Another game has taken over the PC and app store, and this time it has nothing to do with the frustration of tapping the screen or keys as players try to keep a bird from hitting a Mario-like pipe. It’s a game that requires no significant skill, except the knowledge of basic addition. It’s called ‘2048’, and it’s the newest craze in the mobile app world and with the Elder student body.

The game is simple, it’s based on a 4×4 table and it starts with two tiles with the number 2 on them. The player must combine the two tiles to make a 4, after every move, a 2 or a 4 pops up randomly somewhere else on the table. When the player has a 4 tile, they must combine with another 4 to make an 8, and so on with the power of twos format. The player officially wins when they add up two 1024 tiles to make a 2048, but the game allows the player to go on to build up their score. The player loses when all the tiles fill up and there are no more moves to make.

The key for the player is to keep their largest tile in one of the top or bottom corners, depending on which way they choose to start. The most popular way is to go down, and once they start down, the player should never hit the up arrow again. The best way to win is to keep his highest sum of the tiles in the bottom row, and if the player moves them up, a 2 tile will appear and it will throw the whole game off balance, and an almost inevitable loss.

There is nothing special about the game. The unique feature is that the game only uses the up-and-down-and-side-to-side arrows to maneuver the tiles on the PC while a simple swipe of a finger is used on the iPhone/iPod/Android. The game is simple, but just like the past couple months with Flappy Bird, it is extremely addicting.

Just like the other simplistic games that take over the world for a few months at a time, no one really knows why it is so addicting.

“I’m not really sure why it’s so addicting. You can either play it strategically and really think about it or just click around and still get points. Just something fun to do during class,” senior Joe Dunajcik said.

Just like all the spin offs with ‘Flappy Bird’, this game also has many ‘2048’-wannabes. A popular one here at Elder is called ‘Poke2048’, a game set up just like the original ‘2048’, but instead of numbered tiles, they feature Pokémon characters from the popular children’s playing card game and TV show Pokémon. Some students like ‘Poke2048’ more than the original.

“Personally, I have more fun with Poke2048, but that’s just me,” senior Josh Eninger said.

Other spinoffs have other formats like 8×8 tables and have other names but the game is the same.

It’s actually a mystery why ‘2048’ is topping the app store charts because ‘2048’ in itself is actually a mix of the games ‘Threes’ and ‘1024’. That’s just the way it goes in the internet/app store, one game can take over while there are many others that are almost identical.

Here at Elder, the tech team in Room 303 try their hardest to keep the websites blocked and the students paying attention in class, but with the Google Chrome add-ons and the literally hundreds of sites that pop up when a simple ‘2048’ Google search is typed in, they don’t have a fighting chance. So as the school year comes to an end and math teachers try to teach exponential functions, the students will stay with their simple power of twos.