Summer Mahjong

Sixty stages is a long run for a themed tile game, and Summer Mahjong spends them on one idea: a seaside set of pieces, fish and shells and beach clutter, laid over the sound of surf. Lof Games shipped it in 2012 and the shape of the puzzle has not needed changing since. Kris Mahjong Remastered is catalogued beside this board.

Each of the sixty is a fresh formation rather than a reskin of the last, and the time limit is set per stage, so a layout you barely survive on one attempt is comfortably winnable on the next. Pieces come off in identical pairs, and only an open piece, with nothing on top and a free side, can be taken. A hint and a shuffle are available for the formations that close in on themselves. DinoMatch: Mahjong Pairs belongs to the same easy-going list.

The sea-creature art is where full screen earns its place, since several of the fish share a silhouette and differ mainly in colour, which a windowed board flattens into one blur. It runs on the desktop most of this site is played on, and on phones, where a tap replaces the click. The same section of the catalogue also holds the Enchanted Saga layout.

1. Look over the formation for two open pieces carrying the same sea creature or beach object.
2. Select both to lift the pair away and expose whatever sat beneath it.
3. Empty the whole stage before its clock runs out to unlock the next of the sixty.
4. Reach for the hint if the pattern will not come, and shuffle when the formation has no legal pair left.

• Peel the top tier first — every piece taken from the upper level of a formation frees two below it.
• Learn the fish — the set repeats similar silhouettes in different colours, and misreading them wastes the clock.
• Save hints for the late stages — the first dozen formations are shallow enough to solve unaided.
• Look at both twins — with three copies of a shell visible, pair the two that unblock the most, not the two nearest.
• Switch to full screen — the pieces are small once a full seaside formation is on the board.