Your Custom Rule Variations
Save and share your own configuration of 2048.
When you create a new variation you can change things like the board shape and size, the tiles that can show up and what probability they have of showing up, how many tiles can merge into one, whether tiles can tunnel, and several other things.
Themes let you put pictures on the tiles, whereas variations affect the rules. With a theme you could make it so that the number "2" tile has a picture of an elephant and the number "4" tile has a picture of a giraffe. With a variation you can make it so that "2" tiles show up more often than "4", or make any number show up at all, but it doesn't affect the way those tiles look.
It is possible to play with different combinations of variations and themes. However, this could be confusing with custom variations, because it's a lot easier to end up with tiles that you don't have images for. So although custom variations can be used with different themes, it is intentionally not obvious how to do it. If you really want to do it you'll probably figure it out. We may make it easier at some point to combine a specific theme and variation and "package" it as a completely customized game.
Variations vs. Adjustable 2048
You may notice that we have an "Adjustable 2048" which sounds very much like a custom variation. In fact, a custom variation is really just a way of saving your Adjustable 2048 settings. This makes it possible to share them with other people, and to go back to settings adjustments that you've made before. If you make changes in Adjustable 2048 you can save them as a custom variation from there. Isn't life great!