2089: An industry-standard implementation of 2048

Gabriele Cirulli's 2048 is a famously addictive, simple game with many adaptations and ports across different platforms. 2089 is yet another one of these projects, but unlike most others, the goal from the start is to run on anything. 2089's modular architecture supports all kinds of potential "frontends" to a shared core engine, from line-mode terminal adaptations running on hardcopy teletypes to server-side CGI interfaces, all written in standard C89 for maximum portability.

Bundled frontends

• VT52+ curses TUI with up to 256-color support
• Universal line-mode TUI for dumb/unsupported terminals and teletypes
• Basic mono/color X11 GUI
• Mono/color X11/Motif 2.x GUI with optional CDE integration

Testing for TUI clients performed on both Linux and AIX 4.3 with Ericom PowerTerm 525 clients, X11 clients thus far tested on AIX 4.3 only.

Binary distribution for AIX

Each release comes with a ready-built tarball for AIX 4.3.3 on PowerPC, with all three programs, their manual pages and the CDE files. It needs nothing beyond the base system (curses, X11 and Motif):

zcat 2089-1.0.0-aix4.3.3-ppc.tar.Z | tar -xf -
cd 2089-1.0.0-aix4.3.3-ppc
./install.sh -c             # to /usr/local, and onto the CDE desktop

Run as root, install.sh installs for every user; otherwise, give it a place of your own with -p $HOME, and -c puts 2089 on your own desktop (in ~/.dt). -n shows what it would do without doing it. On other systems, build from source.

Build requirements

• A C89 compiler
• Optional but recommended: POSIX (or GNU) make

Building

On Unix-like systems:

make                # the text frontend and the tests, plus the full program
                    # (frontend/curses/2089) if a curses library can be found
make text           # the text frontend and the tests only
make run            # build, then play (make run ARGS="-u -s 5" passes options)
make check          # run the tests

make install copies the program to /usr/local/bin (the full program if it was built, else the text frontend), with x2089 and xm2089 too if make x11 built them, and their manual pages, 2089(6), x2089(6) and xm2089(6), to /usr/local/man/man6. Name another place with PREFIX, such as your own bin:

make x11 install PREFIX=$HOME       # ~/bin/2089 ... and ~/man/man6/2089.6 ...

The pages are plain -man source, which man formats itself. AIX's man looks only in /usr/share/man and /usr/dt/man unless told otherwise: put MANPATH=/usr/local/man:/usr/share/man:/usr/dt/man in /etc/environment or your profile, or try one with man -M /usr/local/man 2089.

make uses cc by default; name another compiler with CC:

make CC=c89

Without make, compile the core (2089.c, rng89.c) with the program (frontend/main.c, frontend/common.c) and line mode (frontend/text/text.c), telling the compiler where the headers are; for the full program, add -DT89_CURSES, frontend/curses/curses.c and the curses library:

cc -I. -Ifrontend -o 2089 frontend/main.c frontend/text/text.c frontend/common.c 2089.c rng89.c
cc -I. -Ifrontend -DT89_CURSES -o 2089 frontend/main.c frontend/text/text.c \
    frontend/curses/curses.c frontend/common.c 2089.c rng89.c -lcurses

The core needs no C library at all, so it builds for freestanding targets too. The text frontend needs only the standard C89 library: it works on any terminal, from a teletype up (2089 -h for options; -k gives a compact display for slow lines). The full program plays full screen through curses, and falls back to line mode by itself when the terminal can't (a pipe, an unknown or hardcopy terminal, a screen too small for the board) or when asked with -t. It needs an X/Open curses (SVR4 curses, ncurses, NetBSD curses, PDCurses); if the library isn't found (make tries -lcurses, -lncurses, and those with -ltinfo or -ltermcap), name it: make CURSES='-L/opt/lib -lcurses'.

Full screen, the best score for each board size is kept in ~/.2089, as the save string of the game that made it (so 2089 -l brings it back). To keep it somewhere else, build with -DT89_SCORES='"/path/to/file"'.

X11

Two programs play in a window of their own under the X Window System, sharing the board code in frontend/x11:

• x2089 (frontend/x11/xlib) needs only Xlib (-lX11), so it builds wherever X11 does.
• xm2089 (frontend/x11/motif) is a Motif-native application (Motif 2.0 or later) that runs on its own under any window manager and integrates with CDE where there is one (below). It's as compact as CDE's own tools: menus, the scores in sunken fields, tiles raised with Motif bevels, optional arrow buttons to play with the mouse (View > Arrow Buttons, or -arrows), a status line, and dialogs to start a new game (of another size, or by its number), open and save games as files, copy or paste save strings and see (or clear) the best score for each size. Under CDE its tiles can take the colors of the desktop palette, following Style Manager (-colors desktop); past 2048, Options > Extended Colors (on unless +extended) can be turned off for the original's one dark color.

make x11                    # x2089, and xm2089 if Motif can be found
make xlib                   # or one at a time
make motif
make x11 X11INC=-I/usr/X11R6/include X11LIB="-L/usr/X11R6/lib -lX11" \
    MOTIFLIB="-L/usr/X11R6/lib -lXm -lXt -lX11"

or the X way, with the X installation's own imake rules (on AIX, with /usr/vac/bin on PATH):

cd frontend/x11 && xmkmf -a && make         # both
cd frontend/x11/xlib && xmkmf && make       # x2089 alone, without Motif

Both take the usual X options (-display, -geometry; x2089 also -fn for its text font, xm2089 everything Xt takes) and -mono, besides -u, -s, -r and -l. As resources: x2089.geometry, x2089.font, x2089.mono: true; XM2089*undo: true, XM2089*colors: game, desktop or mono, XM2089*extended: false, XM2089*size: 5; xm2089's Options > Save Options writes its settings to ~/.xm2089 (resources, over those in ~/.Xdefaults, under the command line). Windows can be resized. They play in the original game's colors where the display has them (past 2048, greens as in the later mobile versions, then blues and violets of our own), and in black and white otherwise (c switches). The keys are the terminal frontends' (? lists them), the best scores are kept in the same ~/.2089, and quitting prints the command that carries on the game.

On the CDE desktop

make install-cde puts xm2089 on the CDE desktop as if it came with it: an action and icons, so that 2089 is in Application Manager (in a Games group) and saved games (*.2089) open from File Manager, and a help volume, built with CDE's dthelptag, for Help > Overview. The game being played is saved with the session when you log out, and comes back when you log in. For yourself (in ~/.dt):

make x11 install install-cde PREFIX=$HOME

or for every user, as root: make x11 install install-cde DTDIR=/etc/dt/appconfig DTLANG=/C. Then choose Reload Actions and Reload Applications in Application Manager's Desktop_Tools, or log out and in again.

Other C implementations of 2048

There's much prior art inspiring 2089, which is far from the first attempt to implement this game in C, though it is perhaps the first attempt at an explicitly "universal" implementation capable of supporting multiple platforms, interfaces and compilers. A few other projects include:

• 2048.c: A C99 console implementation targeting Linux, that has also been successfully used as the basis for a Palm OS version
• 2048-cli: Another Linux console implementation with both plain VT and ncurses frontends
• libretro-2048: A port of 2048 to libretro

2089 uses no code from these projects, unless explicitly noted.