What this game is
This is 2048 with the randomness taken out and an opponent put in its place.
In the original, a 2 or a 4 appears in a random empty square. That makes it a solitaire against luck. Here the empty squares are the opponent's move: the computer looks at every one of them, works out how much room your best reply would leave you, and picks the square that leaves the least. The game becomes what game theory calls it — a two-player game, where you maximise and the tile-placer minimises.
Rules
- Arrow keys, WASD or a swipe move every tile as far as it goes. Two equal tiles that meet merge into one of double the value.
- A tile merges only once per move: a row of 2 2 2 2 becomes 4 4, not 8.
- After every move one new tile appears — a 2 or a 4. On the evil levels the computer chooses both the square and the value.
- The goal tile depends on the level: 1024 with a random spawner, 512 at half evil, 256 when the spawner never gives you anything. Those numbers are measured, not guessed — see the last section.
Why the goal drops as the spawner gets nastier
The drop was measured on this very code. A simple player that always takes the move with the best immediate position reaches about 1024 against random tiles, 256 at half evil and 128 when the spawner is fully hostile — the same player, the same board, only the tiles are no longer falling by chance. The corner strategy that carries the original game stops working on its own.
This is the same shift as everywhere else on the site — the moment chance is replaced by an opponent, the problem changes class. Solitaire against luck becomes a search against a mind, and the numbers you are used to stop applying.