Funtown Mahjong

Tis a proper game of Mah Jong and not just a solataire tile matching game. Its quite well done, its worth a look if you want to play the real game (a bit like gin rummy really). They've missed out a bit, in that it uses its own AI players and their cutesy anime faces, but didnt incorporate NXE avatars into the play. Which would have helped it out a lot - in terms of more mass appeal.

If you haven't played Mah Jong before, I've tried to summarise the rules here, the game itself has a tutorial, but it is a bit wordy... it does however go through all the possible sets you can get in your first game.

Mah Jong for Dummies..
Essentially its quite a simple "collect the sets" game.

The "suits" being, bamboo, coins (they call them dots), characters (numerical kanji) - with a few honour tiles thrown in (dragons, winds and flowers). Each suit has 1 to 9 and each game has 4 of every suit tile in it.

To win, each player picks a tile off the "wall" (a deck) and tries to make

• a set of three of the same tile in the same suit (eg, three tiles of 4 bamboo) - which is known as a Pung


• a set of four of the same tile in the same suit (eg. four tiles of 5 coins) - which is known as a Kong or


• a set of three of ascending tiles in the same suit (eg, 4,5 and 6 of bamboo) - which is known as a Chow (or a straight)

Each player plays anti-clockwise, and instead of drawing off the wall, you have the option of picking up the tile the last player laid and using that (if you can make a set out of it). However if you can make a Kong then you can take the last laid tile in any order, and you reset the order of play (so people can miss a turn etc). Once you pick up a tile from the wall or last played, you have to discard one from your hand.

The winning hand has to consist of a combination of these sets (can also be called melds) and an "eye" which is basically just two of the same tile in the same suit. Thats about it really. The honour tiles are a little different (as theres only four of them), and flowers are just points multiplyers that get instantly replaced when they hit your hand.

Once a player declares Mah jong, his hand is scored and the others receive a negative score, and then play is resumed in another round, and another wall.

It does come across as complex, because of all the weird naming jargon, and the odd looking tile images, but essentially its very similar to the Gin Rummy card game.

Once you get used to it a bit more, its quite a groovey game that should see more people play it on live, and its infinitely more entertaining that the Mah Jong tile matching games..

Lots of info here, if anyone is interested in it..
http://www.sloperama.com/mjfaq.html

Plus Wiki has a decent enough explanation of the game
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahjong