2048 3×3

This is 2048 squeezed onto a board of nine squares. The rules are the same as the classic game: swipe or press an arrow key, every tile slides as far as it can, and two equal tiles that meet become one tile worth their sum. What changes is the room. With only nine cells, one careless move can fill the board, so the goal here is the 256 tile rather than 2048. Make it and you can keep going for 512, which takes real care and a little luck.

Why the small board is hard

A new tile appears after every move, and on this board it takes up a ninth of your space. You can't park small tiles in a spare corner and deal with them later, because there is no spare corner. A row of three holds very few combinations, so the board locks up the moment the numbers stop lining up.

Strategy for 3×3

• Keep your biggest tile in a corner and your second biggest beside it, so the top row reads like a ladder: 64, 32, 16.
• Use two directions most of the time, for example left and up. Reach for a third only when nothing else moves, and almost never press the one that pulls your big tile out of its corner.
• Merge as soon as you can. On this board, a pair of 2s left waiting is a square you don't have.
• Before every swipe, count the empty squares the move will leave. If the answer is one, think twice.

Undo, continue and your record

You get one free undo per game, and a short ad buys more. When the board fills, you can watch an ad once per game to clear the two smallest tiles and play on. The 3×3 board keeps its own game, best score and stats, separate from the other sizes. Want more room? Try the classic 4×4, or the roomier 5×5 and 6×6 boards.