Mah Jong Solitaire

Mah Jong Solitaire 1.00 is BoneHead Projects' Mac OS X port of the classic tile-matching solitaire -- not the four-player Mah Jong scoring game, but the single-player Shanghai-style variant where the player removes pairs of identical tiles from a stacked layout. Authored by Hugh Allan and released as $10 shareware, it brought the format to OS X with multiple board layouts and selectable backgrounds.

How it plays

Tiles sit in a stacked, layered formation -- a turtle, a dragon, or other shapes -- and the player removes any pair of matching, fully exposed tiles. A tile is exposed when nothing covers it and one of its long edges is free. The board is solved when every tile has been paired off; deadlocks force a reshuffle or a fresh deal.

Layouts and presentation

The game ships with several board layouts of varying complexity and a set of high-quality background images that sit behind the playfield. Players can pick a difficulty level along with a layout, scaling the puzzle from beginner-friendly arrangements to dense, tightly-stacked configurations.

Player aids

Built-in tools make extended sessions practical: a Suggest Moves command points out an available pair when the player is stuck, Reshuffle Tiles redistributes the board when a deadlock blocks progress, Undo rewinds bad pulls, and a timer plus high-score table track personal bests across attempts.

System requirements

PowerPC Macintosh, Mac OS X 10.1, 800x600 monitor, thousands or millions of colors. $10 shareware from BoneHead Projects -- the developer's fifth Macintosh shareware title.