BaD 17: Microsoft Mahjong

On 02/23/2021 at 08:26 PM by KnightDriver

I reinstalled Microsoft Solitare on my phone and got an ad for their Mahjong game. I've been curious about Mahjong recently, so I installed the app. Both are free. It's pretty good and designed similarly to their Solitaire game with daily challenges, leveling, and several ways to play it. It's integrated with Xbox Live so I think I'll get achievements but I haven't gotten one yet. Let's take a closer look.

After playing this a bunch of times on my phone, I really don't get what Mahjong is all about. It seems like just a simple matching game with no real strategy to it. I know in China people actually bet on the game but I can't see what they would bet on. Maybe how fast someone can complete the matches? Let's research this.

Mahjong came about in China in the Qing Dynasty which began in the mid-1600s. It seems the traditional way to play it is with four players and rules similar to the card game Rummy. This I can understand but the solo way of playing it in this Microsoft Mahjong game seems devoid of strategy. It seems Mahjong Solitaire is a completely different game from traditional Mahjong and developed fairly recently to run on computers. It's more of a puzzle game where the object is to remove all the tiles by matching pairs. Thing is, I've yet to fail a Mahjong puzzle in this MSM game.

Microsoft Mahjong is playable for free on Windows and phones, and a Mahjong Solitaire game is included in the Clubhouse Games collection for Nintendo Switch. I'm going to play MSM a bit more but I wish there was more to it.

Matt Snee Staff Writer

02/23/2021 at 10:16 PM

I was watching a Chinese movie the other night, (In the Mood for Love - great movie), and the old couple whom the main character rents a room from would go out drinking and then play Mahjong with their friends all night. I don't know how the game works, but it seems to be pretty popular.

KnightDriver

02/24/2021 at 08:07 PM

The four-player game seems a lot like a card game but with tiles.

Cary Woodham

02/24/2021 at 07:47 AM

There's many forms of Mahjong. The two main ones you see in games are a matching game and one that's kind of like Poker. I can understand the matching one, but not the other. I wrote about it last year, but the Switch has a game called Clubhouse Games: 50 Worldwide Classics that has both Mahjong games on it. I like the matching one on it, but at least it explains the rules on the other one.

02/24/2021 at 08:16 PM

I played the variations on MS Mahjong. Some add timed challenges. It's nothing too different but I saw that MS has free Suduko and Wordament games as well.

Super Step Contributing Writer

02/25/2021 at 01:28 AM

It must be way different than the Mahjong in Yakuza if it's that easy. No one understands real Mahjong. No one.

02/25/2021 at 09:56 PM

Mahjong in Yakuza, huh? I'm going to play Yakuza 3 soon. I wonder if it's in that one.

02/26/2021 at 06:44 PM

I think it's in all of them, but it's a known problem in the American Yakuza gaming community, cause there are trophies tied to it but none of us westerners seem to "get" it.

02/26/2021 at 11:01 PM

Funny that I saw the Mahjong club in Osaka today but didn't go there even though I went to just about every other place on the map. I played some card and dice games in the gambling den that I didn't even understand the rules of.

02/27/2021 at 11:58 PM

Koi Koi is fun. I think that's the one where you just guess whether the number the woman juggling the dice spits out will be odd or even. For whatever reason, I have a real knack for that one.

I actually learned how to play Texas Hold 'Em from Yakuza, after years of people trying to teach me poker.

Hanafuda confuses the shit out of me though. I'd really love for Nintendo to make a version that dumbs it down for people like me. Or maybe Nintendo can collaborate with SEGA and put their own Hanafuda deck into Yakuza ... except I think Nintendo already has a minigame bundle of their own involving Hanafuda.

03/01/2021 at 06:45 PM

I liked the Hanafuda game but I didn't quite understand it. You had to match similar card designs but how they make sets I couldn't figure out on the first try.

PixlBit