How to play
- Press an arrow key, W/A/S/D, or swipe across the board (on touch screens you can also use the on-screen arrows).
- Tiles slide until they hit the edge or another tile. Equal tiles that touch merge once per move, starting from the edge you moved towards.
- Keep the largest tile in a corner and build descending chains along one edge, so merges keep flowing into it.
- Use Z (or Ctrl+Z) to take back a move, N for a new game. Your best score updates automatically.
Example
Row 2 · 2 · 4 · 8, move left: the two 2s merge into a 4 (score +4), giving 4 · 4 · 8 · 0– the new 4 does not merge again in the same move, so you do not get a 16 at once. Move left once more: 8 · 8 · 0 · 0 (+8), and a third move gives 16 · 0 · 0 · 0 (+16). A row 2 · 2 · 2 · 2 moved left becomes 4 · 4 · 0 · 0for +8: the pairs merge from the near edge, never three tiles into one.
Rules and scoring
The implementation follows Gabriele Cirulli’s 2014 original: a move is only counted when at least one tile changes place or merges; a move that changes nothing does not spawn a tile. Merges are resolved line by line from the destination edge, and each tile takes part in at most one merge per move. Score = the sum of all merged tile values; it does not depend on time or on the number of moves. The theoretical maximum tile on a 4×4 board is 131 072, reachable only with a perfect sequence of 4s.
The first two tiles are placed after the page loads, so every game starts from a fresh random board; nothing is sent to a server. Stored data: one number (your best score) under the key calcpark:2048:best:v1.
Sources: Gabriele Cirulli – 2048 (original source), Wikipedia – 2048 (video game).
Questions
- Is every game winnable?
- No. Tile placement is random, so a game can be lost even with good play, but a consistent corner strategy (largest tile in a corner, never moving it away) reaches 2048 in most games.
- What happens after 2048?
- Choose "Keep playing" and the board continues with the same rules; the next milestones are 4096 and 8192. The win message appears only once per game.
- Does undo cost points?
- No. Undo restores the previous board and score exactly (up to 20 steps back). The best score is never reduced by an undo.