Mahjong Solitaire

How to play

In short

• Remove pairs of matching tiles until none are left.
• You can only take a free tile: nothing lies on it and it is open on the left or the right. Free tiles are bright on the board, blocked ones are darker.
• When you are not sure what to do, tap Hint. When there is no pair left, tap Shuffle.

Goal

The tiles are stacked in several layers. Remove them in pairs until the board is empty.

Free tiles

• No other tile may lie on it, not even partly.
• At least one side, left or right, must be open. A tile in the middle of a row can be taken only after the tiles at one end of the row are gone.
• Tiles in the rows above and below it on the screen do not block it. Only the left and the right side matter.

Which tiles match

• Dots, bamboo and characters with the same number, winds of the same direction and identical dragons. There are four of each in the set.
• Flowers (plum, orchid, chrysanthemum, bamboo) appear only once each. Any two flowers make a pair.
• Seasons (spring, summer, autumn, winter) work the same way. Any two seasons make a pair.
• The number in the corner of characters, flowers and seasons and the letter on winds (E, S, W, N) help you tell the tiles apart.

Deal, hints and shuffling

• Every deal can be finished. The tiles are dealt so that there is an order in which all of them disappear. A careless order can still leave you stuck.
• Hint puts a green frame around the pair that helps most. Usually it is a move after which the game can still be finished. When the hint is not sure, or when the game can no longer be finished from there, it tells you.
• Shuffle deals the remaining tiles again onto the same places, so that the rest can be finished.
• Undo takes back the last pair or shuffle. You can use it again and again back to the start. When the remaining tiles lie on top of each other and even shuffling cannot help, Go back undoes as many moves as needed in one step.

Layouts

The Turtle is the classic layout of 144 tiles in five layers. The Fortress also has 144 tiles. Butterfly, Pyramid, Tower and Heart are smaller and their games are shorter. Pick a layout after tapping New game.

Daily challenge

Every day all players get the same layout and the same deal. The clock starts with your first move and runs while the page is open. If you start the challenge over, the tiles go back to the start, but the time and hints keep counting. When you finish, you see your time and how many hints and shuffles you used, and you can share the result. A new challenge starts at midnight.

Controls

• Touch and mouse: tap or click a free tile, then a matching one. Tap it again to clear the selection. If you tap a blocked tile, the game tells you why.
• Zoom: the magnifier buttons at the bottom right below the tiles, spreading two fingers, or Ctrl with the mouse wheel. Drag to move a zoomed board. The corners button shows the whole board again. On a phone, large layouts open already zoomed in.
• Keyboard: the arrow keys move between tiles, Enter picks a tile, Esc clears the selection and Ctrl+Z undoes a move. Plus and minus change the zoom, zero shows the whole board.

An unfinished game is saved in your browser, so you can come back to it later.