My Most Recent (and Final) Score
in the game called “2048”

This won't mean a thing if you don't know this game, but if you do, I hope your jaw is suitably on the floor at that score.

When I still had the cold that I recently got over, I would sometimes pass the time playing the simple game “2048”. I played on my phone, but anyone can play for free at the creator's website. It's fun and addictive.

During this sick time a game would last a few minutes, and I could get a score of about 2,000. Anthony and I had a running competition, and at first he could do better than me. But as my cold subsided, I got better, and with luck, could get a score of 5,000 and once even 7,000.

Then a few days ago I got one hint of strategy online, and boom, my scores started going up. This hint got me paying attention to the gameplay in a different way, and from there I came up with some important rules of thumb that really caused my scores to explode. 12,000 then 29,700, then 33,000.

Unfortunately, the games started lasting longer and longer, and when I'm not sick I just don't have the time to waste on games. If I could limit myself to filling lost time (like in the bathroom or while stretching at the gym) I do it, but I don't have that kind of willpower, because it's quite fun.

Today's last game was sweet. Things were just humming along perfectly like a machine. Here's a screenshot I took at one really nice moment... this means nothing if you don't know the game, but if you do, you can imagine what the next few moves will yield...

Moments Before My First “4096” Tile

Typical Scene Later On
nice and orderly

Things started to unravel when I allowed myself to get into a situation where I had no choice but to move down, along the lines of this mockup I made in Photoshop:

Bad Situation
( mockup made in Photoshop )

So I had to move down, and of course a “2” tile pops up right where the “4096” tile was, and that started things falling apart.

By the way, if you're a programmer, this long thread at Stack Overflow, on computer algorithms to play the game, is fun reading. One guy's program could score 377,792(!)