What is Mahjong?
Mahjong (also known as Mahjong Solitaire) is a relaxing matching game that can be played online.
The goal is to remove all the gaming pieces, called tiles, from the board by matching pieces with identical images.
How do you Play Mahjong?
The game’s goal is to remove tiles from the screen by matching tiles with identical images. When two tiles are removed, they disappear from the screen and unlock more previously blocked tiles. You continue to remove tiles until there are no more left, at which point you win the game.
Like in any puzzle game, there are some rules the game follows to make it more interesting.
Rule 1: Tile images must match.
Similarly to card games, in Mahjong, tiles are assigned a suit and a rank. There are in total 7 suits: circles, bamboo, symbols, dragons, winds, flowers, and seasons. Ranks differ from suit to suit. There are 9 ranks for circle, bamboo, and symbol tiles, 3 ranks for dragons, and 4 ranks for winds. Season and flower tiles are an exception; we’ll look at them in a second.
You are allowed to match tiles that are of the same suit and rank. For example, you can match the Bamboo 2 tile with another Bamboo 2 tile but not with Bamboo 3 or any other suit. The same applies to dragon and wind suits. Season and flower tiles are an exception to this rule. Any season tile can be matched with any other season tile and any flower tile with any other flower tile.
Rule 2: Both tiles must be open.
Another important rule to mahjong is that you can only remove open tiles. A tile is considered open if:
- It is not blocked by other tiles above it.
- It is not blocked on either of its horizontal sides. Tile can slide out to the left or right.
Find examples in our detailed guide on how to play Mahjong Solitaire.
When the game starts, tiles get arranged into a pyramid-like shape with multiple layers stacked on one another, usually forming some figure. The shape of the puzzle significantly impacts the game’s difficulty, and some puzzles will be easier to solve than others. Our game offers you more than a hundred original layouts to solve.
We recommend starting your first game with the classic Turtle layout.
Begin by looking for two open tiles that can be removed. Feel free to use a hint or shuffle button if you can’t find any.
You win the game when all tiles are removed. There is no time limit, but if you’d like more challenge, you can enable the timer feature in the settings.
Upon winning the game, you are rewarded a star for solving the puzzle you were playing. Collect all the stars to become a Mahjong champion!
Locked Position
Although all puzzles generated by our game can be solved, you might choose the wrong pair of tiles at some point during the game, leading to a locked position, meaning that there are no more tiles to play.
If you end up in that situation, our game allows you to shuffle the board and continue or use the undo button to backtrack your moves one by one.
Number of Tiles
The number of tiles differs from one version of Mahjong to another and ranges from 136 to 144 tiles. In our version, all puzzles have 144 tiles and 72 pairs. Each pair appears exactly twice in the game. Use that knowledge to your advantage to predict what tiles might be hidden under the stack.
3 Tips for Winning More Mahjong Games
While mahjong is a relatively easy and relaxing game, there are some things you might want to look out for if you want to win more games.
1. Order Matters
Order in which you remove tiles can greatly impact whether you will get the locked position. If you see only one pair of open tiles, don’t remove them immediately and leave them for later. The tiles won’t go anywhere, and by keeping tiles on the board, you guarantee that you will be able to unlock another pair later in the game.
2. Prioritize which pair to remove
Often, during the game, you will have a situation when you have an option to remove many different pairs. How do you choose? Remove the pair that will unlock more tiles first. This way you increase the number of possible tiles to play in the next move.
3. Scan from top to bottom
Focus on first removing tiles from the top-most layer. A big stack of tiles can be hard to remove at the end of the game, so getting rid of them at the start is a good idea.
History of Mahjong Solitaire
The first version of Mahjong Solitaire was developed in 1981 by Brodie Lockard for the PLATO system and was named Mah-Jongg.
Mah-Jongg was inspired by the competitive board game popular in China and other parts of Asia named Mahjong. Despite the name similarity, the two games have very little in common and are played differently.
Man-Jongg gained popularity after the release of Shanghai Mahjong on Atari ST and Macintosh systems in 1986. The game quickly became a hit and sold thousands of copies.
Following the success of the game, many copycats and clones have appeared. Because Activision trademarked the original game name Shanghai, developers had to get creative and name their games differently. Popular name variations include Mahjongg, Kyodai, Taipei, and Mahjong Solitaire. The name Mahjong has stuck the most, though creating a lot of confusion with an original board game.
Thirty years later, the game is still one of the most played tile-matching games, with millions of players worldwide, especially among mobile gamers.
FAQ
Do I need to have Flash Player to play Mahjong?
No, you can play our game without a flash player. Our game uses modern technology called HTML5, which allows it to be played on any device without a Flash player. Mahjong Solitaire is available for iPad, iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, and Linux. You can play on any platform, as long as it has a modern browser like Google Chrome or Firefox.
Can All Mahjong Games be Solved?
Yes! Our version of Mahjong generates only solvable boards, and every game can be won.
Can I play Mahjong without a timer?
If you want to play at a relaxed pace and don’t want an added challenge, you can disable the timer in the game settings.
Is Classic Mahjong Solitaire free?
Classic Mahjong Solitaire is 100% free and can be played online. You don’t have to spend a cent to enjoy your favorite game!
The game doesn’t work.
If the game doesn’t work or there are some problems, ensure you use the latest version of your browser. We support all modern browsers like Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Brave, and Edge. Internet Explorer is not supported, and we recommend upgrading to one of the newer browsers.
If you are still having issues, feel free to contact me at info@classic-mahjong.com, and I will do my best to help you!