Mahjong Solitaire
How to play
Mahjong solitaire uses the 144 tiles of a mahjong set, laid out in the shape known as the turtle. The set has three suits, dots, bamboo and characters, with four copies of every tile from 1 to 9. It also holds four copies of each wind and each dragon, plus four flower tiles and four season tiles that appear once each. The turtle stacks the tiles in five layers, with a single tile at the very top.
The goal is to clear the board by removing tiles in matching pairs. Two tiles match when they show the same face, except that any flower matches any other flower and any season matches any other season. A tile can be taken only when it is free, which means that no tile lies on it and that its left side or its right side is open. Tiles in the middle of a row stay blocked until the tiles at one end of that row are gone.
Every deal is made backwards: the program empties a full turtle pair by pair through free tiles and only then decides which faces form each pair, so every new board can be cleared. Taking the wrong pairs can still leave you with no free match. The Shuffle button then rearranges the remaining tiles on the same spots, in an order that can be solved whenever those spots allow one. A shuffle counts as a move and can be undone like any other. The game is won when all 144 tiles have been removed.
Controls
Click or tap a free tile to select it, then click or tap a matching free tile to remove both. Clicking the selected tile again lets it go, and clicking another free tile selects that one instead. A blocked tile gives a short shake when you touch it. Hint outlines a free matching pair in blue, Undo takes back moves one at a time with no limit, and Shuffle rearranges the remaining tiles. With a keyboard, the Tab key moves between free tiles and Enter selects them. Every deal has a number shown as Game #N, Restart deal plays the same layout again, and adding ?deal=N to the page address opens that exact deal.