Solitaire MahJongg - a guide to the computer tile-matching solitaire mahjongg games

The first computer solitaire mahjongg game was created by Brodie Lockard in 1981 on the PLATO computer and named Mah-Jongg. The original layout was called 'The Turtle'. PLATO was a group of mainframe computers originally located at the the University of Illinois, USA and was an educational system. Users connected to PLATO through terminals in the US and some from other countries. Mah-Jongg was freely available for everyone to use. In 1983 a new version was formally released by Control Data Corporation as an paid online game. But the original version was still available for free. It has long been thought that it was Activision's Shanghai from 1986 who was the first computer solitaire mahjongg game. Regardless of the fact that it "only" was the second one, it was the game that made tile-matching solitaire mahjongg famous. Shanghai - the second computer tile-matching solitaire mahjongg game was released by 'Activision' (California, USA) for the Macintosh in 1986. It was again created by Brodie Lockard (original idea, programming and artwork) and Brad Fregger (producer). Shanghai is one of the most successful computer games in history, selling more than ten millions copies world-wide. Shanghai has been ported to over 30 computer platforms. Shanghai created a whole new genre. Over the years hundreds of imitators, clones and / or improved versions have been made. Since Shanghai is a registered trademark and the game originally used mahjongg tiles, many tile-matching game authors have called and describe their games as Mahjongg games. This has led to much confusion and debate over what is mahjongg and what is not. The tile-matching games and the genre has no universally accepted name, but are now mostly known under the name of ‘Solitaire MahJongg' or 'MahJongg Solitaire’. It's also been called 'The Turtle', 'Shanghai Solitaire', 'Shanghai type games' or simply ‘tile-matching games'. Widely known brand names include Taipei, Kyodai, Shanghai, and Moraff's. Shanghai might have been based on an old Chinese game called 'The Turtle'. The possible folk origin of the game has been much debated. For a more detailed discussion about the origin of Shanghai and ‘The Turtle’, please see the 'origin' page. The games belong to what you can call the 'meditative strategy genre'. They are extremely strategic in nature, but has no arcade or "adrenaline producing" quality. They gives you're concentration and pattern-recognition a good workout, but can be taken at your own pace since it is designed to relax the user, not to stress him. It's simple to learn and challenging to master. "It's simple, it's universal, it's Zen". With some of the major games the user can often make their own tile sets, layouts, sounds and backgrounds to use in the games. Perhaps some of the genre's charm lies in this fact. If you look on it from the game producers point of view the game is always a 'sure hit' - millions play its and the demand for the games seems never to stop. Solitaire MahJongg games are said to be easy to program (at least a lot easier than to program true mahjongg games).

Box cover 'Shanghai' for MAC 1986 Back Cover

Shanghai Title Screen

Shanghai In-game Shot

Standard Layout ('The Dragon' or 'The Turtle')

Traditional tile set

How to play:

The goal is to clear the board by removing all the tiles from the layout. Layouts can differ in pattern, size and height. There exist hundreds of different layouts. You must remove the tiles in pairs. A pair consists of two tiles which both are a) "free" and b) identical (or of the same type).
A tile is "free" when:

• no other tile is lying above or is partially covering it
• and no other tile is lying to the left or to the right of it (it can "slide" in one or both these directions..)

Two tiles are identical if they look exactly the same (of course...). An exception to this are the Flowers and Seasons tiles. They are non-identical matching tiles and belong to the same type. All the Flowers tiles match one another and all the Season tiles match one another. You should study them before starting a game.
Each tile appears four times in a standard solitaire mahjongg game. Again an exception for the Flowers and Seasons tiles who appear only once each during a game.
It's not as easy as it sounds; you can end up with having matched the "wrong" pairs and you may find yourself stuck, with unmatchable tiles blocking other key tiles so you can't clear the layout. You must be careful before removing a pair, you should look for where the remaining pair is in the layout and plan ahead. If all four of an identical tile are free, remove them to 'unclutter' the field. It's not only a game of pure luck, you have to play strategic.

The tiles:

A Mah-Jongg set consists of 144 tiles. These are split in seven groups, called sets. The three first sets are numeric and they are called suits. The winds and the dragons tiles are called honor tiles. Remember: In the same way as playing cards can have different images for kings and queens, the look of the Mah Jongg tiles differs from game to game. This is specially true for flowers and seasons tiles. And in addition you can often make your own tile sets with pictures of your own choice. The images below are taken from the freeware game 'Dragonboard'.

The top row of each tile set contains the 9 ball tiles (also known as 'circle', 'badges' or the 'dots' tiles). Their numerical value (1 to 9) are represented by the number of balls shown on the tiles. There are four tiles of every Ball (36 tiles total).

The second row from the top contains the 9 bamboo tiles (also known as 'sticks' or 'bams'). Their numerical value (1 to 9) are represented by the number of sticks shown on the tiles. There are four tiles of every Bamboo (36 tiles total). A peacock, a rice bird or a real Mah Jongg bird [4] (a Sparrow) or occasionally a bamboo shoot which resembles a pineapple is shown on tile number one.
The third row contains the 9 characters tiles (also called the 'number', 'Wan', 'Ten Thousand' or the 'craks' tiles). The red symbol is the Chinese sign for 10.000 (and the sign for prosperity). The black symbol above are the sign for the numbers from 1 to 9. That would make them numbers from 10.000 to 90.000. Many games have put Arabic numbers on the corresponding tiles to help people from the western world. There are four tiles of every Character (36 tiles total).
The fourth row starts with the four seasons tiles. Contrary to the above mentioned suits the seasons tiles only appear once each in a game (4 tiles total). From left to right: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Printed above is the the corresponding abbreviations for the seasons. These tiles can either have an image or a Chinese symbol. When you play solitaire mahjongg games any season will match another season.
The fourth row end with the four wind tiles. From left to right: East, South, West and North. Shown on every tile is the Chinese symbol for the according wind. Again, in computer games, we cheat: The first letter of the wind is printed using Latin characters. There are four tiles of every wind (16 tiles total).
The fifth row starts with four flowers tiles. Just as the seasons tiles, the flowers tiles only appear once each in a game (4 tiles total). From left to right: The Orchid, The Plum Blossom, the Bamboo and the Chrysanthemum. Printed above is the the corresponding abbreviations for the flowers. When you play solitaire mahjongg games any flower will match another flower).
The fifth row ends with the dragons tiles. From left to right: Green Dragon, White Dragon and Red dragon. The white dragon can be a blank tile tile, or it can have an image of an rectangle (outlined in red or blue). There are four tiles of every dragon (12 tiles total).

The Winds and Dragons tiles are important in true mahjongg games, but plays no special role in solitaire mahjongg games where they are treated just like the suites. It's the other way around with the Flowers and Seasons tiles. In true mahjongg they have no part in the actual play; they are only valuable as bonus points and represents the element of chance in the game. In solitaire mahjongg they are important because they are the only non-identical matching tiles and occur only one time each (as to four times each for the other tiles).

TWO-PLAYER
Although this game is often referred to as "solitaire," you can easily play it with 2 or more people. There are several ways you can do this:

A. Cooperative. No special rules -- just work the puzzle together.

B. Competitive. Several ways to go here:

i. Speed free-for-all. The two of you attack the layout together, removing pairs. When you remove a pair, put it on your side of the table. At the end (when the layout is clear or unwinnable) the player with the biggest pile of tiles wins.

ii. Taking turns. Each player gets a turn at removing a pair. A player's turn ends when the player removes a pair or the player concedes (cannot see a pair to remove). Game ends when the layout is cleared or unwinnable by mutual agreement. Player with biggest tile pile wins.

iii. Time-limited turns. Get a one-minute timer. Start it at the beginning of each player's turn. Inevitably, some turns will result in a match being removed and some won't. At the end (when the layout is clear or unwinnable) the player with the biggest pile of tiles wins.

Source: Tom Sloper

'Mah jong' can be translated from Chinese as 'clattering sparrow', 'flax sparrow' or possibly as 'hemp bird'. The tiles when shuffled make a melodious noise reminiscent of the noise of numerous sparrows squabbling over scattered food crumbs.
(Tom Sloper, FAQ 11: History of Mah-Jongg).

The standard layout has been called 'The Turtle', 'The Pyramid' and 'The Dragon' layout. The original layout was called 'The Turtle' by the creator Brodie Lockard in the 1981 Mah-Jongg. The original configuration was intended to look like a turtle. In 1986 the Shanghai game described the standard layout as "arranged in a dragon- shaped pyramid". It was Activision's marketing department that came up with this 'dragon description'.

According to Tom Sloper there are four "schools" of how to create a layout (tile arrangement) or "board":
a) "Canned, and winnable". Japanese programmers tend to create "canned" tile arrangements - they are carefully planned and arranged to have just the right amount of traps, yet be winnable. There is no mathematical program algorithm at all - the tile arrangements are all carefully planned by a game designer. You get a very limited number of arrangements, but a challenging game. The drawback is that some players can memorize the pattern for removing the pairs.
b) "Random" - American programmers tend to create purely "random" tile arrangement - with no guarantee as to winnability or challenge. You get a huge number of possible arrangements.
c) "Random, but winnable" - Every game is winnable (at least one path to victory and possibly several to failure). The program uses an algorithm to arrange the tiles a pair at a time, from the bottom and up. You still get a lot of possible arrangements.
d) The game uses a "seed" number to generate some arrangements, not all of which are solvable.
Several solitaire mahjongg games let's you choose between "random" and "random, but winnable" layouts.
Most solitaire mahjongg computer implementations can generate puzzles that are guaranteed to be solvable.
According to Jarno Elonen it is impossible to come up with an algorithm that could always solve them. This is correct for the case where you are not allowed to peek below the tiles.
If, however, you are allowed to peek under the tiles before taking them (complete-information variant of the game), it is obviously possible to write a solver. See: Pedro Gimeno Fortea (read more about the Shanghai auto-solver in Misc. page)

Tired of the 'standard' mahjongg tile set? Why don't you create your own? The only limit is your own imagination (and perhaps access to pictures or your artistic limitations...)
Remember that the Seasons and Flowers tiles are special. When you create a tile set, you must make sure that those eight tiles are identifiable as tiles that belongs to two 'types' or 'families'. The four tiles in each group should have common characteristic marks in order to be identified during the game. Example: You're making a Viking tile set. You have four different pictures of swords and four different pictures of helmets. Voila! Problem solved. And of course you don't use any sword or helmets pictures in the rest of the tile set... . If you don't have an idea for a family of tiles, simply take four identical tiles for each type. They will behave just like regular tiles then.
"I have an great idea for a tile set and would like to use it in *all* solitaire mahjongg games!" Oh, I wish that was possible...but almost every tile-matching game uses a different proprietary file format for sets. You must learn how to make tile sets for your particular game. Read the documentation and/or visit the game’s website first. Is this doesn’t help, you must contact the author directly.

The Strategy:

(Taken from 'Shanghai Second Dynasty' Help):

• Remember that there are four of each tile. When removing a pair, remember that an identical pair exists in the layout. Is it trapped by your removal of the first pair? Choose wisely.
  
• Concentrate your efforts on long rows and tall stacks.
  
• Plan ahead as many moves as you can.
  
• If all four of a tile are available, remove them all to unclutter the field.
  
• Don't count on the computer to show you the best possible move; the computer only shows the first move it finds [assuming your computer game has a hint function].
  
• Identify as many matching pairs as possible. Check for tiles that need to be unblocked.
  
• Beware of triples (three matching free tiles); choose carefully which pair you remove. Leave the one that's blocking the least important tiles.
  
• Concentrate on removing pairs that will unblock the most tiles.
  

感謝樓主分享～

Shisen-Sho (hugee注：即连连看游戏)

In Shisen-Sho (aka 'Four Rivers', 'Szechuan', 'Shisen' or 'Nikakudori') the object is to remove all tiles from the field (as in 'Shanghai'). Only two matching or identical tiles can be removed at a time. The two tiles can only be removed if they can be connected with, at most, three connected lines. They must be connected by an imaginary line which does not pass through any other tile. Distance does not matter. When you remove tiles at the edges, other tiles become available for matching. These games uses what could be called the 'one-layer two-angles arcade rules'.

The number of tiles doesn't matter (as long as it has all four of the tiles used) and the layout may be different from game to game (the traditional one is a rectangular grid).

Remember that there normally are 4 of each tile - matching the "wrong" two first may make you loose the game, the game become unsolvable and you're trapped...

Szechuan is the name of an Chinese province, Shisen-Sho (or Sichuan) the Japanese name for the same area and Four Rivers is the English translation of that name. The myth is that Mahjongg is so popular in the province of Szechuan (probably true) that they created a different variant to play with the tiles (probably false).

Both the name of the original author and time of creation are unknown (probably Japanese).


True Mahjong

“The real game” is a board game for four players somewhat similar to the card game “Gin Rummy”, but played with tiles instead of cards. There are at least 28 known varieties of mahjongg; with the six major varieties being: Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, American, Western and Filipino. All the different Mahjongg games uses pretty similar basic rules, but different scoring and different strategies, special hands and tile combinations.

Myth and History – a myth claims that mahjongg was played by Noah in his Ark during the biblical Flood. Another myth claims that it was the great Chinese philosopher, Confucius, that invented the game about 500 years B.C. A third myth claims it was created during the T’ang Dynasty (618-907).
The much more probably theory is that it was created around AD 1850 in the area of Ningbo, China by merging several card, tile and domino games.  

Photo by Tom Sloper

Ishido

A clarification: The game mentioned first below here; Ishido: Way of The Stones, is the original game - the first Ishido game and the creator are Michael Feinberg.

Ishido: Way of The Stones was developed and published by Publishing International for the Macintosh in 1989. The year after Accolade published the DOS version. The original concept and design was with Michael Feinberg. Producer was Brad Fregger (the producer for Shanghai), lead programmers were Ian Gilman and Michael Sandige, Brodie Lockard (the inventor of Shanghai) contributed with graphics. Ishido is a puzzle board game and belongs to the "meditative strategy" genre, just like Shanghai. It is easy to learn and hard to master. It can use Mahjongg type tiles, but also other tile sets (called stone sets). But instead of removing tiles, in Ishido you have to put all the tiles (stones) onto the board. You have to match 72 stones on a board of 96 squares. Each stone set has two attributes: a color and a symbol or shape. There are 6 colors and 6 symbols/shapes in each stone set, thus creating 36 unique stones. Each stone comes in a pair, hence 72 stones in each stone set. The stones must be placed adjacent to others, you get most points by when placing it adjacent to four stones (a 'four-way'). The catch is that the stone must match his neighbor in color or shape. To make a 'four-way' two stones must match in shape and two in color. Ishido is a made up Japanese word. Ishido comes with 6 stone sets, 5 different game boards, High Score list, Undo, Hint, and oriental music. It has four game mode: Solitaire, Cooperative (2 players work together), Tournament (several people plays entire identical games) and Challenge (against a second player or the computer). Abandonware (DOS- download from 'Home of TheUnderdogs)                       (MAC - Download from Ian Gilman)

Alchemy    In this variant the tiles are magical runes. The goal is to turn the entire board into gold. Runes must be placed next to an existing Rune, and they must match all adjacent Runes in either their shape, their color, or both. "Stones" act as wild cards. "Skulls" are magical bombs. Normal 'strategic mode' and 'time-trial mode'. Music, sound, hint, high score and customs cursors. In the trial there is no high score, no time trial and several nag screens. Req.: Windows 95, 98, 2000, or ME with Direct X, Pentium II 200 Mhz , 32 mb RAM. There is also an MAC OS X version. 1, 8 mb - download from: PopCap Games