Mahjong Garden

How to play

Mahjong solitaire is a game for one: clear the board by removing matching pairs of tiles. Tap or click a free tile, then a free tile with a matching face. Both leave the board. Blocked tiles look slightly shaded and won’t lift.

A tile is free when nothing lies on top of it and its left or right side is open. Higher layers sit a little up and to the left, so you can see what is underneath.

Free at the end of a row. The tiles at both ends of a row are free: one side is open. The middle tile has neighbours on both sides, so it is blocked.
Covered, even partly. A tile on the layer above blocks every tile it overlaps, even by half a tile. Only the top tile is free here.
Offset neighbours count. The middle tile sits half a row lower, but it still touches a tile on each side, so it is blocked. Take either end tile and it opens up.
What matches. Identical tiles match, like the two 4 of reeds. Any flower matches any flower, and any season matches any season.

The tiles

  • Stones, reeds and leaves, numbered 1 to 9: four of each tile, and only identical tiles match.
  • Dawn, noon, dusk and night, and the moon bridge, stone lantern and tea house: four of each, identical tiles match.
  • Flowers (iris, camellia, plum blossom, water lily, with a dotted rose border) match each other.
  • Seasons (spring, summer, autumn, winter, with a gold border) match each other.

Prefer bigger symbols? Choose Large symbols in Settings or on the board: every tile then shows a big number or word. Matching stays exactly the same.

Keyboard

Click the board or tab to it. Arrow keys jump between free tiles, Enter or Space picks the tile, Escape clears the selection, and Ctrl+Z (or Cmd+Z) undoes a pair.

Mahjong Connect

The same tiles also play a second game: join two identical tiles with a path of at most two turns through empty cells. Connect rules with pictures.

Help that tells the truth

What does Hint do?

Hint first follows the board’s own known clearing order, adapted to the tiles still in play. If that no longer fits, it searches your position. When it finds a pair that keeps a way to clear the board, it says so. If the search runs out of time, it only shows a free matching pair and tells you it couldn’t check the rest. Only when every order of moves has been checked does it tell you the board can’t be cleared from here.

What does Shuffle do?

When no free pairs are left (or Hint has shown there is no way out), Shuffle moves the remaining tiles around on the same positions into an arrangement with a checked clearing order. It never changes the layout, it can be undone, and it is recorded as help on your result. If the remaining stacks can’t be cleared in any arrangement, it tells you to undo instead.

Does using help affect anything?

Hints and shuffles are listed on your result and in your album, so you can tell unaided clears apart. They don’t stop a daily walk from counting towards your streak.

When does a daily walk count?

A walk counts for its own day when you start it on that day and finish before the day ends, or within two hours after midnight UTC. Later, the same board is an archive replay: your play is kept, but your streak doesn’t change. Archive boards and practice deals never change your streak, and each day can count only once.