Japan Castle Mahjong

Forty levels, forty castles: Japan Castle Mahjong gives every stage a different fortress as its backdrop, and the tile towers in front of them are stacked rather than laid flat. Dismantling a tower is the job, and the shape of each one is what makes its level distinct.

Matching is done on identical free tiles, a tile being free when nothing rests on it and one side is exposed. Because the arrangements build upward, the pieces doing the most blocking are usually the ones nearest the top of the structure, and taking them is what keeps a level moving. A second stacked layout here is the Tower board.

Each stage runs against a clock. There is also a mirror option that flips the image, which sounds cosmetic and is genuinely practical: a tile obscured from one angle often becomes readable once the view is reversed. It works as a substitute for a hint button. Also under this heading: the Connect 2 grid.

The HTML5 build plays on desktop machines, tablets and phones, and full screen suits it because the castle artwork behind the board competes with the tile faces at small window sizes. Another layout to unstack is the Pandjohng Solitaire pile.

1. Study the tower and find two identical tiles with nothing on top and one side clear.
2. Click the pair to remove it and lower the structure by two pieces.
3. Take the highest tiles first, since those are the ones locking the rest of the tower.
4. Flip the view with the mirror option when a face is hard to read.
5. Clear the tower before the stage timer expires to reach the next castle.

• Read the silhouette — every Japan Castle Mahjong level stacks differently, and the shape tells you where the locked tiles sit.
• Use the mirror early — flipping the image is faster than squinting at a tile seen edge-on.
• Do not strip one flank — clearing a whole side leaves a tall column that nothing can reach.
• Track the timer per stage — across forty levels it is the clock, not the layout, that decides most failures.
• Switch to full screen — the castle backdrops are busy and the tile faces need the extra pixels.