1 yr. ago • 100%

A love letter to Threes!

Dear Threes!

You may have been overshadowed by your simpler (and in my opinion, uglier) younger sister 2048, but in my eyes you're the real catch!

You're dripping with charm from head to toe. Every part of you has been crafted with love and care. Your soundtrack is so playful and catchy, I find myself humming it randomly throughout the day. Oh and your characters! Each of your little number tiles has a name, design and voiceline! It's absolutely endearing.

The best part about you is there's so much depth to go with your charm. You're deceptively deep with your easy to learn but hard to master gameplay. What starts out as smooshing two tiles together grows into planning 3 moves ahead and creating a priority queue so you don't trap a low point tile in the middle of the board. I've been playing you off and on for half a decade and I still havent beat you!

We've drifted away from time to time but I'm so glad I've found you again. I'm coming for that 3072 tile and sooner or later I will beat you.

With love, Bijuice

P.S pls tell your creator to enable the paid version of the app in Kenya. I'm sick of watching ads.

16 comments

There aren't a lot of genuinely great mobile games, but Threes! is certainly one of them. What I like most about it is that it actually understands what it means to be a mobile game: Short rounds, no constant focus required and it can be put down at any time since continuing a round is pretty so easy as the complete state of the game is always visible to you.

And for everyone who likes Threes!, I'll also recommend Twinfold. It's a game clearly inspired by Threes but with some dungeon crawling and rogue-like elements added on top. Maybe not as tightly designed as Threes!, but with just as much love and detail put into it and its presentation.

6
To add to this discussion, what do you all think of the controversy surrounding 2048 and Threes? I think 2048 is different enough to not be considered a copy; it has nowhere near the depth or the polish of Threes! I just think art is iterative. We should have the freedom to take ideas from other works of art and build something new.

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- 2048 is only more popular due to being free and “easier”
  
  My advice on your little issue is sideload the app from appdb.to
  
  2
  
  I agree with you on the first point. I just don't think the creators of Threes! had a valid reason in trying to get 2048 taken down from the app store.
  
  Do you have an Android alternative to appdb?
  
  1
Oh.. I used to play this way back when! Might just have to install it again! Thanks fpr the trip down memory lane!

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I probably have played like 3000 Threes games over 3 different phones over the years; it's still my favourite Commuting Game of all time, and indeed probably one of my top 5 games of all time. I have never beaten it and probably never will.

2048 can't hold a candle to Threes and it upsets me that people remain mostly ignorant of the latter's existence.

3
Haven't thought about this game in years. But I loved it.

This prompted a reinstall and 2 quick games where I remembered how bad I am at it.

3
i thought i was the only one who knew about this game lol, i agree it's a very good game & a lot more polished than 2048

3
I genuinely believe that Threes! may be a perfect game - if anyone can tell me a single way it could be improved, I’d love to hear it.

I just had a look and, over the 9 years or so I’ve had it, I’ve played nearly 3000 games. I may have a problem.

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- It can be improved by not sending me 5 consecutive 2s while I'm fighting for my life on the last row of the board 😂
  
  3000 games is mad! It really is addictive.
  
  2
- I have 27k games. I’m basically using Threes for stimming, not really trying to get any records, haha. Just very calming block sliding. Got 3072 only around 50 times and was close to 6144 a couple of those, but never got to it. Maybe one day I’ll go read some strategies on it and would try to achieve it, but for now I’m just content with what I have.
  
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Wow haha, as someone who finally got 6144 a few years ago this game really is a true gem and one of the greatest phone games of all time. 12 years ago I bought it on a whim on a lunch break, and it is easily the most played game of all time for me at this point (coming from years of cod, halo, rocket league, etc).

You honestly made my day with this post, my friends know me as the friend who still plays the weird 2048 clone, but I got my son into it too. He finally hit 768 and I was so proud lol. I am still trying to achieve a “perfect” game but the algorithm definitely doesn’t like it. Technically in the top 100 on the leaderboards lol

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