2048
Slide the tiles, merge matching pairs, and try to build a 2048 tile.
Score 0.
Arrow keys or W A S D — or swipe across the board.
How to play: every move slides all sixteen cells at once. Press an arrow key (or W/A/S/D, or swipe on the board) and every tile travels as far as it can in that direction until it hits the wall or another tile. Two tiles carrying the same number that collide merge into one tile worth double, and the value of that new tile is added to your score. A tile that has just been created by a merge cannot merge again on the same move, which is why a row of four 2s becomes two 4s rather than a single 8.
Every move spawns a tile. As long as the slide changed something, one new tile appears in a random empty cell — a 2 nine times out of ten, a 4 the rest of the time. A move that changes nothing (pressing left when everything is already flush against the left wall) is not a turn at all: nothing spawns, and you have lost nothing but a keystroke. That rule is the whole reason experienced players can "shuffle" safely, and the reason a board fills up faster than it looks like it should once you start pressing keys that do nothing.
Winning and losing. The game is won the first time a 2048 tile exists, but that is a milestone rather than an ending — choose Keep going and the board carries on, with the same rules and no further interruptions. You lose when the board is full and no two orthogonally adjacent tiles carry the same number, because at that point no direction produces a slide or a merge. A full board on its own is not a loss; it is completely normal to sit at sixteen tiles for several moves.
Scoring. Only merges score. Each one adds the value of the tile it produces, so building a 2048 tile out of nothing but spawned 2s is worth exactly 20,480 points on its own — 1,024 tiles reduced to one through 1,023 merges, each merge paying out the tile it created. Because 4s spawn a tenth of the time and cost you the 2-plus-2 merge that would otherwise have made them, two players who both reach 2048 rarely finish on the same score. Your best score is kept in this browser's local storage; it never leaves your device, and clearing site data resets it.
Strategy that actually helps. Pick a corner and never leave it. Keep your largest tile pinned there, build a descending row along the edge leading to it, and use only the two or three directions that preserve that shape — most strong players cycle between two perpendicular directions and reach for a third only when forced. The move to avoid is the one that lifts the big tile out of its corner, because everything below it then has to be rebuilt around a wall it can no longer merge through. If pressing up would displace a corner you have spent thirty moves building, take a worse-looking sideways move instead.
How big can a tile get? Tiles are all powers of two, and a full 4x4 board can hold sixteen distinct ones: 2, 4, 8 and so on up to 65,536. That ladder uses every cell, so 65,536 is the largest tile the board can physically contain — reaching 131,072 would need a seventeenth cell to stage it in. In practice almost nobody gets past 8,192 without extremely disciplined corner play, and reaching 2048 at all puts you well ahead of the average game.
2048 was written by Gabriele Cirulli in 2014 as a weekend project, itself a riff on the earlier games 1024 and Threes. This version runs entirely in your browser: nothing is uploaded, there are no accounts, and it keeps working with the network switched off.
How do you play 2048?
Press an arrow key — or W/A/S/D, or swipe on the board — to slide every tile in that direction. Tiles showing the same number merge into one tile worth double, and each merge adds that new value to your score. After any move that changed the board, one new tile (usually a 2) appears in a random empty cell. Keep merging until you build a 2048 tile.
Why did a row of four 2s become two 4s instead of an 8?
A tile created by a merge is locked for the rest of that move. Four 2s sliding left merge in pairs — the leftmost two first — producing two 4s, and those two 4s cannot then combine until your next move. The rule exists to stop a single keypress from cascading an entire row into one huge tile.
When is the game actually over?
When the board is full and no two side-by-side tiles (horizontally or vertically) carry the same number. Only then does every direction become a no-op. A full board by itself is not game over, and neither is reaching 2048 — that shows a win banner with a Keep going button, and the board continues unchanged if you take it.
Does a move that changes nothing still spawn a tile?
No. If pressing a direction slides nothing and merges nothing, the move is ignored entirely — no tile spawns and no score changes. That is why you can safely test a direction when the board is nearly full.
How is the score calculated?
Only merges score, and each merge adds the value of the tile it produces: merging two 4s adds 8, merging two 1024s adds 2048. Sliding tiles around without merging is worth nothing. A 2048 tile built entirely from spawned 2s carries 20,480 points with it.
Is my best score saved?
Yes, in this browser only. It is written to local storage on the device you are playing on — there is no account and nothing is sent to a server, so it will not follow you to another browser or another machine, and clearing your site data clears it.
Is the game in progress saved if I reload?
No. Reloading the page deals a fresh board. Only the best score persists; the tiles and the current score do not.
Is 2048 luck or skill?
Both, but skill dominates until quite late. Where new tiles spawn is random, so an unlucky 4 in the wrong corner can cost you a game — but the vast majority of losses come from letting the largest tile drift away from a corner, which is entirely under your control. Players who commit to one corner and two main directions reach 2048 consistently.
What is the highest tile possible on a 4x4 board?
65,536. Tiles are powers of two, and 2 through 65,536 is exactly sixteen distinct values — the whole board. Building a 131,072 tile would need somewhere to hold two 65,536s at once, and there is no seventeenth cell.
Does this work offline?
Yes. The game is entirely client-side and the site is a progressive web app, so once the page has loaded once it keeps working with no connection. There are no ads, no analytics and no tracking of any kind.