Merge Mahjong

Merge Mahjong is not a pair game. The board is a square grid already holding blocks, and your move is to place the tile waiting at the top onto a square of your choosing; three identical tiles in a line merge and vanish. Matching is something you build here, not something you spot.

That inverts the usual difficulty. Nothing is hidden, so there is no hunting for a twin, but every placement reshapes the grid, and a careless drop leaves a gap that later tiles cannot fill cleanly. Fish Pond Studio handcrafts each level, so the grids are puzzles with an intended solution rather than random deals. The Easter Deluxe board sits on the same shelf of gentler boards.

Boosters are earned through play and spent on the levels that lock up, and they are the only rescue on offer, since no clock is running. Nothing forces a hurried placement; the cost of a bad move is paid in board space instead of seconds. The Kris grid is catalogued beside this board.

The 2019 stage is 640 by 1136, a tall phone shape, and on a desktop monitor full screen is what stops the grid sitting as a narrow strip in the middle of the window. Mouse and touch both work, and the portrait layout is unusually comfortable on a phone. Another entry from the same shelf is the Dots Connect D board.

1. Look over the square grid and the blocks already placed on it.
2. Take the tile waiting at the top and click the square where you want it to land.
3. Line up three identical tiles in a row so they merge and leave the grid.
4. Keep space free as you go, then spend a booster when a handcrafted level closes up on you.

• Placement is the puzzle — every block you drop changes what the next one can do, so plan a square ahead.
• Protect open squares — a grid with nowhere to put the waiting tile is lost even with matches on the board.
• Build towards threes — pairs left scattered around the grid are the usual way space runs out.
• Hold boosters for handcrafted walls — the designed levels have tight moments where one is worth more than three easy placements.
• Full screen fixes the portrait stage — a 640 by 1136 grid is a thin ribbon on a wide monitor otherwise.