25

***25*** is a spin-off of the sliding tile puzzle game *2048*. It released on March 24, 2014 for Android and PC and one week later for iOS.

## Announcements

### a new bontegame: 25

Time for a new bontegame! It's a small puzzler I made in between a larger project, it's called 25 and you can play it in your browser or get it as a free app for Android on Google Play here. A version for iOS has also been submitted and I'll let you know when it gets approved by Apple.

So how to play 25? Use the cursor keys (in the browser) or swipe the screen (on mobile) to move all the blocks and push same numbered block together to level up. Red blocks will block you, match 3 or more red blocks in a row (horizontally or vertically) to remove them. I'm curious to find out your best score, so make sure to leave a comment with your score, or use the built in twitter button to tweet your score, I'll be monitoring those tweets too! I hope you enjoy 25 and if you do, please share it, rate it and tweet it, cheers!

### 25 is now also available for iOS

My latest game 25 just went live in the Apple app store, so you can play it on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch now too and it's free! Get it here!

## Gameplay

The goal of this game is to make 25 (or 33,554,432, which is 225) on a 5×5 grid. In practice, this is impossible, as you can only reach around 11.

You will begin with two nonadjacent 1 blocks. To move, you need to swipe in the direction you want to shift the blocks (or use the arrow keys on PC). Each move shifts the blocks one space in that direction unless they can not. After your move, either a 1 block or an orange block will spawn on the edge you shifted away from (e.g. shifting the blocks to the left will spawn a block on the right edge).

A block will not move if it collides with a number block of a different value, an orange block, or the edge in the direction of the move.

A new block will not spawn until at least one of the blocks currently on the board has shifted.

Once you have moved 3 times (not in any specific direction), you will get a new hint below the grid. It tells you that two 1s make a 2, two 2s make a 3, and so on. This means you need to shift one number block onto another number block with the same value to make the next number block. When you do, you will get *n*2 points, *n* being the number you made. For instance, making a 3 will give you 9 points, and making a 9 will give you 81.

By the time you have made a 3 block, you will see some orange blocks invading the grid. The hint says to make a line of at least three of these blocks to remove them.

Each orange block removed is 5 points. You do not get extra points for removing more than 3 in a match, so a line of 4 blocks is only 20 points, a match of 5 blocks is 25, and a match of 6 blocks is 30.

Once you have removed at least 5 orange blocks, the hint disappears, leaving you to play the game until you can not shift or combine any more blocks.

### Strategy

* Keep the higher number blocks in one of the two bottom (or top) corners, and avoid shifting them away from it.
* As you get further into the game, the spawn rate of orange blocks increases. Prioritize removing the orange blocks in a manner that does not interfere with the above strategy.
* Once you have eliminated most of the orange blocks, fill the row/column your highest number block is in with descending numbers, the highest number block being at the start or the end.
* Plan several moves ahead.

## Trivia

* The game name is 25 rather than 33,554,432 likely for simplicity reasons and because it makes the game feel more distinct from *2048*.
	+ 33554432 would also need a font size that may be too small to read to fit inside its block.
		- It also would not fit as a score on the main screen, hence the reworked scoring system.
* In the intro, the frame of Bonte's shades are yellow, but in the copyright section of the game (the top left button), it is lime green.
* The "larger project" Bonte mentioned in his announcement may be *Piksels*.
* The highest score ever is 387,451 by SapphireMind on the Bontegames blogger. [1]
	+ In response, Bart Bonte considered making a leaderboard so players could compete for the highest score, however this has never happened. [2]
* This is the only game that is playable on both mobile and browser and has a scoring system.
	+ *Klikwerk* and *Tap Tap Tap* do not count since they are not the same game.