Use the arrow keys (or swipe on touch) to slide all tiles in one direction. When two tiles with the same number collide, they merge into one whose value is their sum. After every move a new 2 or 4 appears in an empty cell. The goal is to reach the 2048 tile — but you can keep going for 4096 and beyond.
Pick a corner and keep your highest tile pinned there. Build a descending chain along one row or column. Avoid moves that disturb the corner — usually never press the direction that empties it. The game ends when the board fills up and no merges remain.
2048 is a single-player tile-merging puzzle on a 4×4 grid, designed by Italian programmer Gabriele Cirulli in 2014 and released as open-source the same week. The goal is to combine matching numbered tiles by sliding them, doubling each merge until you create a tile valued 2048. Game ends when no further moves are possible.
Press an arrow key (or swipe on touch) to slide every tile in that direction. Two adjacent tiles with the same number merge into one of double value. After every move, a new 2 (90% of the time) or 4 (10%) appears in a random empty cell. The board fills as you fail to merge; the game ends when no slide produces movement or merge.
| Tile | Source | Score on merge |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Spawn (90%) | — |
| 4 | Spawn (10%) or two 2s | +4 |
| 8 | Two 4s | +8 |
| 16, 32, 64, 128 | Two of half-value | +value |
| 256, 512, 1024 | Two of half-value | +value |
| 2048 (win) | Two 1024s | +2048 |
| 4096, 8192… | Continue past the win | +value |
The dominant strategy is the corner snake: pin your largest tile in one corner (most use bottom-right) and never move it. Build a descending zig-zag from that corner: bottom row right-to-left increasing, second row left-to-right, etc. Avoid pressing the direction that would shift the corner away — typically Up if your corner is bottom-right. With perfect play this strategy reaches 2048 reliably and 4096 often.
Arrow keys or swipe to slide all tiles in one direction. Adjacent matching tiles merge into one of double value. A new 2 or 4 spawns each move. Reach 2048 to win; keep going for higher tiles.
Pin the largest tile in a corner; never move it. Build a snake-pattern row that feeds into it. Avoid pressing the direction that would shift the corner.
Theoretically 131,072 (2¹⁷). Practically the game ends earlier when the board fills.
Each merge adds the value of the new tile to your score. Reaching 2048 from a fresh game scores ~20,000; reaching 4096 ~50,000.
Spawn position is uniformly random among empty cells. It feels biased after a streak but isn't. The 2-vs-4 spawn is weighted 90/10.
Each slide first packs the tiles toward the wall you pushed, then merges matching pairs starting from that wall. A tile that has just been created by a merge cannot merge again in the same move, so a row of 2, 2, 2, 2 pushed left becomes 4, 4, not 8, and a row of 2, 2, 4 becomes 4, 4. If a slide would not change the board at all, nothing happens: no new tile appears and the move is not added to your undo history.
A new game starts with two tiles placed the same way as every later spawn. When the 2048 tile first appears you get a single "keep going" message and play continues; the game only ends when the board is full and no two neighbouring tiles match.
The Undo button steps back one move at a time, restoring both the board and the score, up to the last 20 moves. Undo is still available after a game-over message, so you can back out of a losing position and try a different direction.
Your game is stored in your browser's local storage on this device. The page saves the current board, score, the last 20 undo steps and whether you have already reached 2048 after every move, so closing the tab or reloading picks up exactly where you left off. Your best score is kept separately and updates whenever your current score passes it. New Game clears the board and undo history but keeps your best score.
2048 is a slide-and-merge puzzle on a 4×4 grid. Every move slides all tiles one direction; equal tiles that collide merge into their sum, and a new 2 or 4 spawns in a random empty cell (weighted about 90/10 toward the 2). You win when a tile reaches 2048 — then you can keep going for 4096 and higher. Reaching 2048 is not luck; it is one disciplined pattern.
Pick a corner — bottom-right is a common choice — and keep your largest tile pinned there for the entire game. In practice this means using only two or three of the four directions and almost never pressing the fourth. If your big tile lives in the bottom-right, drive with Down and Right, use Left sparingly, and treat Up as forbidden except in emergencies.
Keep the values in your anchor row (or column) descending in order — for example 2048, 1024, 512, 256 lined up along the bottom edge. This is called a monotonic layout. When the chain is intact, one push collapses it like dominoes: the 256 feeds the 512, the 512 feeds the 1024, and so on.
The fastest way to lose is pressing all four arrows in a panic. Each wasted direction scatters tiles and spawns another blocker. If a move would not merge anything and would only shuffle the board, look for a better one. Plan two moves ahead: ask what the board looks like after the new tile spawns, not just after your slide.
The win tile is only the halfway point of a good board. To chase 4096 and 8192, the same rules apply with tighter margins — a full board with a broken chain is a dead end. Keep at least one empty cell as breathing room and never let the anchor drift.
Like number puzzles? Minesweeper and Sudoku scratch the same solo-logic itch — the Minesweeper strategy guide is a good next read.