World of Warcraft Mahjong

Made in 2010, when Warcraft was at its cultural peak and Flash was still how fans made things, this is a connect board dressed in the game’s iconography: characters, weapons and the symbols any player of the period would recognise on sight.

The linking rule is the familiar one for the genre. Two identical tiles join when a path between them turns through no more than two right angles, so the reach is generous but not unlimited, and a pair on opposite edges of a full board usually has to wait. From the same years, there is also the Empire layout.

A timer runs, and the build gives you hints and shuffles to fight it with. Both are worth holding: the icon art is dense, several weapon tiles look alike at speed, and the moment you most need a shuffle is the moment the clock is least forgiving. The full Flash list collects the boards of this kind in one place.

The Flash file is what runs here, played back by the Ruffle emulator rather than by anything native. Icon tiles are dense artwork and they scale imperfectly, the shuffle can redraw the board in one jump, and full screen has to be taken from the browser. The Fruit Connect layout is filed under the same heading here.

1. Pick out two identical icon tiles somewhere on the grid.
2. Check the route: a connecting path may turn through two right angles at most.
3. Click both tiles to link and clear them.
4. Spend a hint when nothing is visible, and a shuffle when nothing is legal.
5. Clear the grid before the timer runs down.

• Class symbols before weapons — the crests are distinct, while several blades read the same at small size.
• Two angles, not three — a path with a third turn will not connect, however near the pair sits.
• Shuffle while tiles remain — a rearrangement with a full grid gives more legal pairs than a late one.
• Play full screen — the icon artwork is detailed and loses its edges in a small frame.
• Clear a lane, not a scatter — an emptied row makes long connections legal for everything after it.