Jolly Jong Mahjong

Jolly Jong Mahjong opens with a choice most boards do not offer: a difficulty setting, from easy up to challenging, picked before the first tile is touched. That decision shapes the run more than anything you do afterwards.

A hundred levels follow, growing more complex as you work through them. There is no clock, so a run ends when the board is empty or when nothing legal is left. The failure state here is a locked layout rather than an expired timer. Pairs leave the stack the same way in Mahjong Big.

Hints and shuffles are available but they are not free. Using either draws a penalty against your result, which makes the difficulty setting worth choosing honestly rather than optimistically. The Titans board lays the same tiles out in another silhouette.

The Flash-era build was made for a PC or laptop screen. Full screen is the setting to use on the later of the hundred levels, where the stacks run deep and a tile half-hidden under two others is easy to overlook. The Pandjohng Solitaire pile asks the same question of a taller pile.

1. Choose a difficulty, from easy through to challenging.
2. Find two identical tiles that are free to take.
3. Select the pair to remove it from the stack.
4. Clear the entire board to win the level.
5. Fall back on a hint or a shuffle only if you accept the penalty.

• Pick the difficulty honestly — Jolly Jong Mahjong makes that choice once and it sets the shape of all hundred levels.
• Avoid the penalties — every hint and every shuffle is deducted from your result.
• Strip the upper storeys — deep stacks hide the tiles that decide whether a board can be finished.
• Take your time — nothing is timed, so the only way to lose is to run the board into a corner.
• Turn on full screen — later layouts stack deep, and a partly covered tile is easy to miss at small size.