Review of Astraware Mahjong for iPad and iPhone

While the origin of the popular tile puzzle game Mahjong is debatable, the fact that it is popular in most Asian cultures cannot be debated.  Normally played with four players, Mahjong originated in China and is an addictive mix of dominoes, rummy and Scrabble that requires skill and a bit of luck.  Various of the game vary per region – in Korea for example it is often played with three players – and electronic versions of the game have grown in popularity over the past decade.  For more on the history of Mahjong, check out Wikipedia.

Astraware is the latest developer to release a Mahjong game for the Apple iPad and iPhone and have done a great job of providing a challenging and visually appealing game that is addictive and challenging.  With over 30 different puzzles with varying levels of difficulty, Astraware’s Mahjong provides hours on entertainment along with some head scratching and even the occasional frustration.  While there are plenty of Mahjong games in the App Store, Astraware has set their game apart by incorporating support for Game Center as well as daily online challenges to test your skills against others.  Couple this with a single build for iPhone and iPad and a price of only .99 Cents, Astraware’s Mahjong is a sure winner.

The main objectives of Mahjong is to match tiles of identical Chinese figures, flowers and seasons to each other to clear the puzzle of all pieces.  The game is played in 3 dimensions so the tiles are stacked on top of each other in the game field and you are only able to play tiles that are free on top and on three sides.  This is what makes the game challenging.  You may see a match for a tile but be unable to play it due to it being blocked.

This leads me to my first point about Astraware’s Mahjong.  The game has an extensive tutorial on how to play the game, the rules and objectives.  Even if you have never played any version of Mahjong before, this tutorial will help set you straight and will avoid the frustrations of trying to learn.

Astraware Mahjong's built-in tutorial

Once you have gone through the tutorial you select the Play option to select one of the different puzzles that are available, select the difficulty you want to play and start.  By default the game will highlight a tile that you can play in pink and when you tap a tile it will turn blue.  Find the match and tap it and the two tiles will disappear from the puzzle.

Astraware Mahjong puzzle in play

As you look at the puzzle above you will note that some tiles are shaded darker than the others.  These tiles are ones that cannot be played currently, giving you a quick visual of legal moves.  I personally like this way of displaying moves over an error or audio prompt telling you that the play you have made is not permitted.  By default every puzzle is solvable meaning that you can get it down to zero tiles left on the playing field.  The game supports several different playing rules which could make it where a puzzle is not solvable.  This makes Astraware’s Mahjong stand well above other Mahjong games in the amount of combinations in which you can play.  Like I said, hours of entertainment and challenges!

Another nice feature of the game is that as you remove tiles from play the display will zoom in closer to the remaining tiles.  I found that on the iPad this was not such a big deal as the display is large.  On the iPhone however this makes game play much easier and faster.  You can of course disable if Auto-Zoom feature in the Settings menu if you choose to do so.

Once you solve a puzzle the time that it took you to solve that puzzle is displayed and if any award tiles are given you can select to see those tiles.

A solved puzzle in Astraware's Mahjong with the time to solve displayed

As I mentioned earlier, there are 30 puzzles to play in Astraware Mahjong and selecting the puzzle you want to play is done at the bottom of the Play menu.  Slide back and forth across the bottom to select the puzzle you want to play.  The more you slide over to the right on the display the more complex the puzzles will be which in turn are also much more difficult if you increase the difficulty level of the game in the Setting menu.

Puzzle options are displayed in a sliding menu across the bottom of Astraware Mahjong

As you play more you will be awarded Golden Tiles for various things that you achieved while playing.  For example, you will get a tile for each variation of the Mahjong puzzles you solve in the game along with tiles completing puzzles under a time limit and so forth.  These Golden Tiles are displayed under the Award menu on the main display.  As you can see by my award table, I’ve been playing quite a bit lately.

The Award Table in Astraware's Mahjong

In the upper right corner of the Award table you can also view your statistics  This gives you the total time you have played, the fastest time and longest time it took you to solve a puzzle, the most puzzles played, and the level of difficulty you have played most.

Your Astraware Mahjong statistics displayed for your review - or pain

If there is one aspect of Astraware’s Mahjong that I genuinely love it is the Daily puzzle challenge.  Each day Astraware selects a puzzle that you play and try to solve in the quickest possible time.  Once you complete that puzzle you can post your time up to Astraware and see where you stand amongst other players around the world.  This is frankly one of the most addictive aspects of this game.  You are challenged to not only solve the puzzle but also to do it faster than anyone else.  You can of course play the daily puzzle repeatedly to try to drive your time to resolution down.  But be warned:  There are a LOT of good Mahjong players out there and some of them are from the Astraware team.  Almost daily I see Alison Barclay, the Press Manager for Astraware, on the daily puzzle standings! By-the-way, you can follow Alison on Twitter (@AlsiB).

The Daily Puzzle standings in Astraware Mahjong

There are many other aspects to Astraware’s Mahjong including the ability to change the table backgrounds, enabling and disabling helps and hints and the difficultly levels in the Setting menu.  If you are new to Mahjong I recommend leaving these at default until you get more comfortable with game play and the overall rules of Mahjong.

Having played Astraware’s latest game for over two weeks now, Mahjong is just fantastic.  It has the right mix of challenge but not so difficult that it becomes frustrating.  If you want to make the game easy you can do so or you can make it extremely difficult.  Add this to the fact that Astraware has done a terrific job on the visual aspects of Mahjong, especially on the iPad version, and I think it is the best Mahjong game out there.  I do have to say that I find the game much more difficult to play on the iPhone than on the iPad simply because of the screen size.  Because of the nature of the game – tiles with characters on them – the iPhone display gets really difficult to see sometimes and I find myself pinching and pulling to zoom in and out.  I much prefer playing it on my iPad.

Astraware Mahjong is a universal build for both the iPhone and iPad (iPod Touch as well of course) and is in the App Store for .99 Cents.  If you have been looking for a new challenge in your game play, go pick this one up.  I don’t think you will be disappointed.

[Astraware Mahjong - Astraware Limited]