Game modes
M2048 has two games, classic 2048 and the card game EX-2048, and several ways to play each: alone, against a practice bot, against a random opponent, against a friend, or in a tournament. Here is what each mode is and who it suits.
Playing on your own
Classic
The original game: a 4 by 4 board, no clock, and as long as you like. Slide, merge and see how far you get. Classic is where to learn the rules and to practise the long-term board control that every other mode relies on.
Your board is saved to your account, so you can leave in the middle of a game and pick it up later from the same position. Your best score is kept as a personal best, and the highest Classic scores appear in the rankings.
Blitz
Blitz is Classic against the clock. You have 3 minutes to score as many points as you can, and the game ends when time runs out or when you have no moves left, whichever comes first.
It rewards a different skill from Classic. With no time to plan every move, you need a board shape you can keep playing by habit, and you have to accept some risk: a slightly messy board that keeps producing merges beats a tidy one you are too slow to build. Blitz has its own personal best and its own ranking.
Playing against other people
Head-to-head 2048 is played on one shared board, taking turns, with each player scoring their own merges. The full rules, including clocks and the 10% penalty, are on the how to play page.
Ranked
Ranked games match you with a player of similar strength and change both players' ratings when the game ends. You choose a time control of 3, 5, 10 or 15 minutes per player, and each time control has its own rating, because being good at 3-minute games and being good at 15-minute games are different skills.
How ratings work:
- Everyone starts at 1000.
- Beating a higher-rated player gains more than beating a lower-rated one, and losing to a lower-rated player costs more.
- If you stop playing a time control for a long time, your rating becomes a little less settled for each month away, so it can adjust quickly again when you come back.
Ranked play needs a registered account; guest accounts can play everything else.
Unranked
The same game as Ranked, against a random opponent, with nothing riding on the result. Use it to warm up, try a new time control, or play as a guest.
Private rooms
To play someone you know, create a room, choose the game and the time control, and send your friend the room link or its short code. The game starts once you are both in. Room games are for fun and do not affect ratings.
Tournaments
A tournament is its own closed pool of players. Members queue from inside the tournament and are only ever matched against other members. Tournament games do not change your normal rating; instead they count towards the tournament's own standings, so a tournament can run over days without the results leaking into the global rankings. Joining a tournament needs a registered account.
EX-2048
EX-2048 is a turn-based card game built on 2048. The board is smaller (3 by 3) and new tiles do not appear on their own: you place them with cards, pay for moves with cards, and buy new cards from a shop that is different every game. It is slower and more strategic than 2048, so its time controls are longer: 15, 30, 45 or 60 minutes per player. EX-2048 can be played ranked, unranked, in private rooms and in tournaments, with its own ratings.
The EX-2048 guide covers the rules, every card, and how to think about the shop.
Practice against bots
Both games have a set of computer opponents to practise against: nine for 2048 and six for EX-2048, from gentle to genuinely hard, with some of them reserved for supporters. Each bot has a rating so you can see roughly how strong it is before you start. Bot games never change your rating, and the game remembers which bots you have beaten, which makes them a good ladder to climb before your first ranked game.
Rankings, profiles and replays
- Rankings list the best Classic and Blitz scores, and the highest 2048 and EX-2048 ratings for each time control. You can view them worldwide or for a single country.
- Profiles show a player's ratings and recent games. Every player has a public profile page, so you can look up an opponent after a game.
- Replays let you step through a recent multiplayer game move by move, from either player's side. A game can be watched for two days after it is played, and stays in your match history, with its result and rating change, for two weeks.
Guest accounts
You do not need to register to play. A guest account is created for your browser with one click and can play Classic, Blitz, unranked games, private rooms and bots. Ranked games, tournaments, friends and profile changes need a registered account, because a guest account cannot be recovered if your browser data is cleared. Registering is free.