Letter Mahjong

Letter Mahjong replaces the traditional suits with the letters of the English alphabet, so the pairs you are hunting are an M and an M, a Q and a Q. It sounds like a cosmetic change and it alters the scanning: letters are read rather than recognised, which is slower at first and much faster once the eye adjusts. Working the covered edges first pays in Mahjong Titans as well.

The game ships with 144 layouts, and they vary in shape rather than only in size, so the same alphabet keeps producing different problems. A tile can be taken while at least one of its sides is free, which means a long row of letters has to be eaten from the ends inwards. Only tiles with an open side move in the Candy board too.

Each level is timed, and hints are available at the cost of points, which makes them a scoring decision rather than a free rescue; a shuffle covers a layout with nothing left to pair. This 2021 HTML5 build runs on phones and on desktop machines, and full screen earns its keep here more than on a themed board — an O and a Q are one small tail apart. A second stacked layout here is Garden.

1. Look across the stack for two tiles showing the same letter.
2. Confirm each has a free side, so it can be slid out of its row.
3. Click both to remove them and uncover the letters beneath.
4. Clear the layout before the timer ends the level.

• Mind the lookalikes — in Letter Mahjong an I, a J and an L cause more misclicks than any themed tile set.
• Eat rows from the ends, since the middle letters have no free side until one edge goes.
• Hints cost points, so take one only when the layout is genuinely unreadable.
• Clear the upper tiles quickly — they hide the letters your pairs are waiting on.