Hi all,
I'm not the developer of this particular game, but the developer is busy so he asked me to post the rules that he wrote until the issue gets resolved. Below are the rules, although I'm not sure how the headings will be effected by the forum's processing.
2048
Objective
The idea of 2048 is to obtain the highest score by merging tiles with equal values. Each turn, the player must move a tile on the board, and each turn, a new tile is placed randomly within an empty grid. The difficulty in doing this is the fact that the spawned tiles can only contain either a 4 or a 2 (chosen randomly with equal probability). As such, one must successively combine lower values of tiles over and over while ensuring that the board does not become filled with invalid tile pairs. Another challenging aspect to the game is the fact that when the player indicates their desired move, it is carried out for all the tiles on the grid. To put it simply, if there is a two in the upper right corner and a four in the lower right corner, choosing to move the tiles to the left will cause both the four and the two to slide to fulfill one of the conditions described below. In other words, moves affect all the tiles on the grid rather than one specific piece, making the game difficult to master
Merge conditions
The tile merge happens only if two tiles are next to each other and move such that one of them attempts to overlap with the other. In other words, if there is a 2 in the upper left corner and another 2 immediately to its right, the player must either move the tiles to the left or right to trigger the merge. Each time the tiles are combined, one of them is removed, and the value of the other is multiplied. For instance, if the player merges two twos, they would get the value of four, whereas combining two sixteens would yield the value of thirty-two.
Not every turn has to result in a new tile being created from those already present on the grid, however. When moved, a tile will slide in the chosen direction until one of the two conditions are met:
- The tile hits the edge of the grid
- The tile encounters an incompatible tile or any other tile after already combining to create a new value
The last condition is worth some elaboration: Let's suppose that we have a 2 in the upper left corner of the grid. Let's also suppose that there is another two directly below it, followed by a blank space, followed by a four in the lower left corner of the grid. Should the player move the tiles downward, the following events will occur.
- The two in the upper left corner moves and combines with the two directly below it, forming a four.
- The newly created four will move such that it is located directly above the four in the lower left corner of the grid.
- The newly created four *will not* merge with the four below it because it is a result of a combination during this turn. As such, the final board will have two fours stacked on top of each other in the lower left corner of the grid plus an additional random tile.
Should the player decide to move their tiles upward, the following events will occur
- The four in the lower left corner of the grid moves to the space right below the two twos
- The two below the upper left corner moves up, creating a four in the upper left corner.
- The four previously located below the two twos moves up such that it rests right below the four in the upper left corner.
- The four *will not* merge with the newly created four above it because the latter is a result of a combination during this turn. As such, the final board will have two fours stacked on top of each other in the upper left corner of the grid plus an additional random tile.
As an astute reader may notice, the two situations described above are inverses of each other. Both achieve an identical result--create a new tile--and ensure game continuity for at least one more move. Either choice may be valid in each situation, and it is up to the player to decide on preferred board alterations.
Grid notation
As expected, 2048 uses a grid with letters (starting at A) notating columns and numbers (starting at 1) notating rows. It should be noted that, unlike chess, A1 is the upper left corner of the grid, while D4 is the lower right corner of the grid. If a tile is empty, the number "zero" is announced after the indication of position. If a tile contains a number, it is announced instead of zero.
Game keys
- Arrow keys: Move around the grid
- Shift + arrow keys: Slide tiles in the associated direction
- S: Announce current score / moves
Attributions
Music used courtesy of Zapsplat