It seems to be significantly easier to beat than 2048, but at the same time it's a bit challenging to get your head around matching three tiles instead of two. Good stuff.
Not beat yet, but I don't think it is possible to algorithmically.
144=3 x 48
;
48=3 x 16
16 is 'easy' to create - if you can avoid creating any three-pairs.
The trick of this game is that you can have 3,4,5 pairs. There may be some ways to choose 4 and 5 pairs along with the easier 2 and 3 pairs to win it - my efforts so far with the simple strategy produced two 48 pairs, and a seemingly random chance at producing an elusive third 48th pair, so any solution I would think would be considerably more difficult, if one exists at all.
Yeah, this one doesn't seem so hard. Variants like 144 are a challenge because you can fill the board with tiles that can never lead to your goal, and it's easy to get into a situation where you can't help generating them.
But that's because I suspect the game would make it difficult/impossible to get beyond 243.
There isn't enough space for 3-chains, this was fine for 2-chains, but for 3-chains my winning move at the end was impossible without changing my strategy.
Yeah, this variant forces you to clean up the (mental) heuristic you use you decide how best to combine blocks. With 2048 you could generally muddle your way through provided you ensured high blocks were in some corner. Here, because of the 3 combination, quite often I'll have a pair of high numbers blocking an entire row from shifting -- an issue you'd never have in the original.
BTW, change the favicon?