Mahjong solitaire (also known as Shanghai solitaire, electronic or computerized mahjong, solitaire mahjong or simply mahjong) is a single-player matching game that uses a set of mahjong tiles rather than cards. It is more commonly played on a computer than as a physical tabletop game.
Its name comes from the four-player game mahjong, but it is played entirely differently.
The 144 tiles are arranged in a four-layer pattern with their faces upwards. A tile is said to be open or exposed if it can be moved either left or right without disturbing other tiles. The goal is to match open pairs of identical tiles and remove them from the board, exposing the tiles under them for play. The game is won when all pairs of tiles have been removed from the board, and lost if the remaining tiles contain no exposed pairs.
Playing Mahjong solitaire optimally in the sense to maximize the probability of removing all tiles is PSPACE-complete, and the game is NP-complete if looking below tiles is allowed. [1] It has been proven that it is PSPACE-hard to approximate the maximum probability of removing all tiles within a factor of , assuming that there are arbitrarily many quadruples of matching tiles and that the hidden tiles are uniformly distributed. [2] The perfect-information version of this puzzle is where the player knows, before the game starts, the position of every tile. In this case, however, it is NP-complete to decide whether all tiles can be removed. [1]
An analysis of ten million games with the default layout, "the turtle", found that about 3 percent of the turtles cannot be solved even when looking below tiles is allowed. [3]
Mahjong solitaire can be played using genuine tiles and a special wooden frame for set-up. Usually though, it is played in an electronic form as a computer game. This removes the tedium of set-up and the temptation to cheat. Some electronic Mahjong solitaire games offer extra options, such as:
Mahjong solitaire can be played either solo or with a partner, in which case the aim is to accumulate the most pairs, to be the last one to match a pair, or to score the most points. Points are gained for each pair removed, with bonus points for removing matched pairs in sequence or removing pairs in sequence that are parts of sets. Using traditional mahjong tiles, the sets include the dragons, the flowers, the seasons, and the winds.
Some implementations offer to shuffle the tiles when there are no exposed pairs remaining, making it almost always possible for the player to complete the game.
The computer game was originally created by Brodie Lockard in 1981 on the PLATO system and named Mah-Jongg after the game that uses the same tiles for play. Lockard claimed that it was based on a centuries-old Chinese game called "the Turtle". [4] The computer game was released for free and was played using a CDC-721 touch screen terminal.
Activision released Shanghai in 1986 for the IBM Personal Computer, Commodore Amiga, Macintosh, Atari ST and Apple IIgs. The Macintosh version was created by Brodie Lockard, and the Apple IIGS version was ported from the Macintosh by Ivan Manley with Brad Fregger as the producer. Around 10 million copies were sold. The game has since been ported to many different platforms. The name "Shanghai" was trademarked by Activision.
As the game is based on mahjong tiles, some confusion arose with the 4-player mahjong game. Although the name mahjong solitaire is widely used, other names include The Turtle, Shanghai Solitaire,Taipei, and Kyodai.
A version of this game was also included in the Microsoft Entertainment Pack for Windows 3.x in 1990 under the name Taipei. It was subsequently included in the Best of Windows Entertainment Pack . Premium editions of the Windows Vista operating system and Windows 7 include a version of the game known as Mahjong Titans . [5]
Mahjong Solitaire was added to Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics for Nintendo Switch. [6] [7]
Mahjong or mah-jongg is a tile-based game that was developed in the 19th century in China and has spread throughout the world since the early 20th century. It is played by four players. The game and its regional variants are widely played throughout East and Southeast Asia and have also become popular in Western countries. The game has also been adapted into a widespread online entertainment. Similar to the Western card game rummy, mahjong is a game of skill, strategy, and luck. To distinguish it from mahjong solitaire, it is sometimes referred to as mahjong rummy.
Klondike, also known as Canfield, is a card game for one player and the best known and most popular version of the patience or solitaire family, as well as one of the most challenging in widespread play. It has spawned numerous variants including Batsford, Easthaven, King Albert, Thumb and Pouch, Somerset or Usk and Whitehead, as well as the American variants of the games, Agnes and Westcliff. The distinguishing feature of all variants is a triangular layout of the tableau, building in ascending sequence and packing in descending order.
Pyramid is a patience or solitaire game of the Simple Addition family, where the object is to get all the cards from the pyramid to the foundation.
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A Mahjong video game is a video game that is based on one of the many ways to play mahjong. The majority of mahjong video games are developed and released in Japan and use the rules for Japanese Mahjong, although several have also been made for American Mahjong and several Chinese versions of mahjong. Many mahjong video games, especially among those released in Western territories, do not depict the actual game of mahjong but rather mahjong solitaire.
Shisen-Sho, sometimes referred to as 'Shisen', 'Four Rivers' or simply 'Rivers,' is a Japanese tile-based game which uses Mahjong tiles, and is similar to Mahjong solitaire. The objective of the game is to match similar tiles in pairs until every tile has been removed from the playing field. Numerous computer based versions of the game have been developed.
Thexder is a run and gun video game from Game Arts, originally released for the NEC PC-8801 in 1985. It was ported to many systems, including the Famicom.
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Quicksilver Software, Inc. was founded on May 1, 1984, by three former Mattel Electronics programmers: Bill Fisher, Stephen Roney, and Mike Breen. The company specializes in the creation of strategy, simulation, and educational products, and on focused high-technology R&D projects.
Clubhouse Games, known in some European countries as 42 All-Time Classics and in Japanese as Dare demo Asobi Taizen, is a compilation video game developed by Agenda and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS, consisting of board, card, and tabletop games from around the world. It was released in Japan on November 3, 2005, in Europe on September 29, 2006, in North America on October 9, 2006, and in Australia on October 26, 2006.
There were various games and applications available in Windows Live Messenger that could be accessed via the conversation window by clicking the games icon and challenging a "buddy".
Microsoft Mahjong is a computer game version of mahjong solitaire published by Microsoft. The version titled Mahjong Titans was developed by Oberon Games and included in Windows Vista and Windows 7. It takes advantage of the new graphical user interface (GUI) of Windows Vista, and includes features such as tile set and background choices. The game did not make it to Windows 8; however, a standalone version, developed by Arkadium and published by Microsoft Studios, can be downloaded from the Windows Store free of charge and played without download on the web.
Spider Solitaire, also known as Microsoft Spider Solitaire, is a solitaire (NA)/patience (EU) card game that is included in Microsoft Windows. It is a version of Spider. As of 2005, it was the most played game on Windows PCs, surpassing the shorter and less challenging Klondike-based Windows Solitaire.
Solitaire is a computer game included with Microsoft Windows, based on a card game of the same name, also known as Klondike. Its original version was programmed by Wes Cherry, and the cards were designed by Susan Kare.
Tiles of the Dragon is a 1993 mahjong solitaire video game for DOS developed by id Software and published by Softdisk. It is one of eleven games id Software created for Softdisk, who paid $5000 for it as part of id Software's contractual obligation to them. Tiles of the Dragon was later included by Softdisk as part of "The Lost Game Collection of ID Software."
Shanghai is a computerized version of mahjong solitaire published by Activision in 1986 for the Amiga, Atari ST, Atari 8-bit family, Commodore 64, DOS, Macintosh, Apple IIGS and Master System. Shanghai was originally programmed by Brodie Lockard. It was released as an arcade game by Sunsoft in 1988.
Solitaire Royale is a collection of solitaire games published by Spectrum HoloByte in 1987 for the Apple IIGS, MS-DOS, Macintosh, and Amiga. The eight games included are 3 Shuffles and a Draw, Pyramid, Golf, Corners, Reno, Klondike, Canfield, and Calculation. There are also three children's games: Pairs, The Wish, and Concentration.
A tile-matching video game is a type of puzzle video game where the player manipulates tiles in order to make them disappear according to a matching criterion. In many tile-matching games, that criterion is to place a given number of tiles of the same type so that they adjoin each other. That number is often three, and these games are called match-three games.
Shanghai II: Dragon's Eye is a 1990 video game published by Activision.
Shanghai: The Great Wall, known outside Japan as Shanghai: Triple-Threat, is a video game developed by Success and published by Activision. It is part of the Shanghai series. It was released in Japan for X68000 and 3DO in 1994 and FM Towns, PC-98, PlayStation and Sega Saturn in 1995; the PlayStation port was published by Sony Computer Entertainment. Only the 3DO and Sega Saturn versions were released outside Japan in 1995.
