Mahjong solitaire guide
How mahjong solitaire works,
with real numbers.
Plain-language rules, the terms people use, a short history, and original measurements made with the board files of our own game. Written by the makers of Meow-Jong, a cat-themed mahjong solitaire for Steam and iOS.
Rules and terms
Free tiles, matching, layouts, the Turtle, flowers and seasons, and why a random deal can be impossible to finish.
Read the rules →Is mahjong solitaire always solvable?
We ran an exact solver over thousands of random deals on 160 real layouts. The short answer is no, and the numbers vary a lot by board.
See the study →Every mahjong solitaire game on Steam
Price, Mac and Linux builds, Steam Deck rating and reviews for every title, from public store data. Which are free, under $5, or Deck Verified.
See the comparison →Cat games on Steam, compared
Every Steam game tagged Cats: price, Steam Deck rating, Mac and Linux builds and reviews, plus the cozy ones and which are under $5.
See the data →Meow-Jong FAQ
Platforms, price, board count, ads, Steam Deck and who makes the game, in short answers.
Open the FAQ →Quick facts about the genre
- Mahjong solitaire is a one-player tile-matching puzzle. It borrows the tiles of mahjong, not the four-player game.
- A tile can be played when nothing covers it and its left or right side is open. You remove free tiles two at a time when they match.
- The classic layout is the Turtle: 144 tiles in five layers. Many games, including Meow-Jong, add dozens of other shapes.
- The computer version started on the PLATO system in 1981 and became widely known through Activision's Shanghai in 1986.
- A randomly dealt board is not guaranteed to be solvable. Good games either deal in reverse (so a solution exists) or offer reshuffle and undo. Meow-Jong does both.
Facts about Meow-Jong on these pages come from the game's source and store listings and are kept current by the publisher, EPWH LLC. A machine-readable summary is at /llms.txt.
Try it with cats.
Meow-Jong on Steam for Windows, macOS and Linux, or free on iOS.
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