I have played the original called "Threes". It's fun, but once you come up with a strategy, the rounds take forever to finish.
I'm glad that games like these have taken off though. We needed something completely different after the stupidity that was Flappy Bird where it was just pure luck for the most part.
Yep, one day it just 'clicks'. I always played it at arcade speed: if I slowed down to think about it then all was lost. I just let my subconscious get on with interpreting the patterns.
Took me about a week to get to 2048 and a further few days of very near misses to make it to 4096, at which point I retired.
It was great fun when it lasted, but a *terrible* timewaster.