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Show HN: 2048 turned 10 this year, I built an updated version to celebrate (play2048.co)

669 points by terabytest ↗ HN
Hi all! My name is Gabriele Cirulli, I’m the original creator of 2048. Ten years ago, someone posted 2048 on HN[1] and suddenly it seemed like everyone was playing it. Back then, I wrote a bit about my experience during those weeks[2].

Even after all these years, that experience still feels a bit surreal to me. I’m deeply grateful to everyone who connected with the game, whether in small or significant ways, and for the stories shared along the way. Some people expressed how they were going through tough times and found some comfort, however small, in playing 2048.

At the start of last year, I wanted to breathe new life into the game as it was starting to show its age. I quit my job last October to work on 2048 full time and spent a year building this new version (the original took just 5 days!). I wanted to pay tribute to what made 2048 great while modernizing and polishing the experience.

The idea of adding powerups came when Prime Gaming and I connected to see if we could create a special version of 2048 for their members, with some exclusive extras. Some of those powerups made it into the main game, though there’s still a Classic[3] mode just like the original for those who prefer a more hardcore experience. The old site is also still online[4].

2048 is now my full-time focus, and I’m excited about the ways it can keep improving. I wanted to share this update with the community where it all began, both for a bit of nostalgia and to hear your thoughts and feedback!

Thank you all so much!

— Gabriele

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7373566

[2]: https://medium.com/@gabrielecirulli/2048-success-and-me-7dc6...

[3]: https://play2048.co/classic

[4]: https://classic.play2048.co

229 comments

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navent
Was a fun game, I still remember trying it back then!
iainmerrick
For those who haven't heard of Threes, I highly recommend giving it a try. It's the original game that 1024, 2048 etc were cloned from (and I think it's still the best by far). Wikipedia has a good summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threes#Legacy
lanthade
I still play Threes regularly. It’s super accessible but still remains challenging after years of play. I even occasionally still set a new high score.
Ringz
It’s exactly the same for me. Threes never gets boring. I can almost finish 2048 every time. For me, that’s the definition of boring.
rubslopes
Here's a great blog post from the Threes dev about their creation process and the impact of the rip-offs:

https://asherv.com/threes/threemails/

mysterydip
I love being able to see the prototype evolution of the game on here. Thanks for sharing!
zahlman
>2048 is a broken game. Something we noticed about this kind of system early on (that you'll see hidden in the emails below). We wanted players to be able to play Threes over many months, if not years. We both beat 2048 on our first tries. We’d wager most people that have been able to score a 768 or even a 384 in Threes would be able to do the same using the fabled “corner strategy”. You probably could too! Just try tapping “up” then “right” in alternating order until you can’t move. Then press left. You may not get to a 2048, but you might just see your highest score ever.

>When an automated script that alternates pressing up and right and left every hundreth time can beat the game, then well, that's broken.

From my experience, this greatly overstates the "exploit". In 2048 you get to maybe 128 this way typically before you can't move up/right any more, then you have to start thinking after the left press. Basically whenever you slide away from the "preferred" corner, supposing your plan is to slide back promptly, there's always a chance that a random spawn gets in your way and complicates the plan. Getting to 2048 on the first try doesn't sound like a modal experience at all. (Of course, most new 2048 players won't have had the experience of developing Threes first.)

For that matter, the developer talks about how rare it is to see a 6144, but doesn't seem to acknowledge that reaching a 4096 in 2048 is far more difficult than reaching 2048.

At any rate, it's not at all immediately clear why having the player join 1+2 first before making blocks of 3*2^n, should noticeably improve the gameplay over having only powers of two. So IMO it's not that the gameplay of 2048 is fundamentally less interesting; the implementation just sets a lower standard.

(Though for what it's worth, I've wondered how it might go with the Fibonacci sequence - allowing 1s to merge either with 2s or other 1s.)

MattRix
You just have to play Threes for a few hours and it becomes obvious it’s a much more interesting and deep game than 2048. Of all the things that can be debated about this situation, that feels like the biggest stretch of all.
zahlman
I don't mean to "debate" the depth of Threes (having not played it), only to say that it isn't obvious from a description. On the other side of the equation, 2048 is clearly interesting enough to have sold (and, from what I can tell, marketed by word of mouth), and its players would seem to disagree with the Threes author that 2048 is "a broken game". The corner shake might seem like a tedious but powerful strategy; but it doesn't come anywhere close to trivializing the object of the game, and this is a casual time-waster anyway.

2048 might well have won out for its simplicity (although personally I think the audio had a lot to do with it). Screenshots of Threes development (from the page linked in the post I quoted) imply that for quite a while it allowed for making numbers of any 2^x*3^y form, and earlier versions of the game must have tried even more complex rules - even larger prime numbers like 79 show up. Eventually this reduced to only numbers of the form 2^x*3 (as well as 1 and 2). To me that looks like a strange left-over irregularity, even if it does improve gameplay.

(After reading the rest of the thread, I think I regret replying at all.)

xp84
> interesting enough to have sold

Hasn't 2048 always been free? When comparing a paid game with a clone that's free (or even "free-to-play with obnoxious ads and lootbox mechanics" not that 2048 is that) the latter will usually become more popular, and that certainly happened here.

I am not sure how I feel about it. I certainly don't believe anyone should be able to legally own an idea like "sliding tile number games based on powers of 2 with or without being multiplied by 3" but I also don't have a lot of respect for those who, lacking an original idea, resort to cloning someone else's creative work (or in 2048's case, I guess, cloning another clone). So I guess I have no problem with them existing, but don't feel any desire to give them accolades or to play their game.

zahlman
>Hasn't 2048 always been free?

I paid something like $2 CAD in the Nintendo eShop for a 3DS version. (If it's a clone, it hews very close to the original.) I guess I can't be sure it's supposed to work like that.

ghghgfdfgh
Try getting the 32768 tile in 2048. Yes, it can be done somewhat consistently, but it requires a deep and somewhat subtle strategy. Furthermore, the “snake” formation that every player learns at the beginning stops being optimal at a certain point, and thus the late game has much more variety than the early game. I do think that Threes is more complex, but I’m not sure if this complexity is really necessary.
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keeganpoppen
you're right, it's not an "exploit"; it is literally the gameplay. go watch anyone play 2048 for more than 9 seconds and then try to tell me that isn't the case...

and why is the fact that the difference between threes and 2048 "not immediately obvious" salient... at all? what is it even supposed to mean? i'm not so great at number theory... that doesn't make me think that all those people are gods among humans. same with the obverse: i am really good at geometry, so honestly are we sure that the ancient greeks were even good at math? it's not immediately obvious to me that geometry even is math. they didn't even have calculators for god's sake!

madcaptenor
That's been implemented - google "Fibonacci 2048".
tym0
Came here to post a link to Threes, it does make me a bit sad whenever people mention 2048 without Threes.
[dead] Suppafly
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keeganpoppen
uhhhh. well if reading their personal attestation is insufficient...
smitelli
Threes was (I believe) the first iOS game I actually paid money for. You could tell that the author was a true craftsperson who really cared about every detail of the product. It always felt unjust that the clones got all the attention, and now the nostalgia.
mrgoldenbrown
Threes would have worked fine as a free web game if they prioritized attention, but they chose to make it an iOS only paid app, presumably because they preferred making money over gaining attention. That's a very reasonable tradeoff in my book, I'd rather have money in pocket than stranger's upvotes.
lifthrasiir
While it's unfortunate that the Threes team didn't receive a proper recognition, I believe the popularity of 2048 mainly comes from the fact that it can be, in some sense, "finished" unlike Threes. Yes, you can continue after 2048, but it was a good milestone that is initially hard but can be done relatively easily once you've got the hang of it. The clear milestone makes every game play much more disposable unlike Threes, even though you can surely continue even after that. (I did play Threes a bit before 2048 got popular and realized this in retrospect.) The same principle applies to more recent Suika Game and I still find it amusing that the only major change for both was the title.
iainmerrick
Hmm, I'd guess that difference isn't significant for the vast majority of players. And for those that care, the greater depth of Threes is surely an advantage.

I think 2048 became more popular because it was a) on the web, and b) free, whereas Threes was only on the iPhone and cost a few bucks.

Oh, and c) the OP, to give him his due credit, did a really nice job with it! It had the same kind of simplicity and virality as Wordle.

zahlman
Suika Game has the same core mechanic (and many clones) but still represents a fundamentally different game. The gameplay is not even in the same category, as it involves some kind of physical simulation.

... or did you mean that Suika Game itself wasn't the original game with the falling-circles mechanic?

lifthrasiir
More like the latter, but not exactly (and that's my fault, sorry). As I said, 2048 is primarily distinguished from Threes by its title which implies the clear milestone. While the author of 2048 probably didn't intend this---after all, it is a clone of another clone 1024---, it seems that the Threes team also overlooked this to me. The title Suika Game also seems to share this quality probably by accident, which was what I originally meant to say.
zahlman
... As effective as those titles are, I suddenly find myself imagining an alternate timeline with games and franchises like Bowser Bash, Quest for the Triforce, 25 Lines, Megalopolis, The Space Race, Shadaloo Smackdown....
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6DM
I will add, from playing with this just now, three's feels so much harder.
lifthrasiir
Yeah, that was also why I stopped play Threes shortly after trying it a bit.
terabytest
Thank you for your comment. I wanted to add that credit should indeed be given where it's due and that while I didn’t mention Threes in my original post, it has played a significant role in 2048’s existence. Threes is credited on the play2048.co site (and now also on GitHub), and I’ve always tried to acknowledge its influence.

That said, I think there’s a balance to strike. As I mentioned before, I created 2048 before I became aware of Threes, and while it’s important to credit inspiration, I’m not convinced that every creative project needs to trace back every indirect influence. 2048 began as a small experiment without any intent of gaining popularity, and it grew into something distinct, shaped by the viral spread and its community of its open-source variations.

I understand the value of recognizing origins, but I also believe 2048 has developed its own identity over time. I appreciate the feedback, and I’m always open to improving where needed. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

MattRix
I feel like this is a bit misleading. You say you weren’t aware of Threes at all when you made 2048, which may be technically true, but then you should probably clarify that 2048 was a clone of 1024 which was a clone of Threes. And this all happened within around a month of when Threes released… to the point where many people started accusing Threes of being a clone of 2048.
doppp
Let it go, Matt.
[dead] MattRix
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ziddoap
It seems like you are piling on just to pile on, not simply "pointing out the origin". There's already 52 matches for "Threes" on this submission. I think we get it. The author of has added credits to Threes. You won!
[dead] MattRix
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ziddoap
If this was your only comment, I wouldn't have said anything. But you have 5 (now 6!) separate comment chains going on about Threes. In addition to the other 5 top-level comments, and ~20 replies that talk about Threes. All saying the same stuff.

It's boring.

MattRix
I didn't post any top level comments, I'm only correcting people who I see posting misinformation. Isn't the point of Hacker News for people to talk about things they have expertise in? This happens to be a situation I know a lot about since I was also a mobile puzzle game developer at the same time this happened.
throwaway199956
But the comments largely doesn't add anything further interesting to the discussion. Its been mentioned and spoken about ad nauseam.
ziddoap
>Isn't the point of Hacker News for people to talk about things they have expertise in?

No. Although that certainly can help, it's not the main point.

From the guidelines: "If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

Seeing the exact same thing posted about Threes in over half of the comments here is the opposite of gratifying one's intellectual curiosity. It's boring. Especially when the comment is just a slight rephrasing of a comment that's already been posted several times (or worse, solely a link to your own comment elsewhere in the submission).

MattRix
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dang
Please don't do this. 13 comments on this is too much, and (as is typical) they've gotten progressively more off-topic and flamewarrish.

When people start arguing about what they did or didn't say, with swipes like "Oh come on," it's clear that curious conversation was left behind quite a while ago and it's time to stop.

MattRix
I get why you'd want to get rid of this thread, but surely the problem was caused the much earlier comment from doppp that said "Let it go, Matt". From what I've seen in the past, you would usually remove that kind of personalized negative response, but not in this case?
dang
I hear you, but different people draw the what-caused-it line completely differently—it basically always feels like the other person started it and did worse (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). It's like the old adage "The fight started when he hit me back."

The reason I replied to you is that your account was producing quite a bit more than the other accounts in this repetitive and dyspeptic discussion.

torlok
How about don't support people who profit off of cheap clones and "forget" to mention the original years later.
rafram
Cirulli never profited off of 2048, as far as I know. The iOS app that actually made money was a ripoff by someone else of his MIT-licensed code.
Jerrrrrrry
Humans are incapable of absolutely original thought - whether our inspirations are conscious, sub-conscious or fabricated.

Wordle was just...

DropBox was just...

the iPhone was just...

Modern movies are just...

Don't allow others to dismiss your work. They are jealous they didn't do it first - which begs the question - if it was _just_.... then why didn't _they_ do it?

I was originally frustrated with your game and jealous of you for awhile, too.

matsemann
I don't understand the peeve people have about mentioning Threes all the time. Does every discussion about a FPS game need to point out it's the same concept as Doom or Quake or whatever? The vitriol in some of the comments here are quite weird to me.

It's also dishonest to label 2048 as a clone. Personally I never cared much for Threes, and same I guess with my parents etc which all got hooked for a while on 2048. 2048 strikes a good balance on being accessible and challenging, most people don't want it more complicated or deeper.

If anything, the 2048 hype must have helped Threes tremendously. Instead, many people act as if 2048 was a slight on Threes somehow, stealing their thunder. I actually bought Threes based on all the comments back then, but didn't really like it. Too cutesy, and too challenging when I just wanted to mindlessly swipe.

iainmerrick
Does every discussion about a FPS game need to point out it's the same concept as Doom or Quake or whatever?

It's a fair question, but Doom and Quake were both very famous and successful.

What sticks in my craw a bit with Threes is that the clones came out really fast, and 2048 in particular because much more famous and successful, so Threes never really got the chance to shine as much as it deserved (except when die-hard fans like me keep coming out of the woodwork to hype it, as you say). And I still think Threes has a much better and deeper game design than any of the clones!

If one of the many clones and variants of Wordle had been a runaway success, and the excellent original had been relatively overlooked and forgotten, I'd similarly be promoting Wordle in threads like this.

It's not that I resent the success of 2048 -- to the contrary, the OP did a great job with it and the success is deserved. But I assume that many people who have heard of 2048 have not heard of Threes, and I'd like them to try it, because it's great.

Suppafly
>If one of the many clones and variants of Wordle had been a runaway success, and the excellent original had been relatively overlooked and forgotten, I'd similarly be promoting Wordle in threads like this.

Why? It's not a job, or even a fun hobby, to try and ensure forgotten things get the recognition they deserve.

iainmerrick
I'm surprised it's hard to understand! I see it as like recommending a cult movie or book to people -- that's not an unusual thing to do, right? Like when you're talking about time travel movies and there's always that one person who pops up and says "OK, but have you seen Primer? You should see Primer!"

It can get tedious if you overdo it, sure.

Suppafly
>Like when you're talking about time travel movies

Sure, but this wasn't a thread about games, or sliding number games, in general, it was a thread about 2048 specifically.

zahlman
>It's not a job, or even a fun hobby

However, some might imagine it to be virtuous.

Suppafly
>If anything, the 2048 hype must have helped Threes tremendously.

This. I've never heard anyone mention Threes outside of a sub discussion about 2048. For all the people here that claim to love it, it has had very little impact outside of being discussed as being similar to, or a precursor of, 2048.

echoangle
> Does every discussion about a FPS game need to point out it's the same concept as Doom or Quake or whatever?

Well the great differentiator between puzzle games is the idea of the playing mechanism. The great differentiator between FPS is implementation. If I make an FPS, I didn’t really steal from Doom because the idea is pretty obvious. But if I make a sliding game that’s very similar to 2048, you might say I stole the idea. It’s like with patents, subjectively the mechanism of a FPS shouldn’t be patentable to me, but three or 2048 might be.

xp84
> three or 2048 might be

I think there can be a different line drawn for "what should be patentable or legally protected" and "what should be celebrated as creativity."

A clone of Tetris where the line pieces are 5 blocks tall, for instance, is not notable or creative. But also, I think someone should be legally free to make it if they're not infringing Tetris's trademarks or stealing their code.

usrusr
I agree: even if the descriptions of Threes (never played it) are only half true, they are completely different genres: one is a deep puzzler that aims for the kind of challenge that some absolutely do require to accept a game as entertainment but many others would consider borderline work, the other is a super casual routine builder that derives its quality only from the challenge of balancing full autopilot mode with maintaining a bit of attention. I 'd guess that not only would the latter have failed (silently, not spectacularly) if the author had tried to sell it on some app store instead of just putting it out on the web, the former would just as certainly not have gone viral like 2048 did. I absolutely do share your belief that 2048 (and the resulting discussions) has sold far more Threes than Threes ever did, or rather than Threes would have in a timeline where 2048 never happened.

(PS: and on a more meta level, people like us feeling super clever about "2048 helped Threes!" might be the secret sauce responsible for much of the longevity of the games' shared virality)

makeitdouble
As Threes was getting famous I bought it and tried a bit, but it didn't really stick.

It's with 2048 that I actually got hooked, it felt like a more natural and seamless game to play. I think it's the simplicity (no cuteness, no craftyness) that helps abstract the game, and of course dealing with powers of two makes it all the more natural. It felt a lot easier to get in and out of the game, be it for 30 sec to check the train station or 4 hours until lunch break.

I feel like Threes was the cute and whimsical game, while 2048 could probably become the classic game, in the same kind of spot as Tetris.

donatj
> It's the original game that 1024, 2048 etc were cloned from

This argument has always been silly.

Three's didn't invent sliding tile games. Sliding tile games existed going back to the 1980s and 2048's mechanics are different enough that I don't even think they're comparable.

They've existed in wood for a lot longer than that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klotski

torlok
It's not different to 1024, and not giving credit where it's due is not unintentional. It's like making a falling blocks game with tetrominoes, but the board is 20 blocks wide, and you "forgot" to mention that it's inspired by Tetris.
wiether
> suddenly it seemed like everyone was playing it

That's exactly how I remember it, yes.

It started with only the tech people, but then it spread to all coworkers, friends, grandparents...

Anyway, congrats on this game but I won't fall in the same trap as 10 years prior, wasting hours upon hours of productivity!

mgarciaisaia
> I won't fall in the same trap as 10 years prior, wasting hours upon hours of productivity!

One day later, did you succeed in that?

simonebrunozzi
Bravo Gabriele, 2048 was an amazing piece of design and UI. Loved it. You did amazing work.
Twelveday
It seems like there's a little pay to win even in a simple game like 2048 nowadays :)
red_admiral
Congratulations!

"Powerups with Amazon Prime" sounds like the famous bug report that grep (I think) should search on Amazon if it doesn't find the string locally, which was submitted IIRC in protest at the Ubuntu "lens" doing just that.

[dead] abcd_f
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npinsker
He mentions Threes! prominently in both link [1] and link [2].
[dead] abcd_f
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jckahn
What’s the problem, exactly? Is there some stated HN rule that requires a developer to clearly state the inspiration for their work?
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terabytest
I wanted to address this, because I understand where you come from. Threes is actually credited in the about page[1] on play2048.co.

The frustration is completely understandable, as Threes is definitely where the concept originated. Due to the chain of derivative games that led to the creation of 2048, I had not seen or heard of Threes until after it went viral. I think the inspiration Threes provided, although valid, is somewhat indirect in the case of 2048. I did try my best to reflect this in the about page and when I talked about my experience here[2].

I noticed there's no mention of it on GitHub, so I'll add it there. I am happy to do better given the feedback, but I'm not sure what kind of improvement I could make here. Let me know

[1]: https://play2048.co/about

[2]: https://medium.com/@gabrielecirulli/2048-success-and-me-7dc6...

abcd_f
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terabytest
Again, I understand where you’re coming from, but I don’t fully agree. While Threes was an definitely inspiration along the chain, by your logic, any creative work would need a detailed credit trail, even when it grows and evolves into something different. 2048 was not intended as anything other than an experiment, yet it took on its own life, driven by the unexpected virality and maybe by its simplicity. I’ve always tried to acknowledge Threes’ role, but I don't know that I should attach this label on every mention of 2048. I appreciate the perspective you shared.
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mass_and_energy
Why is everybody saying this when the game mechanic of 2048 is fundamentally different. The difference in play between swiping over one tile at a time VS swiping and moving all tiles to one side is a big difference.

Furthermore, the author didn't know Threes existed when they made it, so calling it a "blatant rip" is rudely false. Let's lift each other up instead of pushing each other down.

jasonlotito
And Threes is a blatant rip off of other games before it as much as 2048 is of Threes. Let's go down that rabbit hole.
[dead] MattRix
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The-Bus
Forget it, Jack, it's Tripletown.
MattRix
Triple Town was great in its own right, but the games are very different and have lots of different mechanics. Nobody would argue that Threes is as similar to Triple Town as 2048 is to Threes.
samatman
2048 is a better game, which is why it's 100x or more popular than Threes.

I'm sure that you, a connoisseur, greatly prefer Threes, which is great. It can be fun to have a taste which is that of a very small minority.

But, to state the nearly tautological, the difference in popularity is because 2048 is better, in the view of the vast majority. It's more fun to play, and that's what makes a game good.

WesleyLivesay
uBlock Origin blocks 330 items on that page, which I think is a personal record for the sites I have been to.
npinsker
There are a lot of comments mentioning Threes! and holding it up as superior. I play a lot of games, and I greatly prefer Threes myself -- but I also remember very well when 2048 came out; I was in college, and 75% or more of my dorm had no interest in Threes and preferred playing and remixing 2048. Threes is very stressful and intense, while 2048 goes straight for your brain's pleasure centers, like many other mobile games nowadays.

There's value in that. There's massive value in 2048 that Threes! does not capture. Just because someone spends a lot of time designing something, it does not entitle them to attention or praise. Many great artists get famous for works they absolutely hate. Gabriele has been consistently courteous about all of this for 10 years, and I'd suggest people here could be a bit more courteous to him too.

bryanlarsen
To me, Threes poorly straddles the middle ground between a "real game" and a "time filler". If I want a "real game" I'll play Factorio or something. When I need a break from mental work I can pull 2048. I rarely want anything in between.
MattRix
Lots of people do want that “middle ground” game, especially people who exclusively play games on mobile rather than PC or console.
bryanlarsen
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dspillett
An opinion was stated. An opinion that will no doubt be agreed with by many, me for one. But absolutely no claim was made that it is correct for all people. Or even most people.

To answer your sort-of question:

> Ok? But lots of people do want that “middle ground” game…

Those lots of people can play threes, or other games that exist in such a middle ground.

Not every game needs to support every play style, nor does every person need to like every game.

Or to be facetious and answer you in your own style:

> Ok? But lots of people do want that “middle ground” game…

OK? But lots of people don't want the “middle ground” game, especially people who like more complex games on desktop/console and only simpler time-fillers on mobile.

Or even more so:

> Ok? But lots of people do want that “middle ground” game…

Yes… and?

MattRix
Alright I'll admit the "Ok? But" was unnecessary, and I've taken it out.
MattRix
There is nothing wrong with pointing out the origins of ideas and concepts, especially on a site like Hacker News. 2048 was much more popular than Threes, often to the point where many people are unaware of Threes at all, so I think it’s important in these kinds of forums to make sure people know where the game idea came from, and that the originators get credit.
pololeono
This manifestation of the threes trope below everything 2048 related reminds me of a comment I recently read below a Stephen Wolfram related post:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41406645

All: please don't repeat the usual Wolfram trope. (If you don't know what I mean by that, a decade's worth of explanation can be found via https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....) The issue is not that it's wrong, it's that it's extremely repetitive and we want fresh discussion on HN, preferably about the specific content of an article.

samatman
I saw that comment but didn't follow the algolia link.

I didn't realize Stephen Wolfram was dang's personal We Do Not Mention the Orangutan. I suppose that given the inevitable prevalence of clichéd back-and-forth tropes and exchanges on HN, there's little choice but to draw a line in the sand on specific versions and hope it serves as a stand-in for all of them.

dang
I don't know who the orangutan is, but that's just one of a thwack of tropes that make me wince on HN. A multithwack. A plenithwack.

They can't be stopped but one can maybe dampen them a bit sometimes. Or not.

IshKebab
Wasn't that just because Threes was a paid iPhone-only app and 2048 was a free near-clone?
keeganpoppen
no, brah, 2048 had better game mechanics, brah
doppp
Totally agree. I prefer Threes! myself but ultimately, the market determines what's fun. Grabriele has been so humble about his success and while I feel for the Threes! developers, they came across as exceptionally sore.
keeganpoppen
there's also value in creating the "thinking man's" progenitor to 2048. both are extremely valuable. and if we're doing a weighing of the souls, 2048 probably wins. but you can't blame people on this site for gravitating toward the underlying ideas rather than their instantiation-- they're (ostensibly) makers, or at least moreso than the general population.
jmclnx
2048 is only 10 years old, I am shocked.

I found it a while ago when looking for the source of xjumpjump and instantly liked it. Thanks for creating 2048.

Every so often I try and see if xjumpjump is available on cell phones, but none yet.

MzHN
Sometimes I have trouble listening without my thoughts drifting elsewhere. I found out that playing a Tetris clone that never increases in speed and never ends is a good way to keep a clear focus on listening. After changing phones recently my perfect Tetris clone stopped working as it was 32bit and the support was dropped. I've been looking for an alternative and finally found one in a 2048 clone with an Undo button. I thank you for that. It has saved me a lot of trouble staying focused!
nicole_express
Congrats on the 10 year anniversary, though honestly I think having tried your new 2048 I'll go back to the classic build. It might just be the hours I've poured into the original but it feels faster without the additional animation. But still a lot of good work there and I'm wishing you the best of luck.

As for the argument about Threes!, I have to say that I've generally found 2048 to be a much more fun game; the full-screen sliding and the lack of the 1+2 mechanic makes things move much faster, which for me is a priority. That's definitely personal taste, but I hate the vitriol that comes up on the topic.

mega_dean
Interesting to see the times for speedruns of this game: https://www.speedrun.com/2048

    2048: 24s
    4096: 1m 37s
    8192: 4m 53s
    16384: 13m 34s
    32768: 55m 24s
askvictor
I can't quite comprehend how a human would be able to achieve 24s
rcarmo
There is a factor of luck here. I can usually get to 128 or 256 in that time, but it really depends on whether you focus on doubling up a single square or cleaning up the board.
askvictor
256, sure, but 2048 would take 8 times as long
kccqzy
In the early phases of the game, just mashing two adjacent arrow keys (say, left and down) will get you pretty far without any thinking whatsoever. You only need to slow down when the board is about three quarters full.
thewisenerd
as a former record holder (1m18s, 2015) it's been fascinating to see this number go down over the years
bla3
Still very fun!

I didn't notice anything different from how it was in my memory. That seems like a successful modernization :)

I didn't notice that there were power ups until reading your post.

Azrael3000
Congratulations on creating such a wonderful game. My wife still plays it, I would claim, daily. I would claim it's part of her evening relaxation :) I will most certainly forward your new developments to her and also try it myself. Good luck with your new job.
rob74
Wow, has it already been ten years? I also wrote a clone of 2048 back then (https://github.com/nieware/gofusion), using Go and a QML-based UI, for a contest, and (to my astonishment) actually won the first prize, which consisted of a Nexus 7 tablet (which served me well for several years) and a rare original vinyl Gopher figurine (which is still sitting on my desk looking at me serenely with its googly eyes while I type this).
itchyouch
Just downloaded the new classic version with ads and wanted to pass along a suggestion that Thor makes.

While I understand that you’ve gotta make a living, ads are far more palatable if the user can consent to them.

And the way to make the user a part of the process is to offer a trade for the ad, rather than obtrusively running them.

“Would you like 500 gold to watch an ad?”

Yes? Ad for in-game currency that provides powerups? That’s a great deal and it’s win/win.

No? Okay, no ad, but no power up.

Statistically, you almost always get a yes, but the players are 100x happier than the slimey games that force ads in unscrupulous ways.

terabytest
This is interesting feedback. I always thought that ads being unobtrusive and not part of gameplay would be the saner choice. In my mind, when games ask you to trade watching an add for some kind of in-game benefit or currency, that feels like an unreasonable demand. The ads impinge on the gameplay. The way I've set up the site, ads are tucked in their own corner and should never affect gameplay (though there have been instances of ads spilling over the powerup bar, I'm working on that). Thanks for sharing!
Suppafly
>And the way to make the user a part of the process is to offer a trade for the ad

I think that is a worse pattern overall. It's essentially converting from the idea of watching ads to support the developer to watching ads as a pay to win mechanism. Pay to win mechanisms are always worse than any other alternative.

mass_and_energy
I'm disappointed in HN for stomping this person for the game that they made. They had no idea Threes existed, made this game as an experiment, and it went viral. Despite this, they still acknowledge Threes on their site.

But they post here and are dogpiled on by people saying they ripped off another game and should feel like a scumbag. That's wrong, let's be kind to each other instead of exhibiting rude behavior that discourages people from pursuing their projects because "it's a ripoff of xyz". This started as an experiment, and is now this person's full time career. Can we instead encourage others to follow?

We're not talking about a 1:1 ripoff, we're talking about a game whose gameplay is adjacent to another game. Is Call of Duty a rip-off of Medal of Honor because they're both WWII FPS games?

The-Bus
Especially when other merge games (Triple Town) existed for years.

They're all in the same general genre.

Suppafly
>Especially when other merge games (Triple Town) existed for years.

That matt guy that's posted like 100 times in this thread doesn't want to hear it, but I've literally only ever heard Threes brought up in comparison to 2048 and Triple Town. No one brings up Threes on their own organically.

MattRix
"They had no idea Threes existed" This makes it even worse, because it means they ripped off 1024 instead (the game that ripped off Threes). That means they put even less effort into their clone, even the name is a rip off of that game.

I genuinely don't get how people here can say "Oh it's just like Call of Duty and Medal of Honor" or say that Triple Town and Threes were similar. Obviously there's a spectrum from inspiration to cloning, but 2048 is so far on the cloning end of that spectrum that the whole comparison seems like a joke.

pests
I think 2048 is a better game and I like it more.
keeganpoppen
where is the stomping happening? i think everyone here knows the score, and both teams have points.
dang
HN isn't a person—it's a statistical cloud. There is always a spectrum of opinion. Most of the comments here agree with you.

There are some bilious and excessive responses but that's inevitable when a thread is large. We do our best to moderate the site so that they don't dominate.

People commonly overgeneralize-then-anthropomorphize the data points that rub them the wrong way. There are cognitive biases that we all have which make this an easy trap to fall into ([1], [2], [3]), but it's important that we all try to avoid it.

If you (I don't mean you personally, of course, but all of us) allow the negative tail of the spectrum to form your picture of the community, that's bad—because your picture of the community influences how you participate in it and this will cause harmful secondary effects that can, in the worst case, turn into doom loops.

I don't think the primary harmful effects (e.g. bilious comments and upvotes for indignation) of running a large internet forum like HN are avoidable, but I do think the secondary ones are. At least I hope so!

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_media_effect

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error

andrewmcwatters
Hi gab, thanks for sharing. This was fun to play back during our Facepunch era, and it’s still entertaining now.
Saming
Hello as well from a past Facepunch user, 10 years go by very quickly

@Terabytes glad to see your work, the new release is really nice

Philpax
Likewise, glad to see fellow former Facepunchers here :-) Great work!
bpye
I thought I remembered seeing it back on there in the "What are you working on" thread. Was always interesting to scroll through.
nikeee
TypeScript was fairly new at that time and to learn it, I ported 2048 to TypeScript. It was fun!

Fast forward a couple of years, I was debugging an issue with a react component and glanced over the .d.ts of react. I was quite surprised when I saw that my name was in them. I never contributed to react's types myself.

It turned out that someone took some types I wrote for 2048 and used them in the very first type definitions for react: https://github.com/DefinitelyTyped/DefinitelyTyped/commit/4b...

It's still there to this date, but I've lost my TS port in the sands of time.

andrewf
Random thing I noticed last week: there's a version of 2048 buried in the United Airlines iPhone app. Hamburger -> Games -> 2048.
a_t48
Also in some inflight entertainment systems!
randomblast
You know how the distribution of 2-value vs 4-value for new tiles is a weighted random function? And sometimes you get an unlikely 4 that really screw you over? Have you thought about adding a mode which always creates the worst option of the 2?

You could call it “God does play dice with the universe. They're loaded and he hates you.”

terabytest
I think 2048-AI had this, but I’m not sure. It’d surely be pretty evil. Imagine it turning on randomly when it detects you’re going too fast :)
Jerrrry
Like a Cambodian version of minesweeper.