It's a nice narrative to think that the innovative product where they spent 1.5 years agonizing over the details is obviously superior to the derivative product banged out in a weekend, but that's not the case, in my opinion.<p>I much prefer 2048. The $2 I spent on threes was $2 well spent, but 2048 is the game I pick up when I want to play something. (although the game should have been called 4096).
The success of 2048 is some good evidence that minimalism in design and minimalism in aesthetics are both good ideas.<p>Simply put, 2048 is more elegant than Threes. It might have flaws that the developers of Threes have solved. It turns out that those flaws don't really matter.
Just because Wired is reblogging Threes' own piece on 2048[1] doesn't make it any more legit.<p>[1] <a href="http://asherv.com/threes/threemails/#letter" rel="nofollow">http://asherv.com/threes/threemails/#letter</a>
Considering Threes! is a failure compared to 2048's usage amounts, it would be more interesting to hear what they did wrong. E.g. wasted over a year working on something they should have pushed out immediately. Spent money on design that wasn't needed. Etc..
This article shows how mobile gaming may be profitable on the short term, but in the end of the day, AAA games aren't going anywhere. It takes so much few time and expertise to clone mobile games, investing on a obile company is just insanity.<p>Comparing this to Tetris is just hubris.
I bet there won't be anyone people playing Threes in 30 years instead of the latest fad.
FWIW, Threes is(/was) the App of the Week at Starbucks Canada last week. Go pick up a card if you want to get Threes for free (no purchase necessary, I guess. Just grab one off the counter and go).
Threes is actually pretty badly designed as a mobile game, imo. It has too many potential control points on a small screen, is audio intensive, and has a long startup time (I mean, wtf. It takes 5-10 seconds to start up!)<p>Threes might be a better "game", in that there's an easy strategy to do well in 2048, but Threes is a bad mobile game. The ideal mobile game would be something which could be played for 30-90 seconds, paused or looked away from without lasting negative consequence, but with timing as a key factor, and 4-8 possible touch points on the screen, IMO.<p>"Rez" would probably do well for mobile (the playstation vibrator game).
I've played and enjoyed both games.<p>Threes is beautiful, but to be honest it sometimes feels so...heavy. The animations, the sounds, the repetitive music...sometimes it grows tiresome. Meanwhile, 2048 is something I can throw up on a browser on any device (something I can't do with Threes) and just hash through a few games. This is not including the time I spent on the various 2048 clones, made possible because (again unlike Threes) the source code for 2048 is freely available online.<p>It may be less challenging, but when has challenge ever been a criteria for a game to be fun, or even a "masterpiece"?
A great success by the threes team for sure.<p>But I have to wonder what if that final version had been banged out in the first weekend, would it have been recognized as the winner? Would a team then stop innovating and switch to build it (and saved 1.2 years for who knows what else)?<p>From a product dev standpoint i'm torn. There's a lot to be learned through iterating through complexities, challenging everything and ending with a simpler solution. But there's plenty to be lost by the argyle distractions as well.<p>HN, how do you do know when to stop brainstorming and ship?
I think the problem with Threes is that it is slightly too hard, which leads to too much frustration. We all love a challenge, but at least its possible to eventually beat 2048.
3s > 2048! But 2048 is more popular?! How did it happen? I've heard this story before.<p>I think the author of 3s screwed up by going iOS first. There are millions of hungry Android devs out there. If you release a game that's iOS only, and it turns out to be really popular, and it has fairly simple game logic... there will be an Android clone in under 24 hours.<p>It's a cautionary tale. Release on iOS first at your own risk.
I disagree 2048 sucks. It's a totally different game from Threes. But I do think a little design will make 2048 better -- that's why I created "Edge Up 3072". Try it out: <a href="http://3072.clingmarks.com/" rel="nofollow">http://3072.clingmarks.com/</a>
The article fails to explain in explicit terms what exactly makes "threes" so much better than 2048. Time in development is irrelevant to the user, who only ever sees the end result.
I thought we'd all added "Threes! vs 2048" to the ever increasing list of useless topics of argument.<p>Skimming over the comments here, I could easily replace Threes! and 2048 with Mac and PC, or XBox and Playstation, or Beer and Wine......