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Mah Jong solitaire
Mahjong (Mahjongg, Mah Jong) solitaire is a free puzzle game based on a classic Chinese game for four persons. The goal is to remove all 144 tiles from the board. You may remove only paired free tiles. The tile is free when there are no tiles either to the left or to the right from it.
The objective of the game Mahjong (also written or known as mah-jongg, mahjongg, mijang, Shangai, Taipei, Morejongg, Mindjongg, etc.), is to eliminate all pieces from the board. Find matching pairs of images at the left and right ends of the lines at the various pyramid levels.
After playing few games you, the player, will start developing a technique to play better games and eliminate more pieces from the board. The elimination of some pieces will open more possibilities than others; it is part of the fun to develop the skill to "clean" the board game.
While Shanghai solitaire can be played using genuine tiles and a special wooden frame for set-up, it is usually played in an electronic form as a computer game. This removes the tedium of the set-up process and the temptation to cheat.
Some electronic Mahjong solitaire games offer extra options, such as the ability to change the tile set and patterns from the traditional tiles to flowers, jewels or some other item that may be easier to match up at a glance, to play a series of different layouts with increasing levels of difficulty (usually given Chinese names such as 'the ox' or 'the snake'), or "wildcard tiles" and other tiles that have special functions.
The most common tiles are: the circle suit (contains circles), the bamboo suit (contains bamboos), character suit (Chinese characters representing ten thousand coins each), wind tiles (representing north, south, east and west), dragon tiles (red, green and white) flower tiles (containing art work). These tiles are of 34 kinds, in five different suits or designs: wan, circle, bamboo, wind and prime and 8 flower tiles.
These games also have an optional time limit, and offer hints/cheat options such as the ability to have a match found for you, or to backtrack and undo already made moves.
Additionally, most implementations of the game arrange the tiles in such a way that the game is solvable in at least one way.
In mahjong solitaire, the tiles are stacked on top of each other in a four layer grid in a random order, all facing upwards. These have to be matched with each other and discarded as a pair. Only free tiles, or tiles that can be moved freely without disturbing the ones on the right or left, can be moved and matched. When each of the free tiles is matched with another free tile and removed from the stack, it exposes other tiles under them and makes them free and ready to be matched. The objective is to remove all the 144 tiles from the board. The game is over when all the tiles are gone or when there is no possibility for removing other tiles. This happens when no free tiles can be matched with each other.
Mahjong solitaire can be played either solo, or with a partner in which case the aim is either to accumulate the most pairs, or to be the last one to match a pair.
Players should open up new tiles with every pair they eliminate. Haphazardly choosing obvious pairs, such as those from the top levels, will often end the game prematurely (i.e. lose) by leaving essential tiles under cover.
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