Game Team Mahjong

A traditional set drawn in the Chinese style, with no picture theme laid over the top of it. This is the plain version of the stacked board, and the tile faces are the ones the game has always used.

Pairs come off when both pieces are uncovered and free on at least one side. Because the set is the standard one, the trouble is the standard trouble: the character suit and the circles look alike in the lower rows, and a misread there is what strands a pair for good. A second stacked layout here is the Time board.

There is no clock at all. Nothing is deducted for thinking and nothing is added for speed, so the layout can be sat over from the first pair to the last. That suits a board with no gimmicks, where the only pressure is whatever the arrangement itself supplies. The Alchemy board builds the layers into another arrangement.

The file is a Flash build, and Ruffle is what keeps it running now that browsers have dropped the plug-in. The tile art shows it first: those etched Chinese faces are at their original resolution, the click that removes a pair can sound a moment after the pieces vanish, and full screen has become a browser matter rather than a game one. Pairs leave the stack the same way in the Resize pile.

1. Look over the whole stack before the first removal.
2. Find two identical faces, each uncovered and open on the left or the right.
3. Click the first face and then its match, and both leave the stack.
4. Keep going layer by layer until the table is empty.

• Learn the circles — the dotted suit is the one that costs matches in the traditional set used here.
• Take from the top — a piece lifted from the upper layer usually opens two below it.
• No clock, so read first — there is nothing to gain by clicking before you know which pair to take.
• Turn on full screen — the traditional faces are drawn small and their fine strokes are the first thing to blur.
• Keep a spare pair — leaving one easy match untaken gives you somewhere to fall back to.