There's actually a semi-optimal strategy that nearly guarantees winning if you're diligent about it. Just build a stairstep pattern with the highest numbers in the bottom corner of the stairs. Then basically combine sideways and downward and "always" resist the temptation to push up. Its kind of how some tri-diagonal matrix algorithms work. The only problem is you have to be fastidious about never using the one direction you've reserved as your excluded case (Up in my example) as that can screw your staircase by putting a [2] right underneath your wonderful [1024]. Just move blocks back and forth, waiting for the right blocks to create combo patterns, while generally storing lower cost blocks on the outside of the stairs, and then snake them through the stairs when you get a chain set up.

Ex:

x x x 2

x x 2 4

x 2 4 8

2 4 8 16

Did that, got stuck like that, pretty unfortunate.

http://puu.sh/7rKEF.png

After half an hour playing blindly I realized this, but even using this it´s hard to go beyond 500

I found one not-completely-horrible strategy was just blindly running round the curser keys.. eg. up - right - down - left, repeatedly. Got near 4000 points with that..

Great game though - wasted waaay too much time last night playing.

It's a good start but you will get stuck at higher level. in your case focus on increasing the value on the bottom left. When possible, shift the last line to the right. Never go up.

I was surprised at how well that worked. I was basically blindly cycling between left,down,right (with one accidental up) and got to 1024 on my first try.

function press(key) { var eventObj = document.createEvent("Events"); eventObj.initEvent("keydown", true, true); eventObj.which = key; document.dispatchEvent(eventObj); }

for (y=0; y<=1000; y++) { press(39); //right press(40); //down press(37); //left press(40); //down }

this gave me 1024 in couple of tries :D http://i58.tinypic.com/am9sh4.png

Here's a random key press loop: function press(key) { var eventObj = document.createEvent("Events"); eventObj.initEvent("keydown", true, true); eventObj.which = key; document.dispatchEvent(eventObj); } for (y=0; y<=1000; y++) { press(Math.floor(Math.random() * 4) + 37); }

Yes, I also discovered this after 20ish minutes of playing. If you're not diligent about it, it's very hard to recover.

However, I've locked myself a few times so it was impossible to go on without using 'up' (or whatever):

x x x x

x x x x

o o o o

o o o o

where at no point the same numbers next to each other allow collapsing. Maybe it's the problem not growing from the corner.. hm.

With enough tries anything is possible. There is probably even a person who ascended nethack on his first try (using the wiki of course, we're still talking things with p > 0) and didn't play it again because it's too easy and boring.

I've seen that. Wiki, #nethack, valkyrie, and some decent but not extraordinary luck.