App Spotlight: Random Mahjong

Title: Random Mahjong
Developer: Paul Burkey
Price: $1.93 (free version available)
Platform: Android

For years I have enjoyed playing a game of Mahjong. Depending on the number of tiles in the puzzle, it can be quite challenging. On nearly every device I have owned in the past, I looked to see what selection of Mahjong games were available. Most of the time, I download one of them.

Recently, I came across an app for the Android OS called, Random Mahjong. I downloaded it to my HTC Evo to give it a try. Immediately, I was impressed with how well this game was designed and how well it worked with the platform. It didn't take me long to realize that this game was a keeper. In fact, ever since I downloaded the app, which was early last month, I have played it nearly every night before I go to sleep. I told my wife about it, and what did she do? She downloaded it... and enjoyed it. Random Mahjong is not just a simple Mahjong game. It has two types of gameplay: Standard Game, and Quick Game.

Standard Game gives you three difficulty levels, easy, medium and hard, to choose from. You then begin with a board that has a small amount of tiles on it, where you remove as many tiles as possible. If you complete the board, you advance on to another board with more tiles. You continue on this pattern until you run out of tokens (you lose one token for each failed attempt to clear a board, and you gain a token for clearing a board on the first attempt). The maximum board size is 152 tiles. Once you reach that size, each board that follows is the same size. Every time you clear a pair of tiles, you build points. The object of Standard Game is to build up as many points as possible before you run out of tokens.

Quick Game has two modes: Custom Level, and Preset Level. Custom Level simply allows you to build a board by setting the difficulty level and the number of tiles. The game then randomizes the layout and all you have to do is clear out the tiles. You do not gain points for clearing tiles. This game mode is for those who want to play a certain level of play and just play. Preset Level mode is similar to Custom Level except that you choose a difficulty level and a size category for the board. Each difficulty/size configuration has several premade boards you can play. With this game mode, you can start from the first board in the easy/tiny configuration and work your way through each board, progressing through the boards all the way to the last hard/big board.

There is a lot of Mahjong to be played in Random Mahjong. So, if you like Mahjong, this app is definitely worth its price.