Word Mahjong

Word Mahjong is a tile game that scores like a word game. Instead of finding two matching faces you take letters off the board and build them into words, so the layout is cleared by spelling rather than by pairing. A tile leaves play when it joins a word you complete, which means the order you pick letters in is the whole game. The rules written for a first game sets out the same mechanics on one page.

Scoring follows length. Each completed word earns points, and the longer the word the more it is worth, so the strategic question is when to cash a short, safe word and when to hold letters back for something better. Webgameapp built it without a time limit, which turns the whole thing into a puzzle of planning rather than of speed. The Musical board is catalogued beside this board.

The frame measures 336 by 600 pixels — tall and narrow, which is why it also sits well on a phone screen — and full screen is the setting to use on a desktop monitor, where a small tall window leaves the letter tiles smaller than they need to be. The Feed the Parrot board stands next to this one in the same list.

1. Pick letters from the board in order to spell a word.
2. Complete the word to score it and take those letters out of play.
3. Favour longer words, since the points scale with length.
4. Keep spelling until the letters on the board have been used up.

• Look for endings — extending a word you have already spelled is the cheapest way to a longer one in Word Mahjong.
• Take the long word when you see it, because the score is weighted towards length.
• Nothing is timed here, so a difficult set of letters is worth staring at rather than abandoning.
• Play it enlarged — the frame is tall and narrow, and full screen stops the letter tiles shrinking on a wide monitor.