How to Play

Swipe in any direction, or use the arrow keys or WASD. Every tile slides as far as it can in that direction, and any two tiles showing the same number that end up touching merge into one worth double — two 4s become an 8, and that 8 is added to your score. A new 2 or 4 appears in a random empty square after every move that actually changes the board; a swipe into a wall that moves nothing spawns nothing and costs you nothing. A tile that has just merged will not merge again on the same swipe, so a row of four 2s becomes two 4s rather than a single 8. The run ends when the board is full and no two neighbouring tiles match. Reaching 2048 shows the win, but you can carry straight on for a bigger tile and the score keeps climbing.

Tips

• Pick one corner at the start and never let your biggest tile leave it. Use only the two directions that keep it pinned there — left and down, say — and treat the other two as a last resort. The moment the big tile comes out of the corner, smaller tiles slide underneath it and it can take a dozen moves to rebuild the shape you had.
• Keep the edge that holds your big tile sorted in descending order. A row reading 512, 256, 128, 64 can zip-merge all the way along in a single swipe as soon as the right number arrives. The same four tiles in the order 512, 64, 256, 128 are stuck no matter what turns up, and unpicking them costs you the corner.
• The move that ends most runs is a panic swipe in the direction you have been avoiding. If you have been playing left and down all game, swiping up lifts the anchor tile out of its corner and drops a fresh tile into the gap underneath it. Before you use that fourth direction, check whether a different one still merges anything at all — usually one does.
• Score is banked at every new biggest tile from 64 upward, so a run you walk away from still records what you earned rather than nothing. The score itself is simply the sum of every merge you have made, and there is no bonus for finishing — so there is never a reason to rush a board you can still work, and a careful slow game is worth exactly as much as the merges in it.

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