2048
Slide, merge, and reach the 2048 tile.
Slide numbered tiles on a 4×4 grid. When two tiles with the same number collide, they merge into one. Reach the 2048 tile to win — or keep going for a higher score.
How to play
- Use arrow keys or swipe to slide all tiles in one direction.
- When two tiles with the same number touch, they merge into one.
- After each move, a new tile (2 or 4) appears on the board.
- Reach the 2048 tile to win — you can keep playing after.
- The game ends when no moves are left.
Your stats
Personal records
What is this game?
A single-player sliding puzzle, made by Gabriele Cirulli in 2014. You slide numbered tiles around a 4×4 grid, and matching numbers combine into bigger ones. The goal is a tile reading 2048, though nothing stops you carrying on afterwards for a higher score. You'll understand it in about ten seconds and still be getting better at it a month later.
One board a day
One board a day, starting from the same initial tiles for every player. Your first game on it is the one that counts: it builds your streak, tracks your best score and puts you on the day's leaderboard. After that the play button keeps dealing random boards instead, as many as you want, touching neither your streak nor your stats. That's where you try a strategy you're not sure about yet.
Scoring
Every merge adds the combined value to your score. 2+2 scores 4, 128+128 scores 256, and so on up. High scores come from building big tiles efficiently, because every move you didn't need spawns another tile cluttering the board. Strong players clear 20,000 in a single game fairly routinely.
Strategy tips
Keep your highest tile in a corner and build a chain of descending values along one edge from it. Whatever you do, don't push that big tile out of its corner. Once it drifts into the middle the board turns chaotic in a handful of moves and rarely recovers.
It also helps to keep one direction "free" and simply never slide that way, so your layout stays predictable. Beyond that it's patience over speed. Think two or three moves ahead before you swipe.
The math behind 2048
If every single spawn were a 2, reaching 2048 would take a minimum of 938 merges. It always takes more than that in practice, because 4-tiles spawn 10% of the time and the geometry of the board keeps forcing merges you didn't want. The theoretical maximum tile on a 4×4 grid is 131,072. Getting there would need perfect play and absurd luck across tens of thousands of moves, so nobody is getting there.
Why one more game
2048 sits in a rare spot between simple and deep. A game takes a few minutes, and the pull to start another one immediately is unusually strong. Part of it is that the sliding just feels good, part of it is watching the numbers climb, and part of it is that every run starts with the genuine possibility of being your best one. Five minutes at a time, and somehow it's twenty.