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> this made it to the top of HN without me even thinking of posting it here Good for beta testing it. Unlike with Threes, there's no real reason to use number

by vorg 13y ago

> this made it to the top of HN without me even thinking of posting it here Good for beta testing it. Unlike with Threes, there's no real reason to use numbers since they're all powers of 2. If you used letters (A, B, C, ...) you could market it to non-HN sorts, and have a version of the game in a 5x5 grid, or, more to the point, in a 6x6 grid with letters A to Z. Most people in the world know the order of letters in English.

eru 13y ago
Good idea with the letters, but perhaps not necessary. People are happy with simple numbers. Just look at Sudoku which doesn't use A to I.
- vorg 13y ago
  I'm certain letters are necessary for a 5x5 or 6x6 board. M is better than 16,384, and Z far better than 67,108,864.
  - eru 13y ago
    Why? Instead of A, B, C, you can go with 1, 2, 3. Ie use the binary logarithm of the numbers.
    - vorg 13y ago
      Good idea with the simple numbers, and certainly necessary to use some tokens other than what this 2048 app uses so we can have a version of it in a 5x5 or 6x6 grid. When you wrote "Good idea with the letters, but perhaps not necessary. People are happy with simple numbers. Just look at Sudoku which doesn't use A to I", I thought you hadn't noticed my mention of the larger grid, which was really the main point of my comment and maybe I should've worded it differently. Though if you'd begun your comment differently, i.e. "Good idea with the larger grid, but perhaps the letters aren't necessary. People are happy with simple numbers. Just look at Sudoku which doesn't use A to I", I wouldn't have felt the need to reply to correct a perceived communication mistake.
      - eru 13y ago
        Oh, for a larger grid, you might want to have letters anyway, because your point still applies. It's interesting that log_2 2028 is just above what you can represent in a single digit. That's very close to merging two 9s. I'd like to actually see someone pit x, log_2 x, and letter(log_2 x) against each other in an A/B test of the game. The latter two are simpler, but the former might be more exciting, because of bigger numbers.

by vorg 13y ago

eru 13y ago

Good idea with the letters, but perhaps not necessary. People are happy with simple numbers. Just look at Sudoku which doesn't use A to I.

vorg 13y ago
I'm certain letters are necessary for a 5x5 or 6x6 board. M is better than 16,384, and Z far better than 67,108,864.
- eru 13y ago
  Why? Instead of A, B, C, you can go with 1, 2, 3. Ie use the binary logarithm of the numbers.
  - vorg 13y ago
    Good idea with the simple numbers, and certainly necessary to use some tokens other than what this 2048 app uses so we can have a version of it in a 5x5 or 6x6 grid. When you wrote "Good idea with the letters, but perhaps not necessary. People are happy with simple numbers. Just look at Sudoku which doesn't use A to I", I thought you hadn't noticed my mention of the larger grid, which was really the main point of my comment and maybe I should've worded it differently. Though if you'd begun your comment differently, i.e. "Good idea with the larger grid, but perhaps the letters aren't necessary. People are happy with simple numbers. Just look at Sudoku which doesn't use A to I", I wouldn't have felt the need to reply to correct a perceived communication mistake.
    - eru 13y ago
      Oh, for a larger grid, you might want to have letters anyway, because your point still applies. It's interesting that log_2 2028 is just above what you can represent in a single digit. That's very close to merging two 9s. I'd like to actually see someone pit x, log_2 x, and letter(log_2 x) against each other in an A/B test of the game. The latter two are simpler, but the former might be more exciting, because of bigger numbers.