The 2048 app is a straightforward game as it could be—from its creator’s objective to its claims towards success. Its hit gameplay captivated the world and allowed the rise of the strategy puzzle genre. Your main goal is to create the number 2048 by rearranging tiles horizontally and vertically in a 4×4 grid. This matter generates new tiles divisible by two. It gives tiles one tile greater, the sum of which is twice the two identical tiles that collided.
The game is so simple and cool yet challenging at the same time. It gets you addicted to more sliding, block merging, and score hitting! When it first came out, the game is commendable in its rights, but it still had its fair share of controversies. How did 2048 come to be? We share it with you here.
In reality, the first 2048 game app is not the original play that everyone enjoyed. There’s 1024! and a simpler version of 2048. Gabrielle Cirulli of Italy tried to play the game. During that time, He was only doing some freelance works, and he was still 19-year-old. Both complex numbers but at different interfaces and mechanics.
The History of 2048
One fateful February weekend, while enjoying the two games, an idea struck into his mind. This thing challenged him even more: creating his own version “with a different visual style and quicker animation.” In a sudden desire to test whether he would be able to do so, he created his own with the sole intention of doing it just for a self-test. “Just to see if I could,” he professed in a self-written article. He did not even know about Threes, which was considered the most popular in this genre back then. All these complex numbers but at different interfaces and mechanics.
In just a single weekend, Gabrielle was able to accomplish his objective. He was able to code a similar video game but with improved mechanics, gameplay, and design from scratch. As any game developer would, he needed extra pairs of eyes to look at and hands to play the game. There could be some visual features to improve.
With this and only this in mind, he put it up on GitHub and Designer News. He did not think of profiting from it since the inspiration of the game was not his own but others’ “huge amount of time and effort.” He was upfront in not wanting the limelight. It was just a weekend project, after all. Unfortunately, this is precisely how the success kicked off.
The next day marked the start of a continuous zoom towards the 2048 game’s popularity. It became an instant overnight hit, placing #1 in Hacker News and having high searching traffic according to Google Analytics. The demand blew out of proportions, at least for Gabrielle’s expectations, and became the sensation that it is. He thought it was just an overnight fad, much like his overnight effort. But, he was wrong.
The 2048 Game’s Sky-rocketing to Success
The game’s stats kept growing, which made Gabrielle feel both excited and terrified. Who wouldn’t? It stirred not only positive feedback but also business opportunities for the teenager that was Gabrielle. He received emails from developers asking his blessing to make the app available to different platforms to generate profit. Since this was not part of this original intention, Gabrielle became and sulked to the point of shutting everything off. He didn’t even want to take credit for his creation, especially upon hearing the frustration of Threes’ creators. So he did nothing.
Despite that, the clamour for his improved 2048 app did not die down as Gabrielle expected. It kept getting bigger. This matter led to the game reproducing its various platforms in different versions by countless developers. Through his family and friends, making him realise the wasted opportunities due to his action, or inaction, he returned in front of his computer. He realised there are creative members of the gaming community who wants to improve the game.
Some people aspire to have an enjoyable sliding puzzle “clone” it could be. So he decided to pursue reinventing the app he created not for more money nor greed but for the gaming pleasure of those who want it. From here on, 2048 was not his alone but joint ownership of all those who believed and contributed.
Improving your 2048 Strategy
A full month after—and all the sleepless nights, motivations, mobile development through Phonegap, coding errors from scratch, and trials in between—he released his patented version of the game for iOS and Android through Solebon LLC.
To date, 2048 remains a free-to-play game on PC and mobile. More players have continuously played the game and tried to beat their records and other players’ scores. There are a lot of tips and tricks shared which new and long-time players could use to hasten their strategies. There was even a time when they had integrated artificial intelligence (AI) to beat all of the game’s records. The opportunities, like the numbers in the game, seemed endless.
The game remains to be a playable and likable sliding puzzle game. This thing could attribute to its easily understandable mechanics, simple gameplay, high definition graphics, and excitingly addictive nature. In short, its simplicity. Not to mention, playing puzzle games like 2048 has proven to be good for mental and even physical health. It helps improve critical thinking, cognitive development, and tactile responses, among others. There is more to it than meets the eye for the 2048 game!
Concluding Paragraph
It’s true how the biggest of things could start from the simplest and noblest actions. If there’s something to learn from the game’s conception and its creator’s insights, it is that when an opportunity knocks even unexpectedly, grab it. Now that you have the chance to play the game and challenge your mental abilities go ahead and be one of the 2048 addicts that the rest of us are!
