[jmduke]

I strongly disagree with this, and I've played a lot of both Threes and 2048. The only serious mechanical difference is starting off with 1s and 2s instead of 2s and 4s -- everything else is exactly the same (from a gameplay perspective: Threes of course has way more polish). I think it's incredibly disingenuous to say that the similarities are superficial.

I mean, hell, 1024's marketing copy literally says "no need to pay for ThreesGames." https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/1024!/id823499224

[stevejohnson]

Pedantic corrections to follow (but useful ones, I hope).

There is one substantive gameplay difference between Threes and ArbitraryPowerOfTwo.

In Threes, a swipe moves the game board one square.

In ArbitraryPowerOfTwo, a swipe applies gravity to the game board in the swipe's direction until it settles.

I've played both, and that difference does not significantly affect gameplay or strategy.

[jmduke]

Yep, you're correct.

[saurik]

So, I have also played both of these games, and am now at the point where I can beat 2048 with reasonable probability.

This slide/move difference actually has massive effects on gameplay as it means there are situations you can get into while playing 2048 that are difficult or even impossible to recover from that you can easily extricate yourself from while playing Threes. To make up for this, the way you have to match 1s and 2s together (as opposed to simply matching the values, as you can in 2048) makes organizing the lowest level of the board slightly more complicated.

I frankly bet if we asked the developer of Threes about the 1st and 2st thing he'd say he toyed with the idea of a game where the matching was more direct (as its pretty obvious consider it) and realized that it felt "too easy": the only thing making 2048 continue to be difficult is the lack of explicit control over the tiles; though, that also makes it easier, as you can move items much more quickly around the board without more clutter appearing.

I would say this is similar to how in Tetris Attack you can horizontally swap any two tiles, but in Bejeweled you can swap tiles vertically or horizontally, but only temporarily: they have effectively the same mechanic (you need to match tiles of similar color), the same overall physics (items drop to fill in gaps), the same kinds of tactics, but the amount of control you have over the game board and what moves you have are quite different in feel due to the seemingly minor control changes.

(FWIW, I find Tetris Attack and 2048 "fun", and I find Bejeweled and Threes "infuriating". This is likely somewhat to do with the fact that I find Tetris Attack and 2048 "easier" than Bejeweled and Threes, but I would hope that it is more to do with some of the things I really enjoyed about Tetris Attack--the speed of movement, the building of structure, and the intricacy of "skill chains"--not being tactically relevant in Bejeweled, and in the case of Threes that the 1s and 2s are randomized in such a way where I often feel "this game isn't even winnable: I have a board full of 1s... this isn't even fair", which is a situation fundamentally impossible in 2048.)

[cwyers]

That's not even a mechanical difference, the additive nature of the two is still the same. The biggest mechanical difference is Threes moves tiles one space at a time, while 2048 moves tiles as far as they can go.

[jmduke]

You're right, of course -- though the 1&2 vs. 2&4 is still a mechanical difference due to the random distribution of the new tiles. In Threes, you can be faced with a long string of 1s without seeing any 2s (and vice-versa); such a problem doesn't exist in 2048, since you can match the tiles with themselves.

[bgilroy26]

The difference between Threes and 2048 is that Threes moves the tiles on the board one space in the direction chosen by the player. In 2048, they move as far as they can go before being blocked by another tile or the sides of the board.

The numbers on the tiles are not a serious mechanical difference.

[cdelsolar]

The 1s & 2s are a very big difference because in 2048 you always know that if you save a 2 you will have another one pop up. There's no such mechanic in 3s.

[jaredsohn]

More pedantry: in threes you actually start out with 1s,2s,3s, or higher values (6s, etc.) vs. 2s,4s. It also offers a preview of what your next piece will be (1 vs. 2 vs. other).