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2048 is a far worse game, there is literally no challenge to it. Granted I'm a big fan of threes but I can literally beat 2048 every single time I play it. I di

2048 is a far worse game, there is literally no challenge to it. Granted I'm a big fan of threes but I can literally beat 2048 every single time I play it. I did a simple test one weekend and played 2048 to measure how many times in a row I could beat it. I got 15 and stopped out of boredom. I find it dumbfounding how anyone can compare the two and not find 2048 an extremely poor clone.

Kiro 12y ago
I didn't know it was that easy to beat. I've never done it. Do you mind sharing your tactic?
- faet 12y ago
  Generally you want to favor 1 corner. Try to only use down/left. Use right only once your bottom row has 4 so your "Main" block stays in the bottom left.
  - Kiro 12y ago
    I just tried and only got to 64 in two tries. Then tried the tumbler where you just press left-up-right-down in a loop and got to 256.
- moogleii 12y ago
  To expound a bit more on faet's reply, pick either the top or bottom row as your workspace. I'll assume bottom. Generally speaking the beginning doesn't really matter all that much so just start building up numbers however you see fit (some people go left right left right multiple times before crunching downwards). But start building and pinning your largest number on either the left or right corner. So, for example, try to make a 32, and pin it in the bottom right. Then start working on a 16 to its left, and an 8 to the 16's left, and a 4 to the 8's left. Generally, I try to make sure the entire workspace row is locked as often as possible by making sure it's always filled. This minimizes the chance that you'll need to unpin the largest number from its corner. Once you've got your workspace row locked, there are a few things you can do. I haven't decided which I really prefer yet, but I basically just start creating another workspace row above the first workspace row. I'll usually try to focus on creating row #2's largest number on the opposite side of row #1's pinned corner number so that I can start crunching downwards as numbers begin to vertically match. That's the very general gist of it. There are a few minor special case tactics you can use, but I'll leave that for you. Oh, and as faet said, don't swipe up (if your workspace is at the bottom). It's a recoverable mistake, but can make things much more difficult if you get a 2 stuck below your workspace (but it does kind of add some more spark to the game trying to recover from it). Personally, once you start using this strategy, the biggest thing you need to look out for is to not create a scenario where the game will generate 3 locked rows, because that will force you to swipe up. You'll see what I mean. Good luck.
agumonkey 12y ago
I also had a lot of wins by pushing at random. So there's that.
bryanlarsen 12y ago
If you're winning 15 times in a row, you're not moving fast enough. The appeal of 2048 is that you move so quickly, it feels cathartic. If you're not moving fast enough to make the occasional mistake, then of course you're going to get bored. If you're not making mistakes, you're also missing out on the fun of digging yourself out of a hole. And as I mentioned in my original post, the goal for me to get 4096 or over 50,000 points. 2048 is easy, 50,000 points isn't.
- Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
  But isn't that you having to add a level of challenge to the game that it doesn't have? House ruling is fine but shouldn't that level of challenge (either through an enforced time limit or some other means) exist in the vanilla game?
  - bryanlarsen 12y ago
    2048 is a very accessible game, which is a large part of it's appeal. Rather than adding levels of difficulty, the better variants use achievements (like my 4096 and 50,000 goals, and your time limits) to keep it fun once you've got the basics mastered.
    - Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
      But the point is these aren't parts of 2048, they're just things you're putting on it. It may be, in effect, a customisable game but that feels accidental rather than anything the designer intended. I could make any game harder by drinking heavily before playing it but that external factor making the game more difficult hasn't really improved it as a game. Worth saying, I'm not wild about either game. For me they're simply not rewarding and I found myself resenting rather than enjoying the time I spent on them.
- jaegerpicker 12y ago
  Honestly I still disagree, I can still easily hit 50,000 points multiple times in a row. The mechanic is broken, it's a literally solved game. Even moving extremely fast I rarely have a problem hitting 4096. Left down ldldldldrldldldldr nearly always works for an infinitely high score.
andrewla 12y ago
The game can take a while, but the version by Ketchapp (on iPhone), which was the first knockoff to hit the app store, gives goals based on what you've solved so far. Right now my display says "Your next goal is to get to the 16384 tile", whereas the Gabriele Cirulli version has the downside of interrupting me every time I hit 2048, which, as you point out, is quite common once you're used to the game mechanic. Nonetheless, hitting 8192 remains a challenge, and I feel like I've been tantalizingly close to 16384, but have never quite managed it. So as far as I'm concerned 2048 (or, I guess, 16384) remains quite challenging. In Threes, 768 is the furthest I've gotten. I've found that when things get tight in Threes, you can easily be stymied not just by new tile placement (the only real wildcard in 2048), but also by the "+", "1", and "2"'s that can result in the position being unplayable, thus adding in my mind a greater degree of chance to the game.
VMG 12y ago
There is empirical evidence that your experience is an outlier.
kaoD 12y ago
As far as I can remember 2048 isn't even always beatable by bots due to its random nature, so I suspect your literal 15 beats in a row aren't that literal.
- T-hawk 12y ago
  2048 isn't always beatable by the best known bot. I don't know if anyone has proven either way whether 2048 is guaranteed solvable by a perfect bot for all possible random spawns. At the least, no one has found a counterexample like how Tetris has a guaranteed loss with a long enough string of S and Z pieces.
  - kaoD 12y ago
    To be honest you're right, I'm just based on the best known bot and intuition. Seems like a good math problem. [EDIT] http://stackoverflow.com/a/22498940 http://stackoverflow.com/a/22498940 won 100 out of 100 games using expectimax. 100 are not a lot of games, but hey.

Kiro 12y ago

I didn't know it was that easy to beat. I've never done it. Do you mind sharing your tactic?

faet 12y ago
Generally you want to favor 1 corner. Try to only use down/left. Use right only once your bottom row has 4 so your "Main" block stays in the bottom left.
- Kiro 12y ago
  I just tried and only got to 64 in two tries. Then tried the tumbler where you just press left-up-right-down in a loop and got to 256.
moogleii 12y ago
To expound a bit more on faet's reply, pick either the top or bottom row as your workspace. I'll assume bottom. Generally speaking the beginning doesn't really matter all that much so just start building up numbers however you see fit (some people go left right left right multiple times before crunching downwards). But start building and pinning your largest number on either the left or right corner. So, for example, try to make a 32, and pin it in the bottom right. Then start working on a 16 to its left, and an 8 to the 16's left, and a 4 to the 8's left. Generally, I try to make sure the entire workspace row is locked as often as possible by making sure it's always filled. This minimizes the chance that you'll need to unpin the largest number from its corner. Once you've got your workspace row locked, there are a few things you can do. I haven't decided which I really prefer yet, but I basically just start creating another workspace row above the first workspace row. I'll usually try to focus on creating row #2's largest number on the opposite side of row #1's pinned corner number so that I can start crunching downwards as numbers begin to vertically match. That's the very general gist of it. There are a few minor special case tactics you can use, but I'll leave that for you. Oh, and as faet said, don't swipe up (if your workspace is at the bottom). It's a recoverable mistake, but can make things much more difficult if you get a 2 stuck below your workspace (but it does kind of add some more spark to the game trying to recover from it). Personally, once you start using this strategy, the biggest thing you need to look out for is to not create a scenario where the game will generate 3 locked rows, because that will force you to swipe up. You'll see what I mean. Good luck.

agumonkey 12y ago

I also had a lot of wins by pushing at random. So there's that.

bryanlarsen 12y ago

If you're winning 15 times in a row, you're not moving fast enough. The appeal of 2048 is that you move so quickly, it feels cathartic. If you're not moving fast enough to make the occasional mistake, then of course you're going to get bored. If you're not making mistakes, you're also missing out on the fun of digging yourself out of a hole. And as I mentioned in my original post, the goal for me to get 4096 or over 50,000 points. 2048 is easy, 50,000 points isn't.

Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
But isn't that you having to add a level of challenge to the game that it doesn't have? House ruling is fine but shouldn't that level of challenge (either through an enforced time limit or some other means) exist in the vanilla game?
- bryanlarsen 12y ago
  2048 is a very accessible game, which is a large part of it's appeal. Rather than adding levels of difficulty, the better variants use achievements (like my 4096 and 50,000 goals, and your time limits) to keep it fun once you've got the basics mastered.
  - Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
    But the point is these aren't parts of 2048, they're just things you're putting on it. It may be, in effect, a customisable game but that feels accidental rather than anything the designer intended. I could make any game harder by drinking heavily before playing it but that external factor making the game more difficult hasn't really improved it as a game. Worth saying, I'm not wild about either game. For me they're simply not rewarding and I found myself resenting rather than enjoying the time I spent on them.
jaegerpicker 12y ago
Honestly I still disagree, I can still easily hit 50,000 points multiple times in a row. The mechanic is broken, it's a literally solved game. Even moving extremely fast I rarely have a problem hitting 4096. Left down ldldldldrldldldldr nearly always works for an infinitely high score.

andrewla 12y ago

The game can take a while, but the version by Ketchapp (on iPhone), which was the first knockoff to hit the app store, gives goals based on what you've solved so far. Right now my display says "Your next goal is to get to the 16384 tile", whereas the Gabriele Cirulli version has the downside of interrupting me every time I hit 2048, which, as you point out, is quite common once you're used to the game mechanic. Nonetheless, hitting 8192 remains a challenge, and I feel like I've been tantalizingly close to 16384, but have never quite managed it. So as far as I'm concerned 2048 (or, I guess, 16384) remains quite challenging. In Threes, 768 is the furthest I've gotten. I've found that when things get tight in Threes, you can easily be stymied not just by new tile placement (the only real wildcard in 2048), but also by the "+", "1", and "2"'s that can result in the position being unplayable, thus adding in my mind a greater degree of chance to the game.

VMG 12y ago

There is empirical evidence that your experience is an outlier.

kaoD 12y ago

As far as I can remember 2048 isn't even always beatable by bots due to its random nature, so I suspect your literal 15 beats in a row aren't that literal.

T-hawk 12y ago
2048 isn't always beatable by the best known bot. I don't know if anyone has proven either way whether 2048 is guaranteed solvable by a perfect bot for all possible random spawns. At the least, no one has found a counterexample like how Tetris has a guaranteed loss with a long enough string of S and Z pieces.
- kaoD 12y ago
  To be honest you're right, I'm just based on the best known bot and intuition. Seems like a good math problem. [EDIT] http://stackoverflow.com/a/22498940 http://stackoverflow.com/a/22498940 won 100 out of 100 games using expectimax. 100 are not a lot of games, but hey.