Mahjong Mix

Mahjong Mix is a menu rather than a single board. Five separate variants sit behind it — Mahjong Solitaire, Slide Mahjong, 10 Mahjong, Triple Mahjong and Mahjong Connect — and you choose which set of rules to play before a tile is touched. Directly alongside it sits the Connect board.

The five do not play alike. Solitaire is the stacked layout where only free tiles lift; Connect asks for a clear path between two matching tiles; Triple wants sets of three instead of pairs; 10 Mahjong pairs numbers that total ten; Slide pushes tiles across the field into one another. Learning this menu means learning five different reasons a board can stall. The Alchemy board lays the same tiles out in another silhouette.

Each variant runs against a clock, so a level ends when the layout is empty or the time is gone, and hints and a shuffle are on hand for both kinds of trouble. The HTML5 build is sized for phones as well as desktops; full screen is worth turning on before you switch modes, because the busier variants crowd their tiles and a mis-tap costs a pair. There is nothing to sign up for before the menu appears. The Jolly Jong Journey board sits beside this one among the layered boards.

1. Open the Mahjong Mix menu and choose one of the five variants.
2. Read the rule for that mode: pairs of identical free tiles, a linked path, a set of three, or numbers totalling ten.
3. Clear the layout before that mode's timer runs out.
4. Return to the menu for the next variant, or replay the one that beat you.

• Pick the mode to suit the clock — the triple board eats time whenever the third tile is buried.
• Reset your habits between variants — a pair that is legal in the connect mode is not legal in the sliding one.
• Strip the top layers first — in every stacked variant of Mahjong Mix that is where the blockers live.
• Keep the shuffle for a dead layout rather than for a slow one.
• Learn the sum-to-ten board last — reading numbers takes longer than reading pictures, and the timer makes no allowance for it.