Reglas del 2048

2048 has six rules, and every board position you will ever see is a consequence of them. Each one below is stated exactly as the game engine applies it on 2048.now. New to the game? The how to play 2048 walkthrough is a gentler start, and the gameplay guide covers these rules alongside the site features built on them.

The board

2048 is played on a square grid. 2048.now runs three sizes — Classic 4×4 (16 cells), Large 5×5 (25 cells) and Expert 6×6 (36 cells) — and the rules are identical on all three; only the amount of room changes. Every game opens with two tiles already placed on random cells, each drawn independently as a 2 or a 4.

Rule 1: a swipe moves every tile as far as it can go

There is only one kind of action: a swipe up, down, left or right, applied to the whole board at once. Every tile slides in that direction until it hits the wall or another tile, so gaps close completely — a lone tile on the far side of an empty row crosses the whole grid in one move. Tiles never move diagonally, never move against the swipe and never stop halfway, and you cannot move one tile on its own. Arrow keys, WASD, a mouse drag and a touch swipe all produce the same four moves; the 2048 controls reference lists every input.

Rule 2: only equal tiles merge

Two tiles carrying the same number combine into one tile of double the value when a swipe pushes them together: 2 and 2 become 4, 4 and 4 become 8, up to 1024 and 1024 becoming 2048. Different values never combine, however often you swipe them together — a 4 pressed against an 8 stays a 4 and an 8. Distance is not an obstacle, because gaps close before merges resolve: two 16s at opposite ends of an empty row meet and merge in one swipe. The value you create is added to your score, so a 2048 tile built from spawned 2s banks exactly 20,480 points on the way.

Rule 3: a merged tile is locked for the rest of that swipe

A tile can take part in at most one merge per swipe. The moment it is created by a merge it is finished for that move, even if it lands beside an identical tile. A row of four 2s swiped left becomes two 4s, never a single 8 — and those two new 4s cannot combine until your next swipe. A row of 2, 2, 4 behaves the same way: the 2s make a 4 and stop, leaving 4 and 4 for the following move. This rule is behind most avoidable mistakes, because a board cannot be compressed as fast as it looks like it can.

Rule 4: every move that changes the board spawns one tile

After a swipe resolves, one new tile appears on a random cell among those still empty. It is a 2 nine times out of ten and a 4 one time in ten, and you have no influence over its value or position. Because exactly one tile arrives per move and each merge removes exactly one, a move that merges nothing leaves you with strictly less free space than before.

Rule 5: you win when a 2048 tile exists

The win condition is checked after every move and is exactly one thing: is there a 2048 tile anywhere on the board? The instant one exists the game is recorded as a win and the clock stops. Nothing else counts — not your score, not your move total. Winning does not end the session: the result screen offers Keep Going, which hands the board straight back exactly as it stood, restarts the clock and lets you push on toward 4096 and 8192. A game is only won once, so everything after that is played for score and for the higher tiles.

Rule 6: the game ends only when no legal move remains

Game over requires two conditions at once: the board is completely full, and no two side-by-side tiles share a value in any row or column. A full board alone is not a loss. If any horizontal or vertical neighbours match anywhere on the grid, a swipe in that direction still merges them. Diagonal neighbours are irrelevant — only orthogonal pairs can merge — so a board that looks finished often is not.

Undo: five per game

2048.now keeps the last five board positions, so you can step back up to five moves in a row. Each undo restores the grid and score exactly as they were before that move, takes one off your move count, and removes the tile that spawned on it. After five steps the history is exhausted. Undo also works on a finished board — taking back the move that locked the grid makes the game playable again — so a loss is not final while you still have undos.