Cats Mahjong

Lof Games swapped the bamboo and character suits for cat faces: every tile in Cats Mahjong carries a drawn feline, and a pair only counts when the two animals are identical down to the markings.

Selection follows the open-tile rule — a piece covered or hemmed in by its neighbours cannot be lifted, so the stack has to be peeled from its exposed edges inward. The opening layouts sit shallow and forgiving; they thicken as the level counter climbs, which is the point at which the hint and shuffle buttons start to earn their place. For one more pile of the same kind, see the Impossible pile.

Nothing is counting down. With no time limit on the board, a difficult Cats Mahjong layout costs patience rather than a lost level, and a half-cleared stack can sit while you work out which cat pairs to break first. A second stacked layout here is Spring Tile Master.

Full screen is the setting to reach for early, because the cat art is fine-lined and two tabby tiles look much alike inside the 800 by 450 frame. Mouse and touch both drive it, so the same board behaves on a desktop and on a tablet. The Team board builds the layers into another arrangement.

1. Look over the layout for two cat tiles showing the same animal, both of them unblocked.
2. Click one, then the other; the pair lifts away and uncovers whatever sat beneath it.
3. Take the top layers down first so more of the cat faces come into view.
4. Call the shuffle when tiles remain but no legal pair is left among them.
5. Clear the board to advance, and expect the next layout to be denser than the last.

• Learn the markings — several Cats Mahjong tiles share a coat colour, and only the face pattern separates them.
• Hold the hints back — the deeper levels need them far more than the opening ones do.
• Strip the upper layers — every cat removed up top exposes two or three below it.
• Shuffle rather than stall — a board with no legal pair will not open up on its own.
• Switch to full screen — the drawn faces separate cleanly once the board is scaled up.