2048
Slide tiles, merge numbers, chase the 2048 tile.
How it plays
Arrow keys or swipes slide every tile; equal tiles that collide merge and score. Each move spawns a new tile (90% a 2, 10% a 4, the original's odds). Reach 2048 and the game salutes you and keeps going; run out of moves and it's over. Score and best are kept on this device.
The corner strategy, and the game's story
The reliable method: choose a corner, keep your largest tile in it, and simply refuse the direction that would dislodge it โ playing three directions builds a monotonic "snake" of descending tiles that merges like a zip. Losses come from the desperate fourth-direction press; when stuck, prefer the move that keeps the big corner even if it looks passive. 4096 and 8192 follow from discipline rather than luck, and the theoretical ceiling on a 4ร4 is 131,072.
2048 was built in a weekend in 2014 by 19-year-old Gabriele Cirulli, released free and open-source, and hit tens of millions of players within weeks โ itself a variant of the games 1024 and Threes. This is a from-scratch homage with the original's mechanics. The other end of the brain-toy shelf: sequence memory and digit span in the Tests category.
Frequently asked questions
What is the trick to 2048?
Pick a corner, keep your biggest tile there, and never press the direction that would move it out. Build descending tiles toward that corner and merges chain naturally.
What happens after reaching 2048?
The game continues โ 4096 and 8192 are reachable with corner discipline. The maximum possible tile on a 4ร4 board is 131,072.
Do new tiles spawn as 2s or 4s?
90% are 2s, 10% are 4s โ the odds from Cirulli's 2014 original, which this version follows.
Where is my best score saved?
In this browser's local storage on this device only. Clearing site data resets it.