“Wen Jie, I can’t find this game anywhere!”
“Can’t find it? How is that possible? Try searching for it on the web.”
“All I see on the web is 1024. There’s no sign of the 2048 you’re playing.”
Hearing Chen Sichu’s words, Lin Shuwen’s fingers paused mid-game. She looked at Chen Sichu with a puzzled expression.
“Wen Jie, I’m serious! Look for yourself!” Chen Sichu handed over her phone.
Lin Shuwen scrolled through it and, sure enough, found nothing.
“How can that be? This game is so simple to make! Luo Ming gave me the design concept and gameplay mechanics, and I handled the rest on my own. How could a game this straightforward not exist online?”
“Wen Jie, is it possible that this is a new game that Blazing Light Studio is planning to release?”
“Th-that can’t be, right? If it were a game set for release, how could Luo Ming possibly—” Lin Shuwen stopped mid-sentence. Actually, Luo Ming very well could have given her a game they were about to publish.
After all, the two of them were in the same boat.
“Wen Jie, simple as it may be, if no one else has thought of it, isn’t that still a form of innovation? Take the phone flashlight app that went viral last year, for example.
The idea of keeping the flash constantly on to turn it into a torch—nobody had thought of that before either. And the person who wrote that program made a pretty penny!”
After hearing Chen Sichu’s reasoning, Lin Shuwen felt it made a lot of sense. She immediately dialed Luo Ming’s number.
Luo Ming, who had been zoning out on the sofa, instinctively picked up the phone when it rang. Lin Shuwen’s voice came through the earpiece: “Hey~ Luo Ming, is that 2048 game you asked me to make a new title your studio is getting ready to release?”
“Huh?”
“No? Then why can’t I find it anywhere online?”
Luo Ming froze for a second. He quickly opened his computer, did a search, and realized she was right—there really was no 2048 game to be found.
A game this simple, and nobody in this world had written it yet?
A spark lit up in Luo Ming’s eyes. This was a golden opportunity delivered right to his doorstep!
“Ahem! Wen Wen, you’re right. It is a new game our studio is planning to release. Consider it a bit of a test run.”
“I knew it! Why didn’t you say so earlier? Thank goodness Chuchu reminded me and I thought to ask you first. Otherwise, I might have gone and shared the game with other people.”
“It’s fine to share it with friends and family.”
“Let’s wait until you’ve officially released it, then we’ll talk!”
Luo Ming nodded and didn’t dwell on the issue. After hanging up, he pulled up the 2048 code Lin Shuwen had written and burned the midnight oil, adding a few extra details and polish to the version she’d created.
Luo Ming vaguely remembered that 2048 had first come out around mid-2014 in his past life. After that game dropped, he’d spent a long time hooked on it.
For programmers like Luo Ming, the number 2048 actually carried a bit of special meaning.
First, because 2048 is the sum of two 1024s, and 1024 is 2 to the 10th power—one of the basic units of binary counting. Plus, October 24th each year is also known as Programmers’ Day.
Second, because 2048 was often assigned as a homework project by programming teachers, who would ask their students to write a game similar to it.
So, aside from match-three puzzle games, 2048 was one of the longest-standing games on Luo Ming’s phone.
The rules of 2048 are dead simple: each turn, you can swipe in one of four directions—up, down, left, or right. Every time you swipe, all the numbered tiles slide as far as they can in that direction, and the system spawns a new numbered tile—either a 2 or a 4—in a random empty spot. When two tiles with the same number collide, they merge into one and their values add up.
The player’s goal is to combine tiles within that tiny 16-grid space until they form the coveted “2048” tile.
The concept sounds simple enough, but it’s surprisingly addictive. And it even spawned a whole bunch of similar spin-offs.
Take the popular “Merge Watermelons” game from 2021, or Sui8192—one of the most-played mini-games in Web3—or even the bacterial version, Bacteria 2048.
There are just way too many of these kinds of games. At the end of the day, it all comes down to the fact that the underlying tech isn’t all that complicated.
By 2018 or so, 2048’s source code was practically public domain. Anyone with even a bit of know-how could get their hands on it. Luo Ming himself had copied it more times than he could count.
Making a few tweaks to the software Lin Shuwen had written was a piece of cake.
By 2:00 AM, Luo Ming had finished polishing the mini-game. He saved it to a USB drive and also installed a copy on his phone.
By the time he got to the office the next day, it was already 11 in the morning.
The boss showing up late—Rong Mu was about to rib Luo Ming about it, but the moment he saw those two massive dark circles under Luo Ming’s eyes, the words died in his throat.
“Er Ming, did you go burgling last night or something?”
“Don’t talk nonsense. Go get Senior Zhao and have him come to my office with you.”
Rong Mu nodded, fetched Zhao Ningyuan, and the two of them walked into Luo Ming’s office.
“Boss, you wanted to see us?”
“Senior Zhao, take a look at this game. What do you think?” Luo Ming handed his phone over to Zhao Ningyuan.
Zhao took the phone, sat down on the sofa, and started playing.
Half an hour later, Zhao Ningyuan looked up with an excited expression. “Boss, this game is brilliant! It’s a relaxing puzzle game built around combining numbers, and the fact that you can play it one-handed really taps into people’s need for entertainment during those short, fragmented bits of downtime.”
“So, Senior Zhao, do you think this game can make money?” Luo Ming asked.
“It’d be tough domestically. As you probably know, Boss, the technical barrier here isn’t high at all—it’s easily copied. Even if we encrypt the underlying code, it won’t matter much. Anyone with some know-how can play it a few times and roughly figure out how to build it themselves.”
“What about overseas?”
“Overseas, we could just put it directly on the iPhone App Store and Google Play. Set the price at the lowest tier—$0.99—and I think we’d get a decent number of users willing to pay for it,” Zhao Ningyuan said after a moment’s thought.
“Then let’s do that! Mu… I mean, President Rong, I’m putting you in charge of this. List the developer and copyright under our company’s name.”
Rong Mu agreed without hesitation. “Sure! Leave this kind of stuff to me.”
“Great. And Senior Zhao, thank you for your input.” Luo Ming turned to Zhao Ningyuan.
“Don’t mention it, Boss. It’s the least I can do. If there’s nothing else, I’ll head back to work.”
“Alright, go ahead.”
Zhao Ningyuan nodded and left Luo Ming’s office.
“Mu Tou, here’s the underlying code for the game.” After Zhao left, Luo Ming handed the USB drive to Rong Mu.
Rong Mu took the drive and asked, “Er Ming, do you really think this game can turn a profit?”
“It should, I think. But I’m not sure exactly how much.”
“Fair enough. I’ll reach out to a contact of mine. With his help, we should have the copyright registration and all that sorted by next Tuesday at the latest. Since it’s a small game like this, we don’t need a commercial license number. Once we’ve got the copyright registration, we can just release it straight onto the App Store and Google Play.”
Luo Ming nodded. In this area, he had absolute trust in Mu Tou—just like Mu Tou trusted him when it came to coding.
