Show HN: 2048 without numbers | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: 2048 without numbers

prism.clay.io

54 pointsZolmeister046 comments

By far my favourite version of this game. I seem to be able to build up more of a 'rhythm' and, for once, it doesn't feel entirely like I'm just randomly pushing blocks around in the hope that things will work out OK. I feel like I've built up a system. Having said that, I'm still no master - I just don't think my brain is wired for this game genre.

Really weird effect: having stared at the screen intently for several minutes playing this game, then flipping to another tag, my vision seems to be 'zoomed out' ...

The zoomed out thing happened to me too... I was wondering if my resolution had changed, but I always have my resolution turned all the way up. Interesting effect.

I liked this one, but I also found it much easier. Which makes me wonder if that was by design, I certainly hit the win condition quicker than I have on any of them.

Also it's interesting to see what people have done with the concept since the original, I imagine a few people are bored but how often do we get to see the community focussed around one thing?

I think it ends at 1024?

That seems about right yeah, the difficulty is half the fun.

The score is still a number. It would be interesting if the score, too, were a color.

My favourite version so far. Most people are sick of all the 2048 clones but I for one enjoy seeing the creativity.

So it's basically the same as the doge version (http://doge2048.com), only less hilarious?

The doge version is by far the best of all the iterations.

This is awesome! But, for me, totally unplayable! Being colourblind I just cannot differentiate the different shades of the lighter greens and the yellows. I so wish I could play this as it looks and feels amazing.

Fascinating that I did far better on this version (if the score is tallied the same) than I have on any version with the numbers. It seems that sets are much more obvious using colours than numbers and as a result I missed fewer positive moves, especially as the board filled up.

This makes a very interesting UI lesson.

And interesting UI/UX lesson would be to keep in mind colourblind people. Almost every time someone posts some graphs or stats I can't read the graph at all. I think having numbers and colours helps a lot.

Very true, colours ONLY is a poor idea. However well chosen colours, especially taking into account most common colour blindness limitations, can certainly aid in quickly comprehending related items in a UI.

Just out of curiosity, would an colorblind setting in the graphic drive help at all? What I was thinking, for example, if you are red/green colorblind, then compress all the red values to one end of the spectrum, and all the green values to the other end. Or some other remapping scheme, based on the type of colorblindness.

This is cool and I somehow find it less confusing than version(s) with numbers! Plus points for it working with touchscreens!

I agree! I found this version to be much easier for some reason. Possibly the brain is quicker to recognize and match the colours than when I'm forcing myself to look for numbers?

Numbers are important because you can plan out where to slide particular blocks to form "chains." It's difficult to predict the various levels of blocks with colors, whereas numbers are simply powers of two.

But the colors are just as much 'in order'

The difference in level between 2 and 8 is far more obvious than "shade of blue" and "shade of green"

For you, maybe. For others, maybe not.

It's the same thing really, beat this right away with the way I play 2048.

Cool version but it needs the "continue playing" option like the original 2048 game has once you reach the end. I finished this one on my first try.

Obligatory "doesn't work in firefox" quote here.

As an aside, ever since I switched off Chrome (google is oppressive with google+) for safari/firefox a lot of newer, smaller sites have rendering issues. I guess it's the price I have to pay to be free of the beast that is Google.

Could you point out what is oppressive about Chrome? I don't see any G+ in here.

It's the fact that everything you do with Google Chrome is tracked by Google. Nevertheless, Google Chrome makes my life easier, so I don't mind giving them my usage information if in the end it all works out in my favor. Some people however, don't like sending all this data over to Google. That's understandable since it can also be used to harm you. Literally.

Heh, checked iOS, Android, even Windows Phone... but not Firefox - doh! Should be fixed

Mostly works for me in firefox, the far right column of the grid does not show, but all of the functionality works. It is a little annoying that you have to click and drag instead of using the arrows, but I guess that's because it is made for touchscreens.

Tried it again and it all appears to work!

For some reason I'm able to focus a bit better on the task of building up blocks when it's just colors. At first I thought I wouldn't like it, then I got into a few games and it felt subtly better.

Source: https://github.com/Zolmeister/prism

I was about to start working on a 'candy crush' / match 3+ 2048 and this is really similar :)

You can actually sort of "hack" it by just clicking randomly very fast at the buttons. I don't know what happens technically tho.

You're simulating a swipe.

Wow - in terms of input-mechanism support, overall look, and little flourishes, this has to be the most 'complete' version I've seen. Apart from the broken styling on the 'game over' screen, that is.

This is nice, a much better looking version of 2048. No way I'm upvoting it though, there's been too much of this already.

Obligatory color-deficiency comment goes here.

This one doesn't spawn the 4's (lightest blue) 10% of the time. I think that that makes it much easier.

The first of all versions that I won. For some reason I found this much easier than the number original version.

This is totally unfriendly to colourblind people like me.

edit: to be clear, the game usability is unfriendly

Only clone of 2048 I really enjoyed , colours are soothing to eyes

The animations are to slow for me, kills the playability.

this is nice. What libraries did you use to build it? It's like a cleaner version for the non-technocratic masses...

I got a Prism but it said game over. Bug?

doge2048.com version is also numberless

This, I like.

This may be unintentional, but its name is Prism.

2013 HN: Prism

2014 HN: 2048

It's like the blocks have been slid together to become one.

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