Slide the tiles, merge matching numbers, and keep doubling until a 2048 tile appears.
Every move adds a new tile, so the board fills as you play and the game is really about keeping it tidy.
Swipe or use the arrow keys to slide every tile in that direction. Tiles slide as far as they can and stop when they hit a wall or another tile.
Two tiles with the same number merge into one tile of double the value, and a tile can only merge once per move.
A new 2 or 4 appears after every move that changes the board, which is why moves that do nothing are worth avoiding.
The game ends when the board is full and no two neighbouring tiles match. Reaching 2048 is the classic target, but nothing stops you carrying on.
Pick a corner and keep your biggest tile there. Build the row along that edge in order, and only ever slide in the two directions that keep the corner occupied.
Usually because of a stray swipe in the fourth direction. One move that shifts the big tile out of the corner can take a dozen moves to undo.
Yes, around one time in ten. It is not a mistake, it is part of the pressure.
Yes. The tile is a milestone rather than an ending, and 4096 is a genuinely different problem.
2048 was written in a weekend in 2014 and spread faster than almost any browser game before it, partly because it is honest: nothing is hidden, and every loss is clearly something you did.
The maths is simple and the tension is not. Each merge buys you a square and each move costs you one, so a good game is a long argument about tidiness.
Keep the big tiles together along one edge, keep the next size down beside them, and the merges take care of themselves.