Mahjong Quest

Mahjong Quest wraps the oriental solitaire board in a journey through ancient China, where the framing story has you restoring balance after a dragon invasion. Inlogic Software built it in 2007, and the design has held up: ornate tile art, background music written for long sessions, and a level structure that keeps changing what winning means.

That last part is the mechanical hook. In classic mode you clear the board outright, but Quest mode gives the level a specific goal — find and match the Yin and Yang tiles — so the pile in front of you is not a thing to be dismantled evenly but a problem with a target buried somewhere inside it. Special tiles appear across the variations, and reading which ones a level cares about is the difference between a fast clear and a slow one. Next to it in the same group is 3D Mahjong.

Speed is rewarded directly. Move quickly enough through a level and you earn medals and the tools that come with them, which turns the pace of your matching into a resource rather than just a preference. A hint and a shuffle are also available for a board that has gone quiet.

Full screen suits the ornate artwork, which carries detail that the default 800 by 600 stage does not do justice to on a large monitor. The build accepts mouse, keyboard and touch, so it plays on a desktop or a tablet without changing.

1. Select matching pairs of tiles to remove them from the board.
2. In Quest mode, locate and match the Yin and Yang tiles to complete the level.
3. In classic mode, keep going until every tile has been cleared.
4. Move quickly to earn medals and the tools that come with them.
5. Use a hint or a shuffle if the board stops offering matches.

• Find the target first — in Mahjong Quest levels the Yin and Yang tiles decide when you finish, so locate them before clearing at random.
• Speed pays — medals and tools go to fast runs, which makes tempo worth more than a tidy board.
• Learn the special tiles — the variations change what a level asks of you, and reading them early saves whole minutes.
• Clear from the top — buried pieces stay unavailable, target tiles included.
• Switch to full screen — the ornate oriental artwork carries fine detail that a small stage flattens.