Classic Mahjong — Play Free Online

Classic Mahjong is the tile-matching solitaire that most people mean when they say "mahjong" on a computer. It is not the four-player gambling game. You face a stacked layout of tiles, remove them in identical pairs, and clear the board before you run out of legal moves.

It sits on the Doodle Jump site as a change of pace. Doodle Jump is all reflexes and constant motion; this is the opposite, a quiet puzzle where you can stop and think for as long as you like. It suits the gaps between jumping runs, or any moment when you want something calmer in the same tab.

How to play

The listing says to use the mouse to select and, on a phone, to tap. Treat the arrow-key and WASD note in the catalogue data as generic: this is a point-and-click game, so the mouse or your finger does the work.

Click a tile to select it, then click a second tile with the same face to remove both. A tile can only be chosen when it is free, meaning nothing sits on top of it and at least one of its left or right sides is open. Tiles buried under others, or hemmed in on both sides, have to wait until the pieces around them are cleared. The board is solved when every tile is gone. If no free pairs remain, you are stuck.

Tips

• Work on the tallest stacks first. Tiles near the middle of a tall pile hold many others hostage, so freeing them early opens more moves.
• When three or four identical tiles are visible, think about which pair to take. Removing the two that unlock the most buried tiles is usually better than taking the nearest pair.
• Watch the long rows. A tile trapped between two neighbours can only be reached by clearing one side, so look for the pair that frees an end.
• Scan the whole board before each move instead of grabbing the first match you see. Most lost games come from hasty pairs that strand the last copy of a tile.

Similar games on Doodle Jump

If you want a puzzle with a different feel, Fireboy and Watergirl asks two characters to cooperate through temple rooms, with timing and switches instead of matching. Bloons Tower Defense 2 is another thinking game, but about placement and pacing rather than pattern spotting. For something fast again, Helix Jump and Bird Jumper bring back the reflex play the site is known for.

Classic Mahjong runs in the browser with nothing to install, works with a mouse or touchscreen, and a single board can be a few minutes of calm or a longer puzzle if you plan carefully.