While some developers are thinking about how to adapt large role-playing projects for mobile devices (hello, Square Enix), game developers for Nintendo 3DS decided to take up cloning successful mobile projects. The first in line is puzzle 2048. How did this become possible?
The whole story of the birth of 2048 is a series of copying and cloning.
In January, the game Threes appeared in the App Store! from the independent studio Sirvo. The game cost $1.99 and was actively promoted by Apple.
Exactly a month later, a much simplified version of Threes is released on Google Play! under the name 1024 from another Indian studio – veewo.
A month later, on March 9, 19-year-old Italian web developer Gabriel Cirulli (Gabriele Cirulli), practicing in JavaScript, creates 2048, completely repeating the mechanics of 1024, but very minimalistic in graphic terms.
Gabriel’s project is open source. The guy refused to monetize his game to the last (today the mobile version is running ads), insisting that he did not invent it (they say there was another 2048 somewhere on the web). He told The Wall Street Journal about this, but today it is written on his official project website that the project was developed by Cirulli based on 1024, which, in turn, was inspired by Threes!.
Actually, the open source code of 2048 allowed Cosmigo, the authors of the game for 3DS, to quietly release a project for the Nintendo e-shop the other day. They put a price tag of $1.99 on it.
Our Western colleagues note that the release of the new version 2048 took place immediately after Sirvo announced plans to port Threes! to the console. But I would like to draw attention to something else.
As I mentioned, the web version of Cirulli is coming out on March 9. But already on March 12, the Android version of the game from Estoty Entertainment Lab appears. By the way, she is now one of the most successful. On March 19, the iOS version of the project is presented by Ketchapp Studio. The last two collected the main “cream”. As they say: they were busy in time. Gabriel releases his mobile 2048 only in May.
The total downloads of the title are now estimated at 55 million.