About 2048

Swipe and every tile on the board slides as far as it can go. Two tiles showing the same number collide and become one tile worth their sum, and a new 2 — occasionally a 4 — appears in an empty cell after every move that changed something. Reach the 2048 tile and you have done what the game is named for, though nothing stops you carrying on: the board only ends the game when it is full and no two neighbours match.

The difficulty is that every swipe moves everything, so the cost of a move is never local. The standard advice is to pick a corner, keep your largest tile there and never make the move that would pull it away, building a descending row beneath it. It works until the row fills and you are forced into the move you were avoiding — which is the moment most games are actually lost.

Drop mode is the other way to play a merging game: tiles fall into one of five columns, and a tile that lands touching tiles of the same value takes them all at once, doubling once for each, with the column settling afterwards and often setting off more. The daily challenge is a classic board, the same for everyone who makes the same moves, with a leaderboard for the day.

Tips to win

• Choose one corner for your largest tile and make the move that empties it only when there is no alternative
• Keep the row holding your big tiles in descending order, so each pair can merge in turn
• Swipe in only three directions for as long as you can; the fourth is what breaks a tidy board
• In Drop mode, a tile that can take a neighbour on both sides at once is worth far more than two separate merges