Picking pairs for adults (Mah Jongg (PC))

Member Name: SusanLesley

Product:	Mah Jongg (PC)
Date:	06/09/01 (60 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very playable, Easy to learn, Giid fun

Disadvantages: Addictive!

A colleague at work introduced me to Mah-Jongg as a PC game many years ago and I've been hooked ever since.

The basic game is an oriental variation on the old childhood game of picking pairs but with a three dimensional layout in the shape of a pyramid and the symbols are printed on tiles as opposed to playing cards.

There are 144 of these tiles bearing the following Chinese symbols
Three sets of numbers 1 to 9 (like a suit of playing cards) – four tiles of each design (108)
Four tiles representing the four compass points, north, south, eat and west – four tiles of each design (16 tiles)
Three other symbols, I’m not sure what these represent I’m afraid – four tiles of each design (12 tiles)
Four tiles representing the four seasons – one tiles of each design (the ‘pair’ is made by any two of the seasons) (4 tiles)
Four tiles representing four flowers – one tiles of each design (the ‘pair’ is made by any two of the flowers) (4 tiles)

As I said earlier these appear on the screen in the shape of a pyramid. The idea is to pick off the tiles in matching pairs by clicking on two identical tiles (except for the seasons and flowers as described above) and they will disappear from the screen.

For a tile to be available to be picked the face of the tile must be visible, obviously or you wouldn’t know what it was! There must also be at least one edge of the tile visible – so you couldn’t take a tile from the middle of the playing area even if you could see it, if four other tiles surrounded it. Oh dear this is quite difficult to actually put into words – I do hope it is making sense to you!

You continue in this way until all the tiles have been removed or until you get to such a point as there are no further legitimate moves left to be made. The latter is the more likely I find but maybe that’s just me!

>There are two counters on the screen while play is in progress. One counts down the number of tiles remaining beginning with 144 and dropping by 2 each time you make a successful move. The other counts the time in minutes and seconds.

There is a high score board attached to the game so that, when you actually complete the game, you can record the times of your quickest triumphs! My fastest time so far is 2 minutes and 6 seconds.

When you get to a point at which there are no further moves available a message will appear on the screen to this effect, which saves you sitting looking for a move that isn’t there! If this message has not been displayed then there is at least one move remaining. If you can’t spot it (or even if you just want to cheat a bit) there are three facilities to be found under the heading ‘help’ on the toolbar at the top of the screen. One is to show the number of moves left, one will show what the moves actually are, and the other will show an x ray of a tile. This last facility is to show what is underneath any of the tiles so that, if you had a choice of moves, you could judge which was the best. Personally I have never used this facility as I think its cheating, but each to their own.

The game also gives you the choice of ten different tile designs. I usually use the mediaeval one with heraldic shields on the tiles. I find this very easy to see and easy to distinguish between the various tiles. Some of the Chinese symbols are very similar in design and my eyesight isn’t as good as it might be!

You can also change the background colour of the screen on which you are playing to make it as easy on your eyes as possible. Mine is blue – somewhere between Royal Blue and Navy Blue. You never know – you might be interested!!!

So there you have it - it is very simple to learn and very easy to get addicted ...... oooh the time I've spent on this game!

Y
ou can also get more complicated versions of the game, which give various different starting points instead of the traditional pyramid, such as a bridge, cube, and various abstract figures. They also have a lot more tile designs too, but I must admit I like the one I’ve got best of all!

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