2048

Slide and merge matching tiles with arrow keys or swipes to reach 2048. Every move counts toward your best score.

2048 was written in a single weekend in 2014 by Gabriele Cirulli, a nineteen-year-old, as a clone of a clone — Threes came first, then 1024, then this. He put it out as a free open-source experiment and it became one of the most played browser games of the decade.

The strategy that actually works is monotonic ordering: keep your largest tile pinned in a corner and maintain a descending sequence along one edge, so merges cascade in the same direction rather than fragmenting. The move that loses games is the one that shifts your anchor tile out of its corner, and it is usually forced by having pressed the fourth direction once too often.