248Link

The 2048 and 2K48 games I mentioned a few posts ago advertise a lot of similar games, and I do try some of them out, usually ending in disappointment about how simple they are or how annoying the ads can be.  There are a lot of games where there is a big grid of numbers already filled in with powers of 2 and you drag long lines to match up snakes of those numbers.

 

248Link goes a bit further, where your snake of numbers can either be a simple match or an ascending group of numbers.  So, you could choose a path of 2-2-2-2 or 2-2-4-4-8.  The new block that is made gets higher as you choose longer combinations.  As the game continues, you unlock higher and higher numbers, going up into the stratosphere, beyond the millions.  

 

The first power of two after a trillion is not 1T as expected, but 1a, setting us on the widely used path of higher powers of 10 being represented by a, then b, then c.  The named powers after a trillion are a quadrillion and quintillion, so that is where the common letters would fail anyway, as the next two would both be 1 Q.  So how high up does the ladder go?  In 248Link they go up to 1bz which is 10^243 (1 followed by 243 zeroes), then it lists an infinity block.  That's certainly a lofty goal.  I wonder what happens then.

These paths of ascending numbers are not as obvious when these big numbers are involved.  I am looking right now at a string of 37d(x3)-75d-151d-302d(x4)-604d-1e to get a new 9e tile.

And check out this string of tiles:

 

The game shows the tile you are building at the top center, which is very helpful.  Without that, it would look annoyingly random.

I just got the 309e tile, which retired the 37d tile.  By retiring old tiles, all those tiles vanish and the pattern becomes easier to play for a while, then it starts to snarl up again until you unlock another tile.  Trick is, when you unlock a new tile, you can watch an add with a little bonus slider that pings from side to side, so you can get x5 up to x20 the points for watching the ad, and you can spend those points on three power ups: undo previous move, destroy a tile, or swap two tiles.

Like the others in the 2048 family of games, this one feels like it could be never-ending.  But you should always be able to get enough power ups to sneak past the sticking points and keep playing.

Anyway, I will pull in some screen shots when I get the chance.  My current score i 3,097e.

You can remove ads for $1.99 but I wonder what that does to those bonus sliders.