# Talk:2048 (video game)

Is totally not 131,072. I am on a 8x8 board, and I currently have a 524,288. This is not a boast: it is more or less impossible to lose on an 8x8 board: I use it to concentrate on conference calls, and have had the same game running since 2018. Evidence here. ElectricRay (talk) 09:37, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

The maximum tile on the original 4x4 board is 131072. The 8x8 board doesn't count. Vector107 (talk) 22:39, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

I only created this article as a description of a game that has become highly popular on its own in the past few days (I am not Gabriele Cirulli). What can I do to make it less spammy and therefore unfit for deletion? --Starceus (talk) 16:32, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

I've added some independent references, which I hope will help. Qwfp (talk) 20:27, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
What establishes the encyclopedic relevance of this game? Although popular, primarily among Hacker News readers, there are also many other popular games that aren't relevant (e.g., online gangster / mafia web games, indie RPG games, etc). Is the game relevant for inclusion due to 15 minutes of fame? - Simeon (talk) 23:49, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
I think it's the fact that its fame has started to make its way into mainstream culture that makes it fit for an encyclopedia (e.g. it has its own XKCD comic). You know, come to think about that, maybe WP:15MOF (or WP:FMOF) should be a thing, since upon a simple search it seems to be referenced a lot in AfD pages. Starceus (talk) 01:56, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
I think that'd fall under WP:Notability is not temporary. Maybe a new redirect? Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 02:33, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
That would work. 99.255.146.223 (talk) 14:37, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
Is there any say to a person who earns 268,436,684 points on 2048 and not tell the GWR about it. It seems everyone should get the word

Is it even possible to get box art or a logo? There's no box to have art and the logo's just a written "2048" on GitHub. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 12:25, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

You're right, I've changed it to "n" as no logo or box art exists. - Simeon (talk) 11:10, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Apparently, Gabriele Cirulli version of the 2048 game is a clone of another '2048' game rather than '1024'. See here.
It's possible to get higher tiles. Here's an example of a board with a 4096 tile. Practically it's possible to get to 8192. Theoretically, it's possible to get to 16384...
– Fuzzy – 19:45, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Fuzzy, you are right. Instead of getting higher tiles, this website offers to start with tiles lower than "2": (redacted) So reaching 2048 is much harder and it's like getting 8192 when you start from "2".217.132.222.68 (talk) 05:58, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Please don't refer people to unofficial copies of the game. The surge in popularity may lead to versions of the game with malware and we can't check all of them. - Simeon (talk) 13:11, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
The sentence giving the highest theoretically possible total score seems incorrect to me.  It gives high scores for all 2s appearing, and for all 4s appearing, but the highest possible score will occur when 2s always appear except when a 4 must appear in a sole vacant spot in order to combine with another 4, then 8, then 16, etc. --ScrabbleCurling (talk) 01:54, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

I know we're supposed to use videos sparingly here, but I think that one would be beneficial to this page. It's one thing to say that the tiles move in a direction and combine if they're the same, it's another to see them go up to, say, the first 32 tile. Any thoughts? Anyone able to make one? Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 05:46, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

An animated gif would be visible to more people, see File:Threes_video_game_trailer.gif - Simeon (talk) 12:32, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
I thought about a GIF, but how would we loop it without being really abrupt about it? You just got a 32 tile! but now you're back to two 2's? The Threes trailer and File:Twitch plays pokemon animated.gif both are smooth transitions from end back to the beginning. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 13:30, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Given the large interest in making clones and AIs for this game, I have added a section more clearly specifying the rules. I haven't been able to find any exact descriptions of these other than the source code of the original game.
Maybe the section overlaps slightly with the Gameplay section. Thomasda (talk) 18:06, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is encyclopedic content. The gameplay should be discussed but the exact rules can be read in the source code by those interested in making clones and AI - that audience doesn't need Wikipedia to enumerate the rules. - Simeon (talk) 23:00, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
Some rules are okay, and for a simple game like this, having all the rules isn't a bad thing, I wouldn't think. My concern, however is WP:OR: Does analyzing the source code count? I've really got no idea. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 19:12, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

It would be interesting to include answers to the following questions:

What is the minimum score that a winning game of 2048 must have?
What is the minimum number of matches that a winning game of 2048 must have? The article mentions a lower bound but that bound could be higher due to space constraints.
The questions can be answered based on whether only 2 tiles or only 4 tiles are spawning (best / worst case scenario analysis).
Simeon (talk) 22:02, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

User:Simeon said that the screenshot of the won game was a fake when he removed it. I'm not seeing anywhere on the source page that suggests it to be such, but either way, it's back now. Anyone know whether or not it's actually real? If it's fake, how do we label it that way? Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 21:38, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

See the source page: https://github.com/gabrielecirulli/2048 - the screenshot is fake. I'm also not sure it's possible to finish the game with a score that low. A screenshot of a finished game should have a high enough score. - Simeon (talk) 22:46, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
Oh, not the Commons source page, okay. I unfortunately can't change the description for a week or so due to the stupidity of the SurfControl here, can I ask you to specify that it's a fake screenshot on the Commons page? Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 23:36, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
Is this screenshot more plausible? BobAmnertiopsis∴ChatMe! 00:34, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
I'm not so sure plausibility is the issue here. I'm really not sure how many points you need to win (I've never made it past two 512's and 7000-some points), but it says right on the website that it was a faked screenshot. I'm not saying it's a bad picture, but we need to label as a fake. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 02:17, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
The faked screenshot would be fine if we didn't have a better free alternative, but the above-linked one seems to be a legitimately completed game and since the game is licensed the ExPat/MIT license, we're allowed to use it even though someone else created it. In pictures I've seen from friends who have completed the game, 20,000+ seems to be a reasonable winning score. How would you feel about placing the non-faked image in the article? BobAmnertiopsis∴ChatMe! 06:03, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
If we can use that screenshot (with regard to license) then that's better. The 20,000+ score is common in winning games so that's a more accurate screenshot of what a winning board looks like. - Simeon (talk) 09:34, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

First of all, this line smells like original research.  Secondly, it's wrong -- the game randomly spawns 2s or 4s.  If it spawn all 4s, one would only need 512 such tiles.  Also, what a "join" is is not obvious.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.7.84.130 (talk) 08:29, 12 April 2014 (UTC) 

I've removed the link to that site for the same reason as why we don't link to any specific variety of the game: it's not the official game and people can find that themselves online. Aggregating all varieties of the game into one page doesn't mean we should link to that site as it doesn't add something to the encyclopedic discussion of the game 2048. - Simeon (talk) 11:04, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Agreed, this looks like an arbitrary WP:FANSITE. The article already mentions notable spinoffs. --McGeddon (talk) 13:32, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

A couple of editors have been saying that the game's got touchscreen controls, but I'm saying no, because the original is only on GitHub (no app) and some of the sources say that it was other people making all the others. I'd rather avoid an edit war, so I brought it here. Thoughts? Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 22:11, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, other people wrote the code for the touchscreen controls, but it was incorporated into the "original" game that the article is about. the wub "?!" 09:11, 10 May 2014 (UTC)


### Artifical Intelligence based Solver
On 4th April 2014, an algorithm submission contest to solve 2048 game was started in Matlab Central Exchange.<ref>http://blogs.mathworks.com/pick/2014/04/04/submit-your-algorithms-to-solve-2048/</ref>
On 2nd May 2014, the algorithms submitted by Oliver Woodford, Athi Narayanan and Viktor were declared as the winning algorithms.
Both Oliver's and Athi's submissions were able to very successfully achieve 2048 and reach 4096 (in a 1000-run simulation experiment).
<ref>http://blogs.mathworks.com/pick/2014/05/02/2048-algorithms/</ref>
The Matlab implementation of the Artificial intelligence based 2048 Game solver submitted by Athi is available online.
<ref>http://www.mathworks.in/matlabcentral/fileexchange/46483-2048-game-solver</ref>

 Done: I added the last bit, but the rest is sourced through blogs, so they're not reliable sources. Thanks! Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 11:25, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Change "Therefore, the highest theoretically possible total score would be 1,835,012 if only 2s appear, and twice this value in the case of 4s only." to 
"Therefore, the highest theoretically possible total score would be 1,835,012 if only 2s appear, and HALF this value in the case of 4s only.", because as it is right now the sentence doesn't respect the formula shown above. 
Thank you.

Bradipo9 (talk) 19:28, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

 Done, thanks for pointing that out! Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 23:57, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

The highest total score section is still not correct; it says "Therefore, the highest theoretically possible total score would be 1,835,012 if only 2s appear, and half this value in the case of 4s only."  As the table shows, if you get a 131072 tile (from only 4s appearing), you could get a score as high as 1966080.  In fact, you could build up the earlier tiles using 2s to score even higher.
Besides, someone should add in the code that the player gains 4 points if the tile generator would choose that tile so the player is not cheated for any points.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.202.189.96 (talk) 20:13, 2 July 2014 (UTC) 
Thank you.
Mpozar (talk) 23:18, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

The highest score possible is 3,932,100 and could be achieved as follows:
Only 2s appear until the board is filled with the following tiles:
{65536, 32768, 16384, 8192, 4096, 2048, 1024, 512, 256, 128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 2, 2}
At this point, the 2 2s could be merged.  If a 2 appears, the game is over - the board is full and no merges are possible.  However if a 4 appears, the tiles would then be:
{65536, 32768, 16384, 8192, 4096, 2048, 1024, 512, 256, 128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 4}
Merging could then continue, allow the user to get a 131072 tile.  Assuming all subsequent new tiles were 2s, the user could end up filling the board with:
{131072, 32768, 16384, 8192, 4096, 2048, 1024, 512, 256, 128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 2, 2}
At this point again the 2 2s could be merged, but the next tile would have to be a 4 or the game would be over.  If a 4 appears, the tiles would then be:
{131072, 32768, 16384, 8192, 4096, 2048, 1024, 512, 256, 128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 4}
Merging could then continue, allowing the user to get up to a 65536 tile (with the 131072 tile remaining).
Gameplay could continue in this fashion, where each time the board gets full, 2 2s can be merged, and the next tile must be a 4 to prevent the game from ending.  Ultimately the user would end up with:
{131072, 65536, 32768, 16384, 8192, 4096, 2048, 1024, 512, 256, 128, 64, 32, 16, 4, 4}
After merging the 4s into an 8, either a 2 or a 4 would appear, and the game would end with the board:
{131072, 65536, 32768, 16384, 8192, 4096, 2048, 1024, 512, 256, 128, 64, 32, 16, 8, (2 or 4)}
Total score from merges that created each tile:

Total: 3,932,100
Mpozar (talk) 23:50, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Both this and the whole "Mathematics" section that was in the article are original research and too in depth for a very minor facet of the game. I've removed the section. If there's a reliable source for the highest possible score, that may be acceptable, but we don't need to show all the working. the wub "?!" 09:17, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
I agree entirely with the assessment of the section as original research.  The calculations involved go far beyond WP:CALC, which is limited to "obvious, correct" calculations.  RJaguar3 | u | t 01:09, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
But these are correct, and obvious (provided you have a calculator – do I really have to get a calculator to prove it to you guys?) Epicgenius (talk) 22:52, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
I agree, but to quote WP:CALC: provided there is consensus among editors. Since we don't have that, the section can't stay until opposers can be swayed. However, the wub does have a point about how it might be a little excessive. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 01:33, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
I agree with the wub; the section is entirely OR. --Guerillero | My Talk 18:26, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Anyone have a good reference on the tile spawn algorithm?  It does not appear to be "random".--Nowa (talk) 01:38, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
It is random... just a random empty spot. 71.71.71.105 (talk) 01:52, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Of course this is not a video game guide, but should there be a sentence or two on basic strategy, or links to high-quality further discussions of strategy?

Came here via the reassessment request in the talk page template. Leaving this as C-class, though even that's pushing it. Some ideas for improvement below:

The lead is meant to be a summary of the rest of the article; as such it should not have citations, because all of the information there should be expanded on and cited in the rest of the article. It's also generally cleaner to have the citations at the end of the sentence, not just sprinkled throughout.
There is no development section; all the development info seems to have been shoved in the lead instead
There is no reception section, just a "comparisons to Flappy Bird" section, which is bizarre, since the obvious comparison is Threes, or 1024. --PresN 18:09, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

The article repeatedly mentions that Gabriele Cirulli does not make money on the game, but this is no longer accurate.
His official iOS version of the 2048 game:
> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/2048-by-gabriele-cirulli/id868076805
now includes advertising, and users must pay $0.99 to remove the advertising.
His website does still allow people to play the game for free.
Mkilby (talk) 12:03, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

http://allthe2048.com/community-games/portal-1.html?usp_success=2&post_id=40199
http://allthe2048.com/community-games/portal-cores.html?usp_success=2&post_id=40203
http://allthe2048.com/community-games/pit-bull.html
The website www.allthe2048.com has many different types of 2048 versions.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.88.22.136 (talk) 00:20, 29 January 2019 (UTC) 

This review is transcluded from Talk:2048 (video game)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Bilorv (talk · contribs) 23:17, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
I'll make an initial review of this by the end of the week. Grabbing it now as it's a game I've spent plenty of time on. I see that the nominator hasn't made many edits to the article but it's not in a quickfail state. I do, however, see sourcing which will need serious improvement if this is to pass—as a couple of examples, student newspapers are not appropriate sources, nor are blogs, and nor is the primary source of DuckDuckGo. Conversely, once all the bad sources are stripped out, to ensure breadth and depth of coverage we'll want to make sure we're including as many reliable sources as exist. — Bilorv (talk) 23:17, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Bilorv, there's articles about this from TechCrunch, the WSJ, LA Times, Yahoo! Finance, CNBC and ABC News. As far as I see, those are all the established sources. Thanks, Thanoscar21talk, contribs 23:50, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
A quick search shows The Guardian, Daily Dot and (more recently) Radio Times. Likely more English-language sources exist and if that doesn't make enough then there's nothing wrong with using non-English sources. — Bilorv (talk) 08:20, 16 July 2020 (UTC)


### Initial review
Referencing:

References should ideally be consistently formatted, but for GA we just need enough information for someone to have a good chance of being able to determine what the intended source was 30 years from now. That means no bare URLs—e.g. for online news, we need at least: URL; title; author; website.
The information Clones written in C++ and Vala are available. There is also a version for the Linux terminal. has only primary sources. It needs either secondary sources, or removal if no secondary sources have discussed this code—otherwise there is no evidence of significance (I could write a version in Brainfuck but that wouldn't be information suitable for Wikipedia).
Same point for DuckDuckGo (as mentioned above).
Same point for MathWorks.
What makes Indie Games reliable? Why is the reference labelled UBM Tech? Is the reviewer a professional who has been published in national news organizations? If it's not reliable then remove it.
Same question for Geeks With Juniors.
Same question for JayIsGames.
Same question with Vulcan Post.
Why is the Etherington TechCrunch source labelled "AOL"?
Introduce this source mentioned on the talk page.
Introduce the sources from The Guardian, Daily Dot and Radio Times as listed above. Search for more sources (if you haven't done this before, try using Google News and filtering based on date ranges roughly as follows: within a week of the game's release; in the couple of months following the release; over the next few years; in the last year or so. You want to search "2048" and then some combination of keywords like "app", "game", "tile" or "Cirulli" in quotes to get the best results.
Content:

It seems to me that a section "Adaptations", either new or as a subsection of "Development", would be good to contain the last paragraph of "Gameplay" (which is not about gameplay) and the last paragraph of "Development".
"Comparisons to other games" should be "Critical reception" and contain more critical commentary. What did reviewers think of the game? Too simple, just simple enough, a good graphics style, addictive, too easy to reach 2048, becomes repetitive etc.?
The "Development" section is missing the origin of the game as a clone of 1024, itself a clone of Threes. See Threes#Legacy. It is wrong to say "19-year-old Cirulli created the game in a single weekend" without attributing what Cirulli was working from as a baseline.
If 2048 has a free license then we can use whatever game screenshots we want, right? Can we see an example of a "before the move 'left' is made" and "after the move 'left' is made"? I think someone not familiar with gameplay can understand best with an example.
All content mention in the lead should also be mentioned in the body of the article per WP:LEAD.
The game can only last a finite amount of moves, and the theoretical limit for the highest tile on a standard 4x4 board is 131,072. Says who? This isn't routine calculation.
Tile generated is 90% '2' and 10% '4', right? Can we find a source saying this? If not, no worries.
Surely something of tactics must have been mentioned in a secondary source. The only tactics I'm aware of are quite simple (e.g. keep the largest values in decreasing order from bottom-left to bottom-right, continuing in a snaking pattern; keep sufficient space free on middle rows to avoid being forced to move 'up').
This is perhaps more work than I expected from a first viewing and it may be too early to get this article to GA. In all honesty, I think the current article is C-class (or possibly Start-class) rather than B-class in quality. Let's see if we can get it up to B-class at least over the course of the review.
I'm leaving the article  On hold and the review will be failed in seven days if there is not substantial progress in the referencing quality. If there's substantial progress then we can continue onwards with more low-level details. Even if the review fails, I'm interested in helping improve this article. — Bilorv (talk) 15:53, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

@Thanoscar21: I see there's been a limited amount of progress, which is definitely all positive improvement, but I don't think we're close enough to tackle the remaining issues within the confines of a GA review. I plan to fail the review in about 24 hours, but you can always contact me with questions about any edits relating to the article or any of the points I raised above; I might also find time to help out directly in implementing some of the above improvements. — Bilorv (talk) 13:08, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
 Fail for GA, regrettably, as the majority of the issues above have not been addressed. I hope the feedback will be useful for further improvement of the article, which I am re-rating as C-class as it fails B-criteria #1 and #2 (per above). Thanks! — Bilorv (talk) 16:27, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi Dgpop, I saw that you're editing the page at the same time I am. I'm trying to get it to pass a GA this time around, and I'm following the suggestion left on the TP. I'm just following the suggestions left on the previous GA review (about six months ago). Are you also planning to do so? If so, then we could do a joint nomination or something if possible. One more thing — the picture being that large just don't work on a laptop, it's too big and the text does some funky things, so I'm undoing those, hope you don't mind. Thanks, Thanoscar21talkcontributions 16:06, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Hello! About the picture: I removed the forced image size, and (roughly) mimicked it with a  scale factor; but really it shouldn't be either, as that's the MOS standard. I've just been fixing some of the obvious stuff that's wrong with that page—which is a lot—but I think I'm done with my pass, so have at it. Dgpop (talk) 16:40, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
All right, I've renominated it, do feel free to add your name in as well, you did do a lot. Thanoscar21talkcontributions 16:51, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect 177147 (video game). The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 February 2#177147 (video game) until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.  Hog Farm  Talk 05:54, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect 2048 Galaxy Edition (video game). The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 February 2#2048 Galaxy Edition (video game) until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.  Hog Farm  Talk 05:56, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

The site elgoog.im has a version of 2048. Should this be included? Mariobros12345 (talk) 19:27, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

@Mariobros12345:WP:ELNO — Smuckola(talk) 19:40, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

The "Strategy and AI" section that I added (see this revision) was removed by Dgpop.  I feel strongly that its content is important.  The most remarkable part about the game that a casual player is not likely to know (or believe) is the achievability of larger tiles, including that with over 80% probability, one can achieve a 32768 tile.  The strategic depth has both spawned a loose community of expert human players, and made the game of interest to AI researchers.  And the featured article nomination was declined largely due to absence of discussion of scholarly works related to 2048 strategy and AI.  However, I will let other editors re-add the section, perhaps partially or in a revised form.

Note: Click 'show' to see the section.  The first paragraph in the section was adapted from before.  I uncommented the "source reliability note" as this is a discussion page. Dmytro (talk) 18:31, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Update: I restored a shorter revised AI section, which should be noncontroversial.  The page should say more about strategy and achievement of large tiles by humans, but as noted above, I will leave that to others.Dmytro (talk) 06:58, 1 September 2022 (UTC)