Editing 1344: Digits

{{comic
| number    = 1344
| date      = March 19, 2014
| title     = Digits
| image     = digits.png
| titletext = It's taken me 20 years to get over skyline tetris.
}}

==Explanation==
[http://gabrielecirulli.github.io/2048/ 2048] is a popular browser-based game in which players must move tiles in a 4 by 4 grid with numbers on them. When two tiles of the same number touch they can be merged into one tile with a value of the two tiles combined. So when two 4-tiles touch and are merged they form one 8-tile. The player can move the tiles by pressing an arrow key (or swiping in a direction on the mobile version), which will move all the tiles in that direction. Every time the player makes such a move another tile will appear on a random cell. The goal of the game is to get a tile with the number 2048. 

In the comic the room number can be seen as 4 tiles with the values 8, 2, 2 and 4. If these occur in the game the player can merge the two 2-tiles into one 4-tile. This will then cause two 4-tiles to lie next to eachother so these can be merged into one 8-tile. Finally the two 8-tiles can be merged into one 16-tile.

The title text refers to {{w|Tetris effect}}, which takes its name from the game {{w|Tetris}}. People who play Tetris for extended periods tend to imagine real-life objects (like skylines) as tetris landscapes and pieces. Randall, as many others,[http://s3-external-1.amazonaws.com/wootdesigncontestentries/fackoph/chicago_skyline_%28Tetris_Redux%29-q71p5a-s.jpg] apparently got hooked on Tetris so much when it came out that, for 20 years, he would look at city skylines and see Tetris-like patterns in it. Similarly, he has now been hooked onto 2048 and notices number patterns that would be desirable to obtain during the game.

Comics [[724: Hell]] and [[888: Heaven]] also refer to Tetris.

==Transcript==
:[A guy is walking and Cueball is following him.]
:Guy: The talk is in room 8224.
:Cueball: Ooh, nice.
:Guy: What?
:Cueball: ...Sorry. Nothing.

:Great, now I'll spend the rest of my life noticing numbers that would make good 2048 combos.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Math]]