With Flappy Bird
long forgotten, pulled from the Google Plan and Apple iTunes store by its
creator by Dong Nguyen as reported in my blog article
entitled “Developer
Dong Nguyen takes down US$50000 a day Flappy Bird App - Unwanted Media
Attention leaves DotGears Game as the first In-App Advertising Gaming App”,
it seems a new light has been cast upon the Mobile Gaming World.
Since then, I’ve
penned a few articles on other Mobile Games in a bid to make my fellow
Jamaicans realize that there’s money to be made from developing Video Games as
well as to highlight the various business Models used to make money. So here
goes another one about the recent HTML5 Free Gaming phenomenon known as 2048 as described in “2048
is the new Flappy Bird in so many ways”, published March 20, 2014 1:07 PM
PDT by Eric Mack, CNET News.
This is
basically a free version of the popular Game Threes! as described in my blog article entitled
“Threes!,
an Engaging Mathematics Puzzle Game for Apple iOS - Sudoku in Multiples of
Three by Sirvo LLC Design Trio should be Inspiration to Game Developers in
Jamaica”.
So why the
Flappy Bird Comparisons?
Like that famed Game
for smartphones, this Website only PC and Tablet Game (playing on a smartphone
is difficult!) is easy to play when it just starts out, but gets progressively
harder the higher the levels get. And like Threes!, all you have to do is
match a few Tiles with the same number on them by sliding them with your mouse
or finger. Your aim is to add the Tiles together and thus make higher and
higher sums, doubling the score and thus coming closer and closer to the top
namesake score of 2048!
Each move uses
up space on the Board, so you must carefully swipe left or right or up and down
to match Tiles with the same number, the lowest possible number Tile appearing
on the board being 2 or 4. Unlike Threes!, a new Tile is always a 2
or a 4 and can pop up randomly anywhere on the board instead of coming down
Tetris-Style from above, making creating larger sums easy!
How
to beat 2048 – Mathematical Sudoku Time Travel and a Little Planning are
required
Beating the Game
is a lot easier than Threes! however. All you have to do
is observe a few basic rules while playing the Game. Like Sudoku, the Corner is
always a great place to start.
You can build
your Strategy around grouping together larger Tiles that are in that Corner of
your choice. This is helpful as it stays put when the right Tile (or space-time
in this 2 dimensional Game?) comes for a match. At that point, you’re ready to
slide beside, making it disappear and thus gain a higher score Tile.
However, it
restricts you to 2 moves at a time. In my case, I have a preference for the Lower
Right Corner (maybe because I’m left-brained, right handed person!), thus
restricting me to moves downwards or to the Right.
Gridlock is sure
to be coming fast, so avoid pulling in directions opposite to that Corner Tile
you’ve chosen. To avoid this, always makes sure the next largest multiple below
your largest Tile in the Corner is ever present e.g. if you have 512 in the Corner,
make sure you have 256 beside it. This is the essence of the Corner Strategy!
 |
Summing two Tiles
in the opposite direction to your largest Tile makes sure this is always the
case. This reduces the possibility of a Gridlock and thus creates more
opportunities to add higher multiples to create a large one to add to your Corner
Tile.
Scores of 1024
should be easily achievable this way. Then the Game suddenly starts to get
difficult as avoiding rectangular-build up of Tiles, rendering the Corner Strategy
useless. At this point, you need abandon the above Corner Strategy and actually
pull on the Rectangle downwards, creating space for another set of 2's and 4's
to appear, a Strategy that I call the Rectangle Strategy.
 |
However, be
careful with the Rectangle Strategy!
Never allow the
2's to overwhelm your board, always taking every opportunity to slide and sum
them up to 4's, 8's and 16's, always maintain a higher multiple beside another
higher multiple, with you highest being in your favorite Corner! That way if
you have a buildup towards a Gridlock being initiated by larger multiples,
you'll have a ready supply of 16's. These you can easily slide and combine to
create multiples you can sum and create even higher multiples in your Corner,
freeing up the board tremendously.
Another noteworthy
point in 2048 is that once
you focus on maintaining the Corner Strategy and utilizing the Rectangle Strategy
in times of trouble, you'll notice that just like Games like PopCap’s Bejeweled
and iWin’s JewelQuest,
King’s Candy Crush Saga
and even Rovio’s Juice
Cubes as explained in my blog article entitled
“Rovio
Juice Cubes is a Freemium In-App Purchase Gold Bar Mine - To get to Level 200,
you have to become Goldfinger but Crypto-currency will make In-App Purchases
tolerable”, the Tiles will naturally come and combine with each other!
This keeps the
board clear for other Tiles to appear. Doing all the above strategies, both the
Corner Strategy as well as the Rectangle Strategy will maintain an active
higher value in the Corner at all times as you power towards the elusive 2048 score and beyond.
2048 is a 2D Game with 3D Potential – Crypto-currency
Mining will make this Game take off
Like Threes! as described in my blog article entitled
“Threes!,
an Engaging Mathematics Puzzle Game for Apple iOS - Sudoku in Multiples of
Three by Sirvo LLC Design Trio should be Inspiration to Game Developers in
Jamaica”, 2048 is very
engaging and tempts you to believe it is beatable in the early stages with easy
scores.
But once you
start getting deeper into the Game and closer to the elusive 2048 score, the Game turns it
up a notch. One then wonders what would happen to the difficulty level if Games
like 2048 were to not only
get the 3D Treatment but also the Oculus Rift VR (Virtual Reality) Treatment.
This as
Facebook, now having acquired 2 year old company Oculus Rift, makers of the
KickStarter funded VR Headset as stated in “Facebook
to buy Oculus for $2 billion”, published March 25, 2014 5:35 PM PDT by
Jennifer Van Grove, CNET News, may seek to
have Game Developers develop 3D Versions of their Games, thus enticing Gamers
to pay premium Charges to own an Oculus Rift VR Headset and play these Games.
To make the game
even more enticing, games like 2048,
Threes!,
PopCap’s Bejeweled
and iWin’s JewelQuest,
King’s Candy Crush Saga
and even Rovio’s Juice
Cubes can include Crypto-Currency Mining. Each time you collect a coin or
valuable jewel in the Games, it sends a request to a bank of Servers to mine a
particular Crypto-Currency of choice and deposits the mined crypto-currency in
an Online Wallet of your choosing.
Unlike the Apps
in the articles “Millions
of Android app downloads infected with cryptocoin-mining code”, published
Thursday 27 March 2014 13.17 GMT by Stuart Dredge, The UK Guardian and “Google
cracks down on dodgy Android apps”, published March 31, 2014 By Michelle
Starr, CNET News, it would be known to
the user, allowing you the user to actually make virtual money while they play
their favourite games.
Jamaican Game
Developers take note!
All money
mentioned are tied to having a US Credit Card that can receive payments or a
virtual Wallet to store Crypto-Currency, the new Babylonian System of Currency
for the Digital Age. But combining a verified PayPal Account with a Scotia VISA Debit Card or CIBC VISA Debit
Card and some Game Developer skills, you can tie an In-App advertising
Revenue System into your Game.
As a Game Developer you can make money in the
same manner from Video Games as described in my blog article
entitled “Animation
after KingstOOn - How to make a Video Game for PC, Smartphone and Tablet”.
Italian programmer Gabriele Cirulli merely shows another way to achieve
this goal, as it won’t be long before his very popular yet clearly free HTML5 Game
will be ported to the Apple iTunes Store and the Google Play Store and
eventually attract the interest of Game Console Studios, starting with
Facebook’s Oculus Rift!
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