2048 – Play Online for Free

In 2048 you slide numbered tiles across a board of four by four squares. When two equal numbers meet, they merge into one tile worth twice as much, and you keep going until a 2048 appears somewhere. The game was made by Gabriele Cirulli, then a 19-year-old web developer from Italy, who put it online in March 2014 as an open-source weekend project. According to reports, more than four million people played it within a week.

Cirulli himself called his game a small clone of 1024, which in turn went back to the iPhone game Threes®, released in February 2014 by Asher Vollmer and Greg Wohlwend after some 14 months of work. There a 1 and a 2 make a 3, after which equal multiples of three merge. The pair did not take the flood of imitators quietly: they published excerpts from their design emails to show how long they had polished the idea; our 2048 has no connection with the makers of Threes. By the way, 2048 is not the end of the road; in theory a tile of 131072 fits on the board. Here you can play 2048 online at no cost and without an account, and keep going past the goal for as long as the board leaves room.

Slide, Merge, Double: Rules and Tricks for 2048

Every game starts with two tiles, each showing a 2 or a 4. With every move all tiles slide at once in the direction you choose, as far as they can go:

• Controls: use the arrow keys or W, A, S and D on a computer, a swipe across the board on a phone or tablet, or a drag with the mouse. If you are reading further down the page, the arrow keys scroll as usual.
• Merging: two equal numbers that run into each other become one tile with their sum, so two 8s make a 16. A tile that has just been formed does not merge a second time in the same move: 2, 2, 2, 2 slid left becomes 4, 4, and 4, 2, 2 becomes 4, 4, not 8.
• Order: when three equal numbers stand in a row, the two at the front in the direction of the move merge. Slid left, 2, 2, 2 becomes 4, 2; slid right, it becomes 2, 4.
• New tiles: after every move that shifts something, a new tile appears on a free square, usually a 2 and now and then a 4. Swipe in a direction where nothing can move and nothing happens.
• Score: each merge earns as many points as the new tile shows. The game also keeps track of your best score.
• Goal and end: as soon as a 2048 appears, "You made 2048!" pops up, and you decide whether to keep going or start over. When no square is free and no two equal numbers lie side by side, the game says "No moves left."
• New Game: once you have points on the board, the button asks once more so no game is lost by accident. Your browser remembers the board and your best score even after you close the page. As in the original, there is no undo button.

The new tiles bring a bit of luck into play, but a fixed plan still gets you much further:

• Pick a home corner: put your biggest tile in a corner and leave it there. Once it wanders through the middle, it quickly blocks your paths.
• Two directions and an emergency brake: slide mostly in the two directions that point toward your corner, say down and left. Use the third only when nothing else works and the fourth as rarely as possible, or the big number slips out of its corner and a 2 can drop into its place.
• Fill the edge row: when the row along your corner is full and holds no two equal numbers side by side, a sideways move does not shift it at all. That keeps the largest number in place even when you have to dodge.
• Build a snake: line the numbers up from the corner in falling order, such as 512, 256, 128, 64, and continue the chain in the next row in the opposite direction. When the matching tile arrives at the end, the merge travels step by step into the corner.
• Leave no stragglers: a lone 2 far away from your chain often blocks exactly the square you will need later. Bring it in while there is still room.
• Free squares are gold: the more squares stay empty, the more options you have. When in doubt, choose the move that leaves the most breathing room, not the one that makes the biggest number.

How far it can go is shown by computer programs written just for 2048: they now nearly always build a 16384 and every so often even reach 65536. Luckily, to play 2048 you need no computing power, only patience and a good corner.

Falling Blocks, Number Grids and Minefields: Five Games for Afterward

If you enjoy sliding and combining, here are more games that tick the same way:

• Falling Cubes: as in 2048, space on the board runs short, only here the pieces drop in from above. You rotate the falling blocks and complete rows without gaps so they vanish.
• Match 3: swapping instead of sliding. Line up three or more stones of a kind, watch them disappear, and set off bombs and stars for big scores.
• Sudoku: numbers without any luck. Each digit from 1 to 9 appears exactly once per row, column and box of nine.
• Guess the Word: here you crack a hidden word rather than merging numbers, and after every try the colors show which letters sit in the right spot and which only belong somewhere in the word.
• Minesweeper: pure logic on a grid. Numbers show how many mines lurk around a square, and sound reasoning uncovers every safe one.