.com/Wayfarer247/9469272

  • > So I built a script to randomly press the arrow keys[0]! I let it play a few games, and the highest it got to was 128 before consistently losing. So I guess you'll need some decent strategy to get to 2048.

    That's a great idea for testing the depth of simple games. It's good to know a baseline score: players should be getting to the 128 tile or better, or else they're doing really bad.

    • Losing that early could be almost as impressive as winning. Think about how hard it would be to miss every question on a multiple choice test.

  • If you remove one key it'll get to 256. I removed the `down` key and larger blocks started gathering on top, which was advantageous.

I wrote a version myself in python and have been playing with strategies. It seems fairly resistant to simple greedy strategies (maximize highest score/maximize empty squares/etc).

In terms of "blind" strategies [up, right, down, left]* works pretty well, but [up, right, up, left]* is by far the best I've found. It gets to 512 about 30% of the time (!), with about 0.2% hitting 1024. Still haven't seen a "win" using the blind strategy in several 10,000s of runs.

This simple game really shows how amazing the human mind is. I've never played any variant of this game before and when I first started I was blind to the mechanics of how this worked. I was moving so slowly and would fill up the board quite quickly.

After playing this game for 2 hours now my fingers are moving faster than my conscious mind can really follow. In my last game I was doing combo moves taking "2" blocks to "64" blocks in mere keystrokes. I've been surprised several times when things work out.

So I'm playing this since 10 minutes now and I have no idea what so ever I'm doing but it makes me feel like I'm performing well.

  • 10 minutes is farther than I got... I only now realize after the first run how to play the game. Dang, that can get addicting.

    • I got the hang of it during my first play, and ended up with 512 with a 256. I suspect there may be a system that lets you clean up the mess without creating too much new mess.

This game feels like life. I plan and make a move. Some pieces move exactly as I had wanted. A bunch of other pieces that I wasn’t looking at, also move. Some of these unexpected results surprise me and make me happy, I even subconsciously take credit for them. Some others, I don’t even notice. It’s okay, there is too much going on.

Sometimes it feels too hard and pointless to plan, so I am pressing the arrows almost randomly. Need a break from thinking and taking responsibility. I just hope that I am going in the “right” direction. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. It’s also hard to tell. Ah well.

Now I’ve been doing pretty well at this for a while, I am getting pretty good I think, I have it all under control. A few moves later, before I even know it …. oops! suddenly it’s all a mess! :(

But there are miracles also. I’ve been in this mess for a bit now and it’s not much fun. It’s slowed down and my heart is not in the right place. Suddenly, a couple of moves later, I am totally back in the game! I don’t know if I know this, but it was barely my doing!

Of course, it’s this elusive goal (of 2048 or 42 or whatever else), it’s the reason why I keep going. I am pretty sure it’ll be really cool once I get there :)

This is one of those games that I do best on my first try when I have no idea what I'm doing, and then do worse and worse the more I think I have a strategy.

Fun though!

  • exactly. I got up to 256 first try and it took quite a while before I ran out of open tiles. 2nd try hit the wall shortly after 128... third time it went so quick and I only had a single 64. addictive and ridiculousness! :-)

The game is super addictive and I figured out a way to get to 11000 in the first hour. It's actually an excellent analogy for social network-type products and any business really. If your users belong to different clusters and similar clusters don't meet, there is little value and the network doesn't become more valuable for anyone. By focusing on the same corner scenario you help similar clusters find each-other consistently and thus amplify value to each-other. I took over one corner and keep stacking on to it with blocks of increasing value, essentially never moving out of it. If you move out of your corder, a different cluster takes hold in it and then everyone in that corner will hesitate to buy into you, even if the other cluster is small - it becomes a thorn in your butt. Great job! I learned something new today (Plague has also been very educational for me so far, but for viral dynamics.)

Quick and dirty 'dumb' solver (might require manual intervention sometimes):

		var manager = new GameManager(4, KeyboardInputManager, HTMLActuator);

		// Pattern definition (0: Up, 1: Right, 2: Down, 3: Left)
		var pattern = [1, 2, 3, 2];

		// Pattern Repeater
		var i = 0;

		// Interval
		var solverInterval = window.setInterval(function() {

			// Check if game is over
			if (manager.over)
				clearInterval(solverInterval);

			// Repeat pattern
			if (i % pattern.length == 0)
				i = 0;

			// Execute the move
			manager.move(pattern[i]);

			i++;

		}, 200);

Best pattern found so far is "var pattern = [1, 0, 3, 0];" I reached 1024 with it. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21387598/1024-Best.png

I have some interesting results.

The first time I played the game I scored around 3000 points. After that, I tried to slow down and focus on keep the same kinds of numbers together, but after that, I couldn't get past 2250.

So I wrote a script that used Math.random() to hit the array keys continually, and the score was much lower: 1000.

Then I tried the sequence RIGHT UP LEFT DOWN over and over instead of Math.random() I scored significantly higher than all of them, in the 4000s.

Does anyone know why this might be?

  • Tried 3 games, and the scores were 2700, 1200, 5000. So maybe. But then I wrote a function to play it for me:

        var manager = new GameManager(4, KeyboardInputManager, HTMLActuator);
        
        function play() {
          manager.restart();
          var m = 0;
          while (!manager.over) {
            manager.move(m);
            m = (m+1)%4;
          }
          return manager.score;
        }
    

    ... and that gets scores between 500 and 3000.

    (Edit) Histogram of 500 runs:

      0k: ***
      1k: *******************
      2k: ****************
      3k: *********
      4k: *
      5k: *
      6k: *

    • Which is about the same score you get if you concentrate and really try hard to get a high score.

      I think this might be a "hacker" version of the slot machine - the player feels as if he's in control while in fact the outcome is pretty random.

      5 replies →

I think I have the beginning of a solution. The end result should be 2048 on the top-right corner (for the explanation). Always keep the highest value there. To do that never do a down without the right column filled and never do a left without the top row filled. Within those restrictions keep the top row in ascending order by building numbers on the left of the second row, so that they will match above and cascade right in powers of two.

I did this successfully for a while and then had no other option but a down without the rightmost column filled and lost my placement.

EDIT: A variation of this that works well is to only do up, left and right if at all possible. This keeps the highest values on top making it easier to match top-down. I've been stuck on 512 though.

  • The key is to have a well defined 'edge' between filled and empty areas - so that the high-valued tiles are on the corned away from the emptiness where 2s spawn; and low-value tiles are on/near the border.

    Note that you can't afford to keep much unconnected duplicates - near the win point, you need to have 1024+512+256+128+64+32+16+8+4+2 which is 9/16 tiles filled already, so a few extra mid-value tiles cut your 'operating space' to near zero; so you must keep the high-values mostly ordered and agressively eliminate unneeded duplicates.

  • I was able to get 2048 building off of your solution. As you said, always keep your highest number in the top right corner. Try to build the next highest numbers up along the right edge, so that you have say, 256, 128, 64, 32 along the right edge. Always keep 4 numbers there, and only use up/down/right. Then just focus on building whatever number you need next to double the bottom right number, so that you can "chain up" numbers along the right edge and double your highest number in the top right.

    Kind of hard to explain in words, but hopefully that helps!

    • Yep, this is pretty much the same solution with the right edge instead of the top edge. I got to 1024 and then blundered and couldn't get 2048. This thing is addictive though.

I managed to get 2048 on my first try. Different enough from Threes to stay interesting, but a lot of the same strategy applies. In Threes though, the number that appears has a higher chance of being a bigger number (24, 48, even higher later) the longer the game goes on. There were a few times I was almost stuck and was able to get out of it by continually moving in the same direction and sucking up 2s.

http://cl.ly/image/462B1P0Y250T

Why do I feel like another good name for this game would be "8 years of running a startup"?

Finally won with a score of 20548. At first I was using a strategy of getting the biggest number into a corner. This follows a pattern of mostly up-right-up-right-... with an occasional left or down thrown in to get unstuck. This approach can pretty reliably get you to 512 in the corner without much trouble. But eventually this method saturates the available "storage" space with an inefficient pattern of tiles up to the diagonal. Then you have to start changing things up and continuing becomes tricky.

Then I tried the approach mentioned here of left-down-right-down-left... in a very mechanical fashion. I believe that this is very likely the optimal mindless strategy. It works amazingly well. As long as you never hit up, it fills things very efficiently and the biggest numbers percolate down towards the middle of the bottom row.

The way I finally won was to take this second approach and augment it with some periods of trying to get the biggest number in the corner. Start with ldrd until you get some 64s or 128s, then slow down and play catch-up with a corner. Then go back to ldrd. Occasionally stopping at strategic places to consolidate things also seems to help quite a bit.

All in all, a very fun game with some interesting properties.

Quite a lot of fun.

One minor nit: if the board is full, but you can make a move that will free up a space, you can make that move and the new tile will appear in the newly opened space, but then the game immediately ends afterward. EDIT: OK, apparently this only happens if there are actually no more moves; as long as moves remain the game continues.

Also, hitting "space" reset the entire game; I'd expected it to either do nothing or add a tile without moving.

  • That's intended. In 'Threes' for the iPhone you have to use that remaining block to solve more as you can see what's coming next.

Hey guys! I made a multiplayer version of this game in about an hour or so. (Twitch plays pokemon style)

http://hnplays2048.herokuapp.com/

Check it out! Or clone it! https://github.com/grant/hnplays2048

Very cool. Spent a while trying to get a high score by thinking about it, but in the end managed to beat it just by pressing the arrow keys anticlockwise one after the other!

Love this! Just when you think that a genre like tile puzzle games has been completely done, something like this comes along and shows a new way of thinking about it.

The most amazing thing about this game is how it manages to be so creative and different while being so simple.

  • Thanks! I shouldn't take all the credit for it though. The game is basically a clone of the two games I've been inspired by, as an attempt to make my own version and learn new things along the way!

I never imagined that I would one day feel like I'm "downing in my own filth of useless powers of 2".

Nice, only thing I don't like in the game is that I do better scores just doing (repeat((left or right once) + (up till it doesn't work anymore))) than when I think about my moves...

Maybe Monday morning is finding me too pedantic, but this is similar to Threes (http://threesgame.com), not just like Threes. There are some pretty obvious differences, from the movement of the tiles to the requirements for tile mergers (multiples of 2 rather than 3). The comments thus far do not make that distinction.

I eventually won and went on to score 32420, eventually losing after getting a second 1024 on the board. I'm fairly certain a 4096 is achievable.

The cardinal rule, as many have said, is to keep one side filled, in descending order, with your largest piece in one corner. Once you have that side filled, you have to make sure that any time you have a duplicate on that row that you:

(1) only ever shift toward your largest number

(2) ideally have a parallel row that will not shift before you do (1)

Until you can refill your last row, circumstances may lead you to have to move in the forbidden direction, which could wreck the whole game. Point (2) ensures that you can fill your back row with another piece immediately, restoring 3 directions of moves as quickly as possible.

If you end up with any 2's on your back row, you must build them up to higher numbers ASAP. Last thing you want is buried 2's.

Once your numbers start getting high, I think it makes sense to use the front two rows exclusively for 2's, 4's, and the occasional 8, but to shift 8's to the third row as soon as possible.

I've found that to actually finish once you have all the pieces you need, it may make sense to break script, but if you want to go on to try to make 4096, you may want to carefully stay on script.

I've found that in tricky situations when I want to combine large value pieces that are just not in alignment, it makes sense to try to slide lower value pieces under one to "boost" one of the others into alignment. The ability to do this makes it valuable to keep your combining pieces in the middle of the board.

Lastly, when you have multiple possible moves, make the move that takes most advantage of the piece that's about to appear, either because you can quickly combine the new piece or because it can "boost" another piece into alignment.

Follow this advice, and you will be a star!

  • I believe the largest tile you manage to get is 65536, that is if every random number falls in the perfect place.

    And this would be the largest score you could get on the board:

          2      4      8    16
        256    128     64    32
        512   1024   2048  4096
      65536  32768  16384  8192

This script will give you a keyboard-shortcut to skip the 'boring beginning' of the game. Run it a few times to get a nice starting point:

function arrows(key) { var eventObj = document.createEvent("Events"); eventObj.initEvent("keydown", true, true); eventObj.which = key; document.dispatchEvent(eventObj); }

document.onkeypress = function (e) { e = e || window.event; if (e.charCode = 122) { for (y=0; y<=100; y++) { arrows(39); arrows(38); arrows(37); arrows(38); } } };

var divje = document.createElement('div'); divje.innerHTML = "Press 'z' to fast forward ;)"; divje.style.position = 'fixed'; divje.style.padding = '10px'; divje.style.top = '10px'; divje.style.left = '10px'; document.body.appendChild(divje);

(some js based on script from varyform)

I wonder if there's an optimal strategy. Hmm.

  • I looks like the new block appears randomly. If the new block appeared even if you didn't move anything it would be easy, but they don't and that can ruin your strategy.

    I got to a 512 block in a corner and then got blocked by a new block in the same corner.

    I think the strategy is very simple. Pick a corner and mash keys that move into that corner. For example for bottom-right corner, just mash right and bottom. When you can't move anything anymore, move into the direction that keep your highest block in a corner and then continue to mash and hope that a new block doesn't appear anywhere close your highest block. I have gotten a 512 block in 2 minutes twice( score over 6000 ). It would only take time to reach more, and maybe actually look at the board instead of mashing; but that is problematic since the new block appears to be random.

    1024 could be reached in under an hour and 2048 in a day, i think.

    It would be better if you got the position of the new block. That way the game would be solvable in some normal time.

  • I tried a "tumbling" strategy, where I would press right, down, left, up, repeating. You'll see that the blocks end up tumbling around. I was able to get 256 several times.

    I also tried a very deliberate (and slow) strategy of actively trying to build up the necessary matching blocks and was able to get to 512 with a score of 5900.

  • I seem to pretty much always get a higher score by button mashing, or going up down left right in rotation than by trying to figure it out. :(

  • So far the best heuristic I've found is to not let smaller blocks get trapped behind bigger ones.

I've found simply pushing up, left, down, right, I can routinely outdo the score I can attain by actually playing with thought.... Kind of disappointing, but then I lost hours to this already. Fabulous game!

Egads this is excellent! As others have mentioned, would love to see a 5x5 variation and also be allowed to "keep going" after getting to 2048 to see how far you can go. I was disappointed that it ended and I had about half the squares empty and -might- have been able to get a 512 on the board as well. But just fantastic. Perfect balance of "speed when I want to blast through the easy levels" and "I need to think about the best next move" as well as try to construct an algorithm that helps get me to the endgame!

Finally had a chance to play Three's since it came out on android today and it honestly just made me want to play this more. The games are very similar, but 2048 is just more enjoyable to me.

I feel like a crazy person, but when i play this game for a while, screen text appears smaller. Like it's messing with my eyes or something. Does anyone else feel this happening?

Wrote a script which plays using a simple greedy approach. Chooses the current best option. Doesn't seem to get past 512 so far. It does however consistently get till 256. Just copy the code in the console and restart the game (space bar) to run.

Does anybody have a better approach? Other than randomize and trying your luck? Or maybe that is the best algorithm for this case..

https://gist.github.com/AeonAxan/9482114

And now we start the social experiment:

"Will 2048 ever reach 2048 points on HN? And how long will it stay at exact that number of points?"

Good luck everyone! ;)

I just repeat Left => Up => Left => Up until I can't move any further, then "Right => Up => Left" before going back to the left up combo. Keeps the largest values top left and the values decrease towards the bottom right. Stacks the values well for combining and you can easily get 512 => 1024 without even looking.

Interesting (somewhat unrelated) question came up at work:

What's the theoretical max tile value you can get on Three.

A simple strategy of building along one side will get you to a 1024 tile every time, but getting to 2048 seems largely dependent on RNG. If you get tiles spawning where you want them, it's very easy. If not, it can actually be impossible.

It's unfortunate that RNG plays a significant role.

Totally nerd sniped on this one. Will never get those hours back :-)

Meta question: Would it be possible to get 4096?

I got a single square with 256 in it and a score of 2016 before I got bored. It's addictive and fun but a single game is much too long. I would like to lose a few times and improve but with a game this long I get bored before I've even lost the first time.

Is this the most upvoted most in HN? Maybe HN wants the number of votes to be 2048 :)

Won with 21056, after about one billion failed games. Man, that game is the ultimate procrastination machine: rids you of absolutely all of your time and gives you the feeling that you actually accomplished something.

The best thing about this game is that you can press the arrow keys randomly for about five minutes and anyone walking past thinks you're incredibly good at the game. Just make sure you lose after they walk past.

After reading some comments I finally understood... It's not about creating [2] [_] [4] [8] line of tiles, but summing them so there is a tile of value '2048' (silly me)

Great! Now I can play it from my mobile browser. LOL. Anyway I could win twice in a day, by using the same algorithm. But still challenging and fun though.

What a fucking game! Seriously, best game I've played in ages, and I only made it to 512. I don't think I'm gonna get much done today...

Animation doesn't seem to work in Firefox. Does nobody test in Firefox anymore?

This WebKit monoculture is getting quite anything. It's msie all over again...

  • Are you sure you aren't using an outdated cache? I updated it to work with Firefox when I first saw the huge amounts of traffic coming in. Maybe try refreshing a few times.

  • As a part-time msie user i can assure you the webkit monoculture has had the same negative consequence on that side of the scale, in fact, it's worse on msie than firefox. It seems like nobody does cross-browser testing anymore now that safari and chrome hit a critical marketshare treshold, a bit like how nobody cares about their yslow scores anymore now that browsers are fast at executing javascript.

Addictive!

I have a suggestion that is different from the common. Other than taking this finely open game in to a walled garden, bring flattr or gittip there :).

I was searching on google and quora trying to know what are ideal posts for hackers on HN. Thanks - your post just just answered my question!

Ok maybe I'm missing it, but why is this game huge? I like this game, but I fail to see why it is THE top post on HN ever!

Why isn't this working for me?

Screenshot: http://imgur.com/9QzI3Z2

  • what's the blue thing around the screen?

    am DEFINITELY sure it's not hardware because it's working on my SUPER FAST laptop (1.1 Dual Core, intel HD, Firefox 27.0.1)

    so am sure YOU did something

    • the blue thing.... windows XP (it's my work PC, don't ask)

      Oh and browser is FireFox 27.0.1

      I suppose i'll have to just check this at home to figure out what the fuss is all about

The first few times I tried to play, I kept thinking the objective was to get the number 2048 across the first row. Haha.

argh- wish i never started playing... :) came close to the 8192 block, messed up near the end. points? not sure if it matters - 71,000+...

like lining up the blocks descending sequentially starting in the top left hand corner, and then creating s serpentine pattern. try to keep the big numbers in top left corner for as long as possible!

A little bit too similar to 'threes' on the app store.. I like it, but again, it's too much of a ripoff.

Couldn't figure out how to play it at first - because in IE11 it doesn't work as intended - check your code.

Depressing that my highest block so far after ~1hr play time is less than the number of upvotes this HN post has.

Great game by the way!

5000 pts just doing up, down, left, right

I scored worse by actually thinking and applying strategy. this IS a difficult game.

I can't help but feel like there's a fairly simple heap invariant hiding in the solution here...

I don't know if I should thank you, curse you or burn my computer.

I will choose the lesser evil : burn the computer !

Thanks ;-)

Ok, I give up. I managed to get a 512 and a 256 but then there is so little place to build up…

I got a score of 12640, not far off...

Very simple strategy: propagate large values upwards (never press down).

Score of 5756 by hitting [left, right, up] repeatedly. Is there a pattern that always wins?

Brilliant game, such simple concept but very addictive. Never seen this before. I love it.

Very fun and good looking game! Somehow I find it easier than Threes, awesome game!!

What an amazing game, I like it very much!

Kudos to the creator for the perfect execution and design.

I finally won! 2048 with a score of 20556. This game is evil!

  • My strategy is to always try to keep the high number blocks on one edge of the square. The highest block should be in the corner, then the blocks should be sorted by decreasing. E.g : 512 256 128 64...

    http://imgur.com/PNRIfW6

Edit: I have completely misunderstood this game.

Very fun though.

  • I think u misunderstood the game. u need to get the number 2048, not 2,0,4,8 in some order. Your score will be around 6k atleast if u win. Also, shit loads of time 'wasted'.

Dude, what a mechanic that is! Just spent 1/2 hour in no time. Expand featureset, apply to PSN, profit.

Weak game to be honest, it's tedium and meaningless for 10 minutes then the actual game begins for the next 2

A clone of a clone. Threes is a fantastic game and deserves this publicity.

That being said, this is a pretty well done clone clone.

something strange happened the first time I clicked the link to this comment page, It automatically downloaded a file named item.pacht, and this comment page didnt open. when I tried to delete the file , OSX said "finder wants to make changes" . What can be that?