Mahjong Rules
Mahjong is a very simple and straightforward game. The goal is to clear all the tiles from the board by matching them in pairs.
The tiles can only be paired if they have at least one side free and no other tiles on top of it. Thinking of it as a physical game, this means that the tiles are only free to play if they can be swiped left or right without disturbing the remaining tiles on the board.
The drawings and symbols on the tiles must be the same in order for them to match. There are two exceptions, however. The Flowers and Seasons tiles do not need to match in drawings, only in the suit.
How to play Mahjong
To start a challenge, players must choose between three game modes:
- Mahjong Solitaire Classic: Challenge the traditional "turtle" formation
- Daily: a new challenge is available every day, from a surprise category and difficulty level
- Other Mahjong games: pick a category to play a thematic board design.
In this game of Mahjong online, the blocked tiles are kept in the shadow while the active ones are lighted.
Click on the tiles to select and match them. Selected pairs will be automatically removed from the board.
You can use the Shuffle feature when there are no more moves available or the Hint button to find a pair on the board. Using these features will not affect the players’ final time.
The players can also customize the tiles and choose a different design for the suits.
The tiles
The tile design is customizable in most digital Mahjong games. As the goal is to simply match them to clear the board, they can display a wide variety of drawings. Regardless, they must always be divided into 7 suits, albeit not all of them are used in the easiest levels of the game.
As the regular version of the game borrows the tiles from Mahjong (thus the name), these are the suits that players are more likely to find:
Numbers
These tiles have the character for myriad or number at the bottom and the Chinese character for numbers from 1 to 9 on top of it. Arabic numerals are also added to the western tiles.
Bamboos
This suit is also known as sticks or strings. In the original Mahjong, it represents strings of coins roped together. However, due to its shape, it was mistakenly interpreted as bamboo sticks by Western players.
A bird is often depicted as the 1 Bamboo tile. There are 9 types of Bamboo tiles.
Circles
In the traditional Mahjong, the Circles suit represents ancient copper coins that had holes in the center. This suit contains 9 different tiles.
Dragons
The name Dragons was invented by Joseph Park Babcock who adapted and introduced the traditional Mahjong game to the West in the early 1900s. That is to say, the suit is not related to these mythical beings in any way.
This suit contains three types of tiles.
- The red dragon is represented by the red character 中 (Chung) meaning Center. The Western tiles are often marked with the letter C.
- The green dragon tile is usually represented by a character that means “get rich” or “strike rich”. It may or may not be written in green. Western tiles are marked with an F.
- The white dragon works similarly to a Joker in the traditional Mahjong. It can be displayed as a white tile or with a frame to differentiate it from replacement tiles. White tiles are usually marked with a B.
Some western Mahjong Solitaire games depict the dragons with actual dragon drawings colored accordingly.
Winds
The Wind tiles represent the main four cardinal points of a compass and are denoted with their initials as well as the Chinese character for each: north - N (北), south - S (南), east - E (東) and west - W (西). The Chinese characters are usually written in blue.
Seasons
The Seasons are special tiles that only appear in the harder difficulty levels of Mahjong games. There are four types of tiles, one per season, and they can be matched between themselves. They do not need to share the same image.
The symbol that represents each season varies depending on the game. They are, however, always number from 1 to 4 and contain the Chinese character for each season: Spring - 1 (春), Summer - 2 (夏), Autumn/Fall - 3 (秋) and Winter - 4 (冬).
Flowers
The Flowers suit is also a quartet of special tiles reserved for the harder levels of Mahjong Solitaire puzzles.
Each tile is numbered from 1 to 4 and carries a flower design (hence the name). Traditionally, the flowers depicted are: Plum -1 (梅), Orchid - 2 (蘭), Chrysanthemum - 3 (菊) and Bamboo - 4 (竹).
Relax and enjoy
Make yourself comfortable to fully appreciate the beautiful designs of the Mahjong online games and put yourself to the test with these demanding yet soothing challenges.
