Mahjong Blitz

Mahjong Blitz dresses the classic stack in sorcery and drops it into a mystical city, but the rule deciding every board is mechanical: only paired tiles that are free come off, and a tile counts as free when nothing sits to its left or to its right.

The name is honest about the pace. Rainbow Games puts a countdown on each level and lets the layouts grow harder as you climb, so a run usually ends because the timer beat you rather than because the tiles did. Speed here means taking the legal pair in front of you instead of scanning for a tidier one. Pairs leave the stack the same way in the Relax board.

Luck is part of it too, as the developers themselves put it, because a stack can bury both copies of a face under the same block. That is the case to plan against: strip the upper tiers early, while there are still enough free edges to choose between, and the endgame stops depending on the deal. Next to it in the same group is the Dream Pet Link board.

The 800 by 600 stage is small enough that full screen changes how the game feels, with the magic-marked tiles legible instead of merely colourful. The build takes touch input, so a level can be cleared on a phone as well. Working the covered edges first pays in the Restaurant pile as well.

1. Look for two matching blocks with no tile against their left or right side.
2. Select them one after the other to remove the pair from the stack.
3. Take the upper tiers first, since a covered block is unavailable however free its sides appear.
4. Finish the level before the countdown empties, and keep moving as the layouts get harder.

• Free means side-free — a block with neighbours on both flanks stays put, whatever is stacked above it.
• Take what you see — the countdown punishes the search for a better pair more than it punishes a plain one.
• Thin the top early — with more free edges available, the last twenty blocks stop being a matter of luck.
• Learn the magic faces — the sorcery symbols repeat with small differences, and a misread click costs seconds.
• Play in full screen — an 800 by 600 stage is cramped in a window once the city backdrop fills in behind the blocks.