Christmas Mahjong

Most festive layouts let a piece go as soon as one side is clear. Lof Games sets a harder condition in Christmas Mahjong: a pair can be selected only when each piece has at least two adjacent sides open. The rest of them are gathered in the Christmas section.

That single change tightens everything. A piece sitting in a row with neighbours to the left and to the right stays locked even though it is fully visible and its twin is right there, so the order of removal matters far more than it would on a standard layout, and corners become the places to work from. The rest is deliberately pared back: a Christmas set of pieces on a simplified arrangement, without the extra machinery some seasonal boards carry. The Moving Tiles board sits one row away in the same list.

The panel is a small 800 by 450, and taps register as well as clicks. Another entry from the same shelf is Grand Connect.

1. Scan the layout for two pieces showing the same Christmas picture.
2. Check each one has at least two adjacent sides open, not just a single free edge.
3. Click both to lift the pair off the arrangement.
4. Keep opening corners so that buried pieces gain the two open sides they need, and carry on until the layout is empty.

• Corners before centres — a corner piece already has two adjacent sides open, which is exactly what Christmas Mahjong demands.
• Watch for the boxed-in twin — a visible piece flanked on both sides will not respond, and hunting a third copy is usually faster than freeing it.
• Break rows, not columns — thinning a long row hands open sides to several pieces at once here.
• Small frame, close look — at 800 by 450 the festive pictures are drawn small, so compare details before committing to a pair.