2048 Zen Cards Reviews

by An Apple Customer

This game isn’t terrible at all, but a good portion of your time will be spent watching ads. A lot of times it’s the same advertisement for the same game. It’s generally falsely advertising the game anyways and you will see it about a hundred times. Usually leveling up in a game is exciting but this game makes me dread it since you get another ad as your reward.
To top it off they use ads as a make-shift currency. You could put a 32 on top of your 64 and ruin your game due to bad luck OR you can watch an ad and discard the 64. My philosophy is that you can use this marketing tactic or you can do the ‘ad so many levels’ tactic, but using both made me hate the developers. I understand it’s free but at this point they just don’t care about the player.
I guarantee there is either a paid version of this game on 2048ZenCards Store that is most likely better and doesn’t have so many ads. Go buy that one because you will save so much time. If you don’t care about your time at all and enjoy watching the same advertisement over and over again like a zombie then this is the game for you. Honestly they should reconsider naming this game: Advertisement. Absolute waste of time for the one game I played of it. 1/5 just for the ads.

by ZZzzZZzzZZZzzzzzxxx

It's a great concept, but unlike solitaire and 2048, it is impossible to keep going if the RNG does not favor you. In solitaire, you can move some cards to another stack under certain conditions. In 2048, the boxes cycle in a way to allow continuous number growth. This game has neither concept and is therefore impossible. A 2 or a 64 or consecutive amounts of each can be your best friend or worst enemy. You cannot shift cards, so if you cannot accommodate a 64, it permanently damages your setup. There is also no way to cycle/switch between values to combine cards, only through putting a card in one stack where it will stay forever until 2048. There is a dispose, reversal, and shuffle button that leads to my next point: the ridiculous amount of ads in this game. Every time you level up, there is an ad. If you need to use a helper after running out, there is an ad. Combine this with the fact that the RNG is rigged and you basically have a massive profit scheme where thousands watch ads for the developers' profits. This game would be fine if it were more forgiving or more possible to play (I have reached 10 million score), but since it has neither, this game is awful.

by Explosive Squirts

I submitted a review about my nine year old child seeing a full penetration group sex add for a porn site and it’s been deleted, cIm guessing by apple. I thought willfully allowing children to see hardcore porn is illegal yet from what I have read it’s been happening a long time. I didn’t read the reviews when I downloaded it because it says 12yrs old and up. So that must mean the people that own this game truly enjoy showing little kids porn by posting it’s an appropriate game for kids 12yrs old an up. That is intentionally baiting children to watch porn since it’s obvious by the reviews it’s been going on fo a long time. I would be shocked if this HONEST review actually was posted. I can’t understand how Apple is allowing this to continue. I sent Apple an email with screen shots of the adds, the XXX ads play on a loop if you don’t close the add out manually. I never thought I would see an app owned by a company that baits kids in with its age recommendation of 12 and up then shows them hardcore 30 second porn clips. I can only imagine the absolute disgusting humans that set up 2048ZenCards so they can get there perverse jollies knowing little kids will see it.

by Mal5589

Before downloading I read the reviews where people said it didn’t save their level, as well as the developer responses that it has been fixed, so I gave it a try.

I was very much enjoying this game (would have oven 5 stars!), and was actually on a roll where I was at about level 37 with about 40 million points and an almost clear playing board with all high numbers. I had left the game at various points and it was always where I left off when I got back. I just opened it again and am back at level 25 with only 13 million points and a completely full board with no options of anywhere to play. Seriously?! This makes me want to just delete 2048ZenCards entirely. Do you have ANY IDEA how many ads I had to watch to get to that point?! It makes you watch half minute ads every time you level up, as well as any time you want to discard a card. To be that far and have everything just deleted before I can even finish makes this seem like the biggest waste of time ever. DO NOT DOWNLOAD UNTIL THEY CAN MAKE THIS GAME FUNCTIONAL. It can’t be that hard, every other game seems to have no problem with it.

by Twisted30

If they spent more time on the game and less time changing the font on their logo, this could be a good game. Could be, but it’s not. Don’t bother wasting money on “ad free” version - you still have to watch ads to get rewards... if you’re lucky. Sometimes ads aren’t available, so you can’t get rewards (discard, recycle, etc), and when you do get an ad available and you watch it all the way through... sometimes you still don’t get your reward. Just a complete waste of time!
Also, like all Voodoo games, this game is designed to cheat to create ad revenue. There are six different cards - if you need one, odds of getting it are 1 in 6. If you need one of two cards, your odds are 1 in 3. There are two cards showing, so you can trash one and use the next; this gives you odds of 2 in 3, so the odds are in your favor. And yet, I can shuffle the deck 20 times and not get either card to show up in any of the 20 shuffles. The odds of that happening are 1 in 1,572,864. That’s called CHEATING!

by SeptemberRainyDay💯

When I level up there's an ad, when I need to discard a card, there's an ad, there are far too many ads to be able to get into this game....which is such a freaking shame!!! It's a fun concept and I want to play but the ads make it impossible to stay in a good rhythm. I wish they would remove the ads and allow for unlimited discarding of cards - what's the point of ruining my progress only to have my level stay the same when I lose? It's not challenging that way; it's frustrating. I didn't make a mistake - the game forced me to make a poor card placement choice but not allowing me any other options.
Plus only the "special" card with the star on it works - the other "specials" legit don't work.

by SkyMarie17

This game is highly addicting, but the fact that you have to watch an endless amount of advertisements in order to succeed is ridiculous. The wild cards barely appear, and the fact that I have to pay for the ad free version to initially enjoy the game is crazy. I know that this is how the creators make their money, so whenever I play free games I don’t really care about the ads, so for this games amount to bother me is really saying something. They must make tons of money off of people viewing the ads. My word of advice to the creators would be to add in more opportunities to clear your discard pile and to, if possible, show shorter ads. They’re half a minute long each and highly repetitive. Again, I know that I have to pay my dues since I have not paid for the ad free version, but I feel like this game goes over the line. You have to use the discard pile a lot before you clear a row because of the randomness of the cards, so make it easier to gain spots. Word of advice for people who want to play the free version, only download if you can tolerate TONS of ad time in one sitting. The addictiveness encouraged me to watch them, but at this point it’s become draining. I might try the ad free version, but I’ve heard that’s not so great either. Maybe I’ll redownload if they fix the obnoxiousness of their ads.

by Abarnert

I used to enjoy playing this game every so often. Sure, you had to watch an ad to get an extra discard or undo, etc., but that’s a fair trade. When my game is hosed but I still have 3 minutes left before the Lyft shows up, I’ll watch a 15-second ad rather than start over from scratch, and I have no problem with someone profiting from that.

But since the update, there are so many ads that the game is completely unplayable. What made me give up was discovering that the “reward” for leveling up is now being forced to watch two ads in a row! Seriously?

Maybe if you pay to remove the ads, the game is as good as it used to be for free, but I certainly don’t trust this developer enough to try it—nor do I want to reward developers for this kind of behavior.

by Rtm2

I’ve played for a long time without locking up all 4 stacks. I have caused a reset-to-zero of the multiplier a handful of times (by playing an Undo card upon coming back to a game that was in progress), back before the update that keeps the multiplier. My score is currently maxed out at 2.15B. The Multiplier goes up after each 2048, just the score’s stuck. A different game called “Fire Up” (by these same devs) also is rumored to have the same score limit of 2.15B. Coding issues, it would seem. Interestingly, the Game Center all-time listing currently shows folks with scores up to 3.4B. I left a request for support on the dev page, no answer after a week. And my gyahd, the game becomes unplayable without the link to its ads! You can’t clear your discard pile if you block ads or play offline! Some of us in foreign countries don’t have unlimited data plans...this game’s ads have taken over 650MB so far this month. I like playing, but ugh: score bugs and heavy ads.

by BrittLiana

I have the free version of this game, so I knew to expect some ads, but this is ridiculous. Every time you want to discard, you have to watch an ad, if you want to undo a move, you have to watch an ad, if you want to shuffle the deck, you have to watch an ad. These actions are essential to being successful with this game, so it’s incredibly frustrating. AND, on top of it, you also have to watch an ad every time you level up (which in the beginning, for me anyway, was pretty frequently). Plus, the ads are half a minute each, and the same ones over and over again. Very annoying. I liked this game a lot, and enjoyed playing it before I got tired of all the ads. I would only recommend this if you are willing to pay for the ad-free version, which to be honest, I’m not. So, unfortunately, I will delete.

by Chardenai

I was super into the game at first. Once I figured out the pattern to the game I was able to get a score of 652K easy. And on average I would get 200K. I’ve been playing the same way but now I can hardly get to 100k. I average at 60K. It seems rigged. Like it’s set up to make me lose so I will spend money. There are time where no matter what I do, I’m forced to put a high card on top of a lower card.

The more I played the more I realized the game was purposely giving me cards that I HAD to discard back to back to back and with discard being two spots, I had to watch ads in order to open a spot.

Forcing us to lose or watch ads back to back is ridiculous. Leave the option there. Want to make money? Give us in app purchases. People will buy. I am one of those people. Can’t even enjoy the game anymore smh.

by Rockitout51

Great version of this game, but paying for it does not remove discard ads... and the discard pile has no real way of telling when it will allow you to discard. I would enjoy this game SO much more if paying for it allowed unlimited discards, or at least having a set like “30 seconds” to allow you to discard the pile. If not that, then allowing you to move your stack like in real solitaire would help that issue too. Additionally, no matter how often I play... I have yet to experience these “helping” cards that we are supposed to get.
The game itself is great... but just needs some tweaking. If/when these little things change, my star rating will definitely improve.

by Please Cease And Desist.

This game is addicting, and took a game concept I loved, and added a spin to it, which I appreciate. The only problem is how easily the you can go from doing well to really sucking. This is because once you place a card, it can never be moved again until you 2048 it out. Therefore if you have a really high tile, then are forced to place a low tile on it, and then are forced to put a higher value tile on top of that one, you have to start your stack progress over from that last tile, thus wasting the spaces above that tile. As so many other people said below, I think you should be able to move stacks around so that placing a high card on a low card isn’t necessarily a nail in the coffin of the stack you’ve been working on.

by Gsfla

I really like this game but hate that you can lose your score multiplier and have to start the game over at the higher, more difficult level. Would love to see an easy version (for us not so great players) and the normal version. Would be really nice if you could keep your multiplier within 5 if you have to start over. ie: multiplier is 14, you have to start over and multiplier goes to 10 for the restart instead of going to zero! Who wants to be at level 20 and have a zero multiplier for a restart!!! More wild cards and discards would be great. How about being able to save your wild card, up to 3 at a time and use it when you want to! No matter how much I like a game, I stop playing them because I get tired of the difficulties and having to start over from the beginning, etc. I would rate it a 5 if it had above the suggestions.

by Andyd1010

You can get a much higher score by playing an ad to open a spot in the discard pile or to add an undo. But the ads take a long time, so I purchased the no-ad version, but this did not remove the ads that act as rewards in the game (the vast majority of the ads especially if you go far in the game). After using that option, there’s no way I’ll approach my high score without it, but it’s too time-consuming and annoying to use it. It’s also unclear when you’ll be able to watch an ad to clear the discard pile. Sometimes the option appears immediately, sometimes it appears after a certain amount of time, and sometimes it never appears. The game never explains this discrepancy, so it makes it difficult to strategize accordingly.

Also, once you get really far, as well as the ads occasionally not being an option, sometimes I went for extremely long periods without getting a Wild Card, so there was no possible way of saving myself. It says they’re more common than a joker, so about 1/25 cards? I went hundreds of cards without seeing one.

by The_name_is_taken

The first time i got 2048ZenCards, i played it for an embarrassingly long time. long enough to reach 5M+ points... so needless to say it has something of an easy, addictive quality to it. however, i did find it to get quite a bit laggy after long plays (which, you could argue, probably isn’t what this game is for, but it’s still a bit odd).

also, it has gotten to the point where i haven’t seen a bomb or a reverse (? i still don’t know what have of these do) or any of the other cards in so long that i forgot they were an actual feature. every once in a blue moon i’ll get a star, but then it’ll be so long that i forget again.

by IOS Genius

I was doing really well and then I got a 2048 on the far left column, clearing it, and then it wouldn’t let me place any card there no matter the value. Then since I filled up the other 3 columns, I expected the game to end because I couldn’t fit anymore cards. But then it wouldn’t let me watch an ad for a discard space, only for an undo (which was useless at that point), and it wouldn’t let me place a card anywhere else. So I was just waiting not knowing what to do. I left 2048ZenCards for a while and came back and it worked again, letting me place cards in the empty far left column. Being a lost cause, I just put all the cards on the left to end the game and left it at that. ☹️ Other than that AMAZING GAME. Good on you developers. :)

by Tatiancik7

I really want to understand why you guys pay money to advertise this game if you don’t fix the bugs. It is a good game, I am ok with adds everyone is doing adds more or less, but why the incentives are gone when you get closer to millions? Then it crashes many times, then it freezes, sometimes it goes back few more levels down, then the discharge pile doesn’t work, then If you made this feature of changing the background then make it keep going, I don’t not like to stick to the one I stuck pink and purple... then it crashes again and it is annoying. I really like the idea of bomb cards and wild card and so on, those are fun is like receiving an umbrella before starting raining. I would like to suggest to better make the card to be put in a separate pile and be used later, use adds if you wish, but that’s a cool feature. Listen to your costumers, then it will bring you money. Satisfied costumers are like satisfied wives 😜👍🏻😉

by Scienceteachermommy

There should be a way to earn more wild cards or power ups! Like by spending points or something? Once you have to place a card in the wrong spot recovery is almost impossible. Even after buying the no ad version I still have to watch ads to have the ability to discard. Another cool power up you could purchase with points would be to swap the next two visible cards, or what about a power up that lets you see the third one down? Like the concept a lot, but super hard to really progress at without watching the horrible ads over and over.

by Raye-Beth

I really like this game, but there’s one thing that’s really frustrating me - I paid to remove the ads, but I’m still seeing them. I can’t tell if they’re at the same frequency, in which case the button should say “minimal ads” instead of “no ads”.

Other than that, this game is really addictive! It’s just the advertisements that make me want to not play - you’re forced to look at ads pretty much any time you want to do something other than move a card onto a stack.