2048 score: how the points work and what counts as good

How the score is worked out

The rule is short. Every time two tiles merge, the value of the tile they make is added to your score. Nothing else scores: not the tiles that appear after each move, not the number of moves, not the time you take.

A single swipe can make several merges, one per pair, and each counts. A tile can only merge once per swipe, so a row of four 2s becomes two 4s (8 points), not one 8.

How many points each tile is worth

A tile carries the points of every merge that went into it. A 16 made from two 8s scores 16, but each 8 also scored 8 when it was made, and each 4 inside them scored 4. Add it all up and a tile built only from 2s is worth its own value once for every level of doubling above 2. For a tile of 2^k that is (k − 1) × 2^k points.

Real games come out a little lower than the table, because about one new tile in ten is a 4 that appeared on its own and so never earned the 4 points of a merge. Real games also come out a little higher, because the rest of the board holds tiles with points of their own. The two roughly cancel: in the game's own computer player's runs, the score on the move the first 2048 appeared was between 20,400 and 21,300.

What is a good 2048 score?

Because the score follows the tiles so closely, the honest answer is: a good score is the score of the tile you are aiming for.

Notice how the points nearly double, and a bit more, with every tile. A 1024 game is worth less than half a 2048 game, which is why the last stretch from 1024 to 2048 feels so long: it earns more points than everything before it put together.

How to raise your score

Since points only come from merges, a higher score means keeping the game alive long enough to make bigger tiles. There is no trick that earns points faster than playing well.

• Play the corner strategy. Keeping the biggest tile in a corner with a snake of falling numbers beside it is what gets games past 1024. Our guide to winning 2048 walks through it.
• Keep going after 2048. The game does not end when you win. Every merge after that still scores, and a 4096 is worth more than twice a 2048.
• Use the undo for real slips. An undo takes back the move, the points it scored and the tile that came with it. It cannot change which tile comes next, so use it to choose a better direction, not to fish for luck.
• Try a bigger board. On 5×5 and 6×6 games last thousands of moves and scores of 100,000 come within reach.

Points in the Daily

The Daily 2048 gives everyone the same tiles and 300 moves. The result is the biggest tile first and the points second, so the score is the tie-breaker between players who reach the same tile. With the moves fixed, how much value reaches the board is about the same for everyone; what differs is how much of it you merge into big tiles before the moves run out. The game's careful computer player ends its Dailies on a 512 with about 4,500 to 4,800 points.