Mahjong Solitaire

This is the stacked kind: tiles piled several layers deep, where a piece only becomes selectable when nothing rests on top of it and one of its side edges is open. You turn and tap through the pile, lifting unblocked pairs off two at a time until the layout is empty. Arkadium built the version on this page.

Twenty minutes is the entire budget for a board, and that number shapes the opening. The pile starts dense, most of what is visible is blocked by something above it, and the first few minutes go on stripping the top ridge to expose what is underneath rather than on chasing one particular tile face. For one more pile of the same kind, see Alchemy.

A hint marks one available pair, and a shuffle rearranges whatever is left when the pile has gone dead. Neither is genuinely free, because every second spent on them comes out of the same twenty, so the habit worth keeping is to scan the exposed side edges twice before reaching for either. Only tiles with an open side move in Safari Story Mahjong too.

The stage runs at 640 by 480, which is why so many people arrive looking for these tiles at a larger size. Full screen is the answer: the pile expands to the height of the monitor and telling a three-circle tile from a four-circle one stops being guesswork. The board also accepts touch, so a tablet works, though the deepest layers are simply easier to read on a desktop.

Empty the pile inside the twenty minutes and the board is won. Leave a pair buried under a tile you should have taken earlier and you have learned something about the layout’s shape for the next attempt. The Hamster Pop board asks the same question of a taller pile.

1. Look over the pile and pick out the tiles that are uncovered and open on the left or the right.
2. Tap one, then tap its twin, and the pair is removed from the stack.
3. Work down from the top ridge so the buried layers keep becoming legal.
4. Clear the whole pile within twenty minutes to win the board.
5. Use a hint if the edges look empty, and a shuffle if the pile has genuinely locked.

• Strip the ridge, not the corners — the tiles on top release the most new options per removal.
• Count the pairs you can see — when three of a face are exposed, take the two that free the most tiles underneath.
• Watch the twenty — a dense opening eats time quickly, so keep moving even while you are still mapping the pile.
• Spend hints late — they help most when the survivors are few and awkwardly placed.
• Turn on full screen — the small stage is the reason the suits look alike, and enlarging it fixes that immediately.