ScottVee Gaming

About the Merge X3 game I mentioned a few posts ago.  One thing that bugs me with the 2048 games is that they can go on forever.  In this case, if you do get stuck (no open spaces left) it only costs 30 gems to clear the middle of the board and keep going.  I have 4500 coins, so that is essentially endless.  I only used that hack one time. Drag drag drag.  It's not the best use of a human mind ;-) but sometimes we're just in that mood for doing nothing. When I saw that the overall player rankings are based on the highest tile discovered, I only had about 8 tiles to go to move up to the top.   ... and there I am.  #1 player in the world. I do enjoy playing less-popular games, since you have a greater chance of actually ranking in the top zillion players.  For me, for now, getting to #1 counts as beating the game.  Been there, topped off.  On to the next challenge. I won't uninstall it right away.  I will keep an eye for future update...

While that 248Link game is hugely redundant after a while, it is relaxing to drag snakes of numbered tiles and try to complete each level.  You get 30 coins for each completed level, with the option to get up to 20x if you watch an ad.  Since the power-ups all cost 300 coins to use, I will watch the ad if I have <3000 of those coins, otherwise skip it and continue.  This is enough to make sure we never get stuck. There is some strategy to that 248Link game after all.  Sure, you can swipe the longest combos to clear a lot of the board, but sometimes you should keep an eye on exactly when the new piece goes up a tier as you are making that combo.  And there's no point making a 96 tile if there are no tiles near it to make future combos with.  The board can fill up with non-matching tiles if you don't keep a close eye on which numbers you are merging. Try to make combos that are one or two points above the next tier.  For example, five 2s would ...

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 quadrillio...

My 6x6 game of 2K48 finally hit a roadblock and ended.  As expected, I was trying to push forward but had a jam of 128 + 256 + 512 + 1024 + 2048 + 4096.  One more 128 and a few moves would have overloaded the whole sequence up to my second 32768, but there was no space left to move.  That's the challenge, trying to push each block up to the highest possible block, but at some point we do need a second 2048 which means a second 1024 which means a second 512.  I probably could have managed it better and not had so many low values hanging around, but I'm glad it's over.  It takes too much time.  Just a few minutes here and there at home, bathroom breaks, a little bit before bed, and while waiting for things to happen in real life, just the in-between time -- it's still too much.  I should probably uninstall that darn time-sucker and move on to other things.  

There are a variety of games with "2048" in their name, or with tiles showing powers of two up to 2048.  On some of them, the tiles drop down and match to multiply to the next highest number.  On others, the numbers are just decoration and you slide or match blocks for whatever reason.  The "classic" 2048 puzzle is a 4x4 grid where when you slide up, down, right or left, ALL tiles slide as far as they can go in that direction and double up where there's a match. That makes for a really interesting feel, where every time you try to match one pair of tiles (or even line them up) all the other tiles move as well.  But I find that with just a moment's thought before each move, I can keep on doubling and reach the 2048 about 75% of the time, even on a 5x5 or 6x6 board.  Both apps I have been playing let you continue past 2048. There is a very particular feel to these moves, and the tiles seem to flow in a pattern as I make my moves, but I can't pin down exac...