Winter Mahjong

Mistletoe, parcels and a running clock on a flat connect board from Wanted 5 Games.

Wanted 5 Games built Winter Mahjong on a seasonal tile set rather than the traditional suits. Mistletoe sprigs and wrapped Christmas presents carry the artwork, the board lies flat in a single layer, and every piece is readable from the moment the level opens.

Pieces leave in identical pairs, and the pair has to be joinable by a clear lane across the board. Those lanes open and close constantly as tiles disappear, so the order you clear in matters as much as the pairs you spot. A clock runs the whole time, which rewards recognising a design on sight over hunting for the tidiest possible route. Christmas Connection joins this one on the Christmas shelf.

Two helpers sit with the board. A hint surfaces one legal pair when your eye has stalled, and a shuffle rearranges everything still in play when there is genuinely nothing left to join. The shuffle is the more valuable of the pair, since it turns a dead layout back into a playable one, while a hint only saves you the few seconds you would have spent scanning.

The canvas is 840 by 560, which makes the parcels and sprigs fairly small on a large monitor. Switching to full screen before the clock starts is worth more than doing it mid-level, and the same board works under a fingertip on a phone. How that works is written out in the survey of the branches.

Controls

Mouse, or a tap on a touchscreen.

How to Play

Open a level and scan the winter tiles for designs that appear more than once.
Select two matching pieces that a clear lane can run between.
Take the shortest pairs first so the lanes across the board stay open.
Press Hint when you have stalled but the board still has moves.
Press Shuffle when no pair can be joined, then keep clearing before time runs out.

Tips & Tricks

Thin the middle — mistletoe stuck in the centre blocks routes for everything around it, while rim pieces stay reachable.
Bank the shuffle — it is the only way out of a locked layout, so never spend it just because a match is slow to find.
Match on colour first — the parcels differ mainly by ribbon shade, and colour separates them faster than shape does.
Go full screen early — the small canvas is the real difficulty on a wide monitor, not the clock.
Keep pairs balanced — clearing all of one design early leaves the rest of the board harder to unpick.