Connect Halloween Mahjong

Connect Halloween Mahjong drops the stacked pyramid entirely. Tiles lie flat in a grid, and a pair only clears if you can draw a path between them that turns no more than twice at a right angle.

The faces are skulls, coffins, ghosts and pumpkins, which sounds cosmetic until you are three levels in and mistaking one grinning skull for another under time pressure. Twelve levels run in sequence, each tighter than the last, and every pair has to come off before the clock stops you. Connect Remastered sets out another one-layer board on the same rule.

Some boards will not sit still. On certain levels the tiles drift, so a route that was clear a second ago closes behind you, and the timer keeps running while you re-plan. A longer explanation of the rule sits in the connect-tips guide.

Hints and a shuffle are on hand for a stuck grid. The HTML5 build works on desktop and mobile, and full screen makes the connecting line far easier to trace across a wide Halloween board. The line between two tiles decides the match in the Virus Connection grid as well.

1. Find two tiles showing the same Halloween symbol.
2. Trace a clear path between them that bends at most twice, each bend a right angle.
3. Make sure no other tile sits on that path.
4. Clear every pair before the timer expires to unlock the next of the twelve levels.
5. Call a hint or a shuffle when the grid offers nothing.

• Work the outside edge — tiles on the border of a Connect Halloween Mahjong grid have the most routes open to them.
• Learn the four faces fast — skulls and ghosts read alike at speed, and a wrong pick costs seconds you do not have.
• Expect movement — on the levels where tiles drift, take the pair nearest to closing rather than the prettiest route.
• Save the hints — later levels are shorter on time, and that is where a pointer earns its keep.
• Go full screen — a two-bend path across a wide grid is much easier to see unletterboxed.