Oops, I'm terribly sorry but I seem to have wandered into the Games category by mistake (Kyodai Mahjongg (PC))

Member Name: frannyfortune

Product:	Kyodai Mahjongg (PC)
Date:	15/08/01 (1160 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: very relaxing, extremely customisable, worth a look, even if you don't like this sort of thing, to see what can be achieved with shareware

Disadvantages: instructions for how to play the games are not that clear, too easy to go on playing and not register :-)

Erm, I don't really play computer games. Not the most promising start to an op, is it? Sorry. I don't, though. Not the proper sort. I once had a go on Doom, and it was all icky and violent, and there was scary music and stuff. My character basically cowered in a corner while my friends shouted "Come on! Get up! Shoot that thing! Run round that corner fast and shoot that other thing! Quickly! You’re not meant to run away yet! STOP COWERING!"

When they stopped shouting, and made me a cup of tea instead, and I'd stopped shaking and whimpering, they found me a nice game to play on instead. A fluffy person's game. The computer game equivalent of ten minutes yoga, and a cup of camomile tea. I still like to play this game when I'm stressed out, and it hasn't failed me yet. It’s called Kyodai Mahjongg, and you can download it for free, at http://kyodai.com. You’ve probably heard of the game Mahjongg Solitaire, or played it yourself, but if not, here's a brief explanation.

The object of the game is to remove all the tiles from a board, by matching them in pairs. There are usually 142 tiles, of 42 different types,arranged in a symmetrical but irregular pattern, with some tiles hidden underneath others. You basically click on a pair of tiles to remove them, but both tiles must be 'free' for you to do this, i.e. not lying underneath another tile, and not lying directly next to another tile on at least one side, either left or right. I've confused myself with that explanation, but hopefully it makes some sense. There will come a time when you have either cleared the board (hooray!), or when you can no longer make any legal moves, because the tiles you need to make matching pairs, are under or next to others (boo). Then you either sulk, and try again, or cheer, and try to do it again, but faster.

It's a nice little game, and quite addictive, but not terribly thrilling. Kyodai Mahjon
gg, however, is something rather special.

The designer, Rene-Gilles Deberdt, created it because he couldn't find a version of Mahjongg with all the features he was looking for. The first version was released in 1997, but Deberdt has been working on it ever since, constantly improving it, and releasing new versions – and wow, it shows. This is a labour of love. The basic solitaire game is now playable with 9 different tilesets, 19 backgrounds, 18 layouts, 6 skins, and 17 pieces of music. You can play a two-player version, or one of 5 other games that he has devised, or adapted, to use with the tiles. You can have 3D tiles, choose your tile borders, have tile shadows, tile animation, tilt the board, have something called environment mapping, and about a million other things I don't entirely understand. I have been playing around with the game and all the different options for about a month or so, and am nowhere near exhausting all the possibilities. All the options are on nice clear dropdown menus at the top of the screen, so you can fiddle and twiddle to your heart's content during a game.

It's staggeringly customisable, in other words, and I know I'm a self-confessed games-know-nothing-fool, but People Who Know agree with me and are similarly impressed. You can even upload your own background, or music, or whatever, and there's plenty of new downloads available on the website.

I know games reviews are meant to have lots of facts and figures, and bullet points, and I'm doing my best. I did count some of the option thingies off the drop down menus, earlier, at least, because I know some people like to know. I'm not going to attempt to list them all, because dooyoo would explode before I was done, but here are a few of my favourite options, to give you an idea. At the end, I'll try to convince you as to how it all comes together to be totally groovy.

~Tilesets~

Out of the 9, my fa
vourite is definitely 'Dreaming' (everything has cute names, you see, not just "number 7" or whatever). The pictures on the tiles are quite arty, and tribal, or that's what they look like to me, anyway. Some are quite abstract. I would say they're based on Native American or Aboriginal art, something like that? There's snakes, and beads, and fish, and arrow-heads, and I could look at them for hours. Some of them look like Kandinsky or Klimt paintings (sorry, did an op on art the other day, must snap out of it).

You could also choose from traditional Japanese or Chinese tiles, with mystifying pictograms; wood, or stone or 'real' effects, or even big bold numbers if you want to make it easy on yourself.

~Backgrounds~

This is the picture lying underneath the tiles, which is steadily revealed as the game progresses. There's some computer generated pictures of New Age type scenes, or a picture of the designer's cat, or you could choose Stonehenge, or a rather beautiful Japanese garden, or an eclipse. My favourite is the Seashore one, which is stereotypical waves lapping on a stereotypical beach, with a stereotypical sunset. It's fab, though. You can't beat a good old-fashioned bit of beauty.

~Layouts~

This is the pattern in which the tiles are placed. I know I said earlier that there were 18 different ones, but I've checked just now, and that's actually just how many there are on the favourites menu. There are, in fact over 100 different layouts, ranging from the traditional to the downright weird. There's a spaceship, and a yin/yang, and a cat which appears to have swallowed a mouse, and they mostly do look like the things that they're meant to. I'm boring. I stick with the Traditional layout, because I think the others are just him playing around to amuse himself. I think they’re clever, but they don’t add anything to the game, for me.
>
~Music~

I normally turn background music off after about 2 minutes, as it tends to annoy me to bits. Most of the tunes on here would fall into that category for me, even though they're cute enough, I suppose – a bit New Age, a bit plinky-plonky, a little bit lift-musicy. But I have found one I really, really like. It's still a little bit New Agey, and 'please hold the line while we try to connect you', and that sort of thing, but it's relaxing, and quite pretty, and if BT played it to you while you were on hold for 3 hours waiting to speak to them, I bet they'd have a lot fewer complaints. It's called 'Sad Song', but it isn't. It's nice.

~The games~

Well, there's traditional Solitaire, which I've explained, along with a two-player version. There's 'Rivers', which is match the pairs again, but with different rules (I'm not going to attempt to explain, as the designer himself fails abysmally, and admits you have to play it to 'get' it). There's Memory, as in the card game Pelmanism, where all the tiles are face down and you have to remember where they are in order to match them. There's Clicks, which is clicking on groups of adjacent, similarly coloured tiles to make them vanish, and drop down new tiles, and Hashira, which is a bit like Tetris and a bit like Magical Drop, if you know that one. Finally, there's Sliders, which I can't make head or tail of. If there's a drawback to Kyodai, it's the fact that Deberdt is a bit rubbish at explaining how to actually play the games. I'm useless at that sort of thing myself, so I'm not trying to be mean, but maybe he could get a friend with teaching-type skills to deal with that part of the package.

I tend to stick to the traditional Solitaire game, again, because that's what works for me. If you've not played it, or if you generally like fast-paced games that get
your adrenalin pumping, you may be wondering what on earth clicking on little tiles on a pretty background could possibly do for you. The creator decribes Kyodai as a meditation aid, and I would have laughed if I hadn’t already tried it for myself, but you know, I think he's got something there. I used to meditate (yeah, I know, if the Games section was a chat room, I might be in danger of being booted by now), and while I'm in no way recommending it as a substitute for the real thing, I do find that half an hour of Kyodai takes me somewhere not too far away from the chilled-outness of meditative activities.

Why? Well, to begin with, there's some soft and mellow music playing. There's a picture of a wild and beautiful scene to look at. Then there's all these little bitty tiles – could be distracting – but actually the pictures on them are rather wonderful, too. Oops, the game's started, meant to be doing something here. Ack, there's a timer (though I bet you guessed that you can turn it off). Better hurry. Ok, that one goes with that one, that one goes with that one – ooh, look at that, they sort of drift off slowly and fly away when I've matched a pair. I've got the Seashore background selected, so they literally disappear into the sunset.

Hmm. That one goes with that one. I really like that one, looks like peacock feathers or something. That one looks like...seaweed? Or DNA perhaps? Can't see one to match that one.

Nice music.

Mmmmm.

Ooh – there's a pair. There they go...

I never noticed that one looked like a bat before.

Maybe should look for another pair.

Mmmmm.

***

Twenty minutes later, I might have finished a game, I might not, but I'll definitely be a lot more relaxed and possibly more mentally alert than when I started. I must have the most pathetic time scores ever. Stil
l, as Deberdt says, it's a meditation aid, and he's not interested in receiving people's times or high scores at all, because that's not what it's about. He then blows it slightly, by giving us his – but only "for information", he stresses.

It's shareware, without the nasty "30 days to register" bit. He does urge you to register, thereby removing the pop-up reminders, and making sure you receive the latest updates, and so on, and giving him some reward for this wonderful piece of software.

Ooh, I nearly forgot the Manga girls! If you want, you can have lovely little Manga girls watching your game, from the side of the screen. Personally, I don't feel the need, but they're there for you, if you want them. Along with umpteen million other options. Go and have a little play around. Unwind a bit. Why not? It's free, and it comes with a guarantee from me– "No zombies died during the making of this game." Promise.

Games peeps – if any of you are still reading – thanks for having me in your section, for a while. It was a bit scary coming in here, but sort of fun, and if anyone knows the way back to the books section, then I'll get me coat.

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