Last updated on May 30th, 2023 at 09:10 pm
Mahjong!
Mahjong! is one of the best $1.99 to play game in the App Store.
Developed by Pok Wong, Mahjong! is a Strategy game with a content rating of 4+.
It was released on 17th March 2010 with the latest update 23rd April 2023
Whether you are a fan of Strategy, Card, games, you will find this game interesting and will absolutely like it.
Rating
30 people have rated 3.08
You can download the game Mahjong! from APP STORE.
Description
Traditional Mahjong game in which you play against 3 other players – sole against all computer players, or play with one to three other friends or network players via Game Center. Seats not filled by friends or network players are played by the computer. You may exchange group text messages and voice chats while in the multiplayer game.
Each player is dealt 13 tiles in a hand. The players take turns to draw a tile and discard one. The goal is to make 4 sets and 1 pair. Declare a win by tapping on a received tile or tapping/dragging on discarded tile that completes the hand of 14 tiles. The default mode will auto prompt you when a set or a winning hand can be formed with a tile drawn or discarded. Hands formed must be of some minimum point value (0-3) in order to win the round. A zero base point would allow chicken hand. The default is 0 base point, but can be customized.
If the base point is set to greater than zero, an attempt to steal a discard that does not produce the minimum points to win will be preempted by another player’s claim for pung, for example. Falsely declaring a win when the hand does not meet the base point will be penalized. The claim on a discard to form a hand with enough points to win has priority over other attempts to form kong, punt, or chow.
Refer to wikipedia for a detailed description of the suite and scoring system of the game.
As few reviewers noted, this game offers realistic play. Drag a tile out to discard it. You will be prompted to make a choice to pung, declare a win, etc, or drag a tile discarded by another player to claim it. Tap any tile on your hand to declare a win if not using auto prompt mode. You can move and rearrange the tiles at will. To have them sorted automatically, do a horizontal swipe above your hand.
You can adjust the game speed and sound. You can also control that hands be of some minimum point value (0-3) in order to win the round. A zero base point would allow chicken hand. You can choose to play flower and season tiles.
Choose "Align discarded tiles" to line discarded tiles neatly, else discarded tiles are spin and placed randomly. You can change the the color of the background and tiles, or use a picture as the game background.
Multitask switching on supported iOS. Game is paused when you switch away from the App and automatically resumed when you return. Resume button is used to resume game saved if App is terminated (or for older iOS without multitask support).
The players bank will be shown at the start of the game. To see the bank during the game, tap on the player’s name.
Your name in the game is taken from the Game Center alias and can be customized in the Game Center app. If you did not login to Game Center,the name is determined from the following sources (if used) in order: your name used for iCloud, other email, the name on your iPad/iPhone/iTouch. You may customize the names of the computer players.
Updated on 23rd April 2023
Supports new devices
Addresses issue with demo
Mahjong! Reviews
Unhappy with frequently showing a winning hand and told we have lost . We have played for years and know this game. Also when a tile is discarded, the next in line may claim it. This DOES NOT HAPPEN. Any player claims tile quickly before next in line has a chance. Against the rules! Not liking updates. Please reconfigure Lola46.
Unhappy with frequently showing a winning hand and told we have lost . We have played for years and know this game. Also when a tile is discarded, the next in line may claim it. This DOES NOT HAPPEN. Any player claims tile quickly before next in line has a chance. Against the rules! Not liking updates. Please reconfigure Lola46.
We keep getting this and dont understand why. We have a complete hand but we lose 384 points. Obviously something wrong with your algorithm. PLEASE FIX!!! Not fixed yet. Just had two winning hands and it says we lost. Lost -384 points. This is ridiculous. Just won 5-6 hands, then lost -384 twice in a row. The computer never gets a lost hand. Played two games last night. Each game we were dealt the tile to complete our hand for Mahjong. We hit the palm, declared a win and the game says we lost -384 points. We stopped playing. Its so frustrating. So now you know when its the last tile to complete the hand, you loose.
We’ve been playing Mah Jong for decades and love this version. Our biggest frustration is that when we go out with a winning hand, the game claims its not and we lose 384 points. Id love to send the screen captures to the developer for help but there is no way to contact them. A few bug fixes and tweaks and this could be a 5 star game!
We love mahjong but you are telling us we have a losing hand when we dont. :(
What happened to the pause/play button?
We set up a 4 player game among family members in different states and could never get more than 10 minutes in before it would crash. Game play is also frustrating when expected combinations like 4 of a kind dont always work.
The functions keep glitching and there are no instructions on how that game works even though the description says they will be located by clicking the gear.
Totally unable to claim a tile. So. Whats the point.
This is a fun game to play when it works correctly. It is traditional mahjong and not the mahjong solitaire/matching games more commonly found. Unfortunately, it wont always center properly on our iPad and part of the tiles in our hand are not visible. We havent run in to this problem on our phone yet. Needs some improvements. Otherwise, enjoyable.
However it cheats you, before you can see the tile well enough, one of the computer players will take (Pung) the tile even if you want it and it should be yours to take.
Need an easier way to claim the other player’s tiles. Need a button to put our tiles in order. The app also crashed on our first solo game. It’s great that it saved the game state, but when we resumed it crashed again in the same spot, so that game was ruined. Then we played our second game, and some timing with the pause button confused it and it got stuck (never continued no matter how many times we hit the pause/u pause button). We wish we could turn off the numbers on the wan’s.
Was very excited to find a traditional mahjong app. Unfortunately, we were not able to take tiles without ending the game. Screenshots of what we expected did not show up when we played the game. Very disappointed.
We love Mahjong! Now, especially the Hong Kong (Chinese) version. We loved this app because it actually lets us play as it is played at a table game. Our only beef with this app is that it cuts itself off and doesn’t save the game as it was being played. The "Resume Solo Game" function doesn’t work AT ALL and we end up having to close all the way out of the app to play again (which resets the game). And usually, the same thing happens again several times before we just give up playing altogether. Fix that bug and this app is PERFECT! Especially for avid Mahj players like us.
The algorithms seem to be good, but user interface needs improvement! The tiles thrown out to table need to be at a consistent place in the center – right now they are being thrown at all angles all over the center table, and we have to keep looking for its landing place so we can grab it. Hence we missed the chances of grabbing the tile for Pong MANY times. The thrown-out tile needs to stay on table LONGER (or letting user pause) so user can THINK before acting on the tile. This speed needs to be separate from other tile movements that are not relevant to user.
There are so few apps for playing true mahjong, its unfortunate that this one is so buggy. It crashes randomly and when you restart your game is gone. If this were fixed we would give it 5 stars.
We have been playing this game awhile and recently it started the cut off mentioned by the previous reviewer!! And the resume button. Please fix this great ap… We can’t get the group/ friend player to work properly and it does need a pause button if u accidentally hit the wrong button or forget to register a Kong. Great game to help you learn tiles and learn to play Mahjong.
Looks like this app has not been kept up and has zero support for multi-player with friends. We want a refund!!!
This is the best mahjong game for iPad. We second the suggestions made below, however. There used to be a pause – what happened to it? Also, if you could please stop the crashing and let us resume solo game…
Love this app. It’s real mahjong, not matching tiles. We have some requests that would improve the quality of the app and enhance the game. Thanks! 1-please permit us to listen to our music while playing 2-cannot access settings during a game 3-cannot see scores during play; can only see scores for a few seconds during shuffle 4-cannot hold game horizontal; can’t see all tiles if hold horizontal 5-cannot resume solo game; if leave and come back, we cannot resume solo game, must close app and start over with new game 6-sometimes cannot grab a tile 7-please add indicator that shows what round is being played 8-please add "pause" button so that we can stop the game for a short time 9-please "undo" button so that we can change a play if we make a mistake or if we miss grabbing a tile Thank you for considering these changes.
Like it solo, but game crashes when we try to play a game with a friend. Maybe it’s due to the new iOs?
We would like to be able to pause and save solo games.
We’ve tried a couple of iPAD apps for Mahjongg. This is the best so far but it does have shortcomings. It would be good if there was an indicator to tell you which round you are in-minor. A more serious problem is that the app crashes when a hand is drawn or sometimes when near to a draw. This is frustrating when you have time invested in a game. Comments are based on single player mode. Have not tried multiplayer mode.
The settings button cannot be accessed. Please fix!!
We play this because the options for 4 player mahjong with the other three hands played by the computer are very limited on the iPad, but it has lots of issues. We would normally direct these to the developer, but can’t find a contact address. Issues include: Frequently mis-scores hands (e.g., hand with pung of seat wind scored as chicken hand); often treats (opposing players’) chicken hands as if they are all pungs or have pung of dragons. Cannot access settings on iPad No way to pause Always has the same person start as E wind Crashes on draw Cannot always resume a game – often crashes or restarts.
We like this game solo but it has so many problems and glitches that we are forced to go hunting for a different one! So sad! :(
In solo game, the only way we’ve played so far, the game is not fair. Sometimes when you try to claim a card for a sequence, like 3-4-5, it allows you to claim it, but most times it doesn’t let you claim for a sequence. Sometimes, it denies you the claim the first time the "5" is thrown, but let’s you claim it the second time the "5" is thrown. If the computerized player wants to claim a pung, it happens so fast that if we want to claim for a sequence, we never get the chance. We just claimed a tile for a sequence and declared a win, the sequence would have played with all pungs but a pair. It denied the win! VERY UNFAIR! That would have been legal in real life. Also, sometimes it sorts your cards and other times it doesn’t. While you are trying to sort them, the board flashes, urging you to play! Very irritating! This could be so great, but the inconsistencies and unfairness really pisses us off!
Sort of wasted our $1.99. The only option under the hand symbol is "declare a win", cannot take any tiles or Pong? What’s the point!?
This game does not download onto anything, not our phone or iTunes. We demand a refund!!
You have to play tiles super quickly or they stay in the discards.
We’re just learning how to play and this really helps us! But it is frustrating when it just closes mid-game. It seems to happen mostly when we run out of tiles. Please fix! Also, it does need a Pause. Our other wish would be a better help file as to how it is scoring. But we love everything else about it! The best app we’ve found!
We like the game but it doesn’t allow us to take tiles that we can use all the time. We know we’ve lost many games due to this hang up. Hope they fix this soon!
Same complaint as previous player… Frozen screen! Cannot do anything with game. We need you to do something to fix this problem.
But we’re getting extremely frustrated by not being able to pause the game and when we pick up a discard to chow it sometimes doesn’t let us do it even with the correct cards. Good starting game if your interested learning but you have to have the presence of kind to realize that yes, your hand should have accepted the cards.
It is great to find a version of Mah Jong that simulates the actual game instead of being one of those tile matching games. For the most part, we are enjoying the game. We agree with the other reviewers that sometimes it won’t recognize a chow when you pick up a discard. Please fix this glitch and send out an update! The game is very frustrating when you have to let go of a tile you know is rightfully yours.
Closest to playing real mahjong. All the other games are just matching. The chow problem is very frustrating. Please fix and we will rate a five!!!
Game cannot be paused by double tapping. When all tiles are used in a round, game freezes and one must begin with brand new game thus losing all one’s winnings in current game. Scoring not accurate.
We mahjong and not allowed to declare a win. Screen froze and cannot start a new game. HELP!!!!
When the game logic is working, the game is enjoyable. But unfortunately the game engine is very frustrating. It favors the computer players, for pulling discards almost to the point of cheating. Many times when choosing a discard is valid, it does not allow you. It even at times does not properly recognize a winning hand which, as you can imagine, is the most frustrating of all. If the game engine were better, we would give this game 4 stars or better, but as it sits it is possibly the most frustrating game we have ever played!
This game has the potential to be first rate but frequent crashes, lock-ups, multi-player hangs and plenty of other recurring game logic issues keep it from making the grade. Such a waste, a great mahjong game is sorely needed on this platform!
We’ve lost countless games due to our tiles disappearing coupled with an involuntary discard. We cannot find any way to report this bug to the developers. Also, as others have stated there is no way to claim a tile if playing a solo game against the computer if both of us want it.
We can play multiple players without it crashing!! Please fix. Thanks.
The app has too many issues. The app was deleted and now it’s charging us again to download. Also freezes if there is no winner and can’t save new game. Too many problems to list. Fix the issues an we’ll be happy to pay again.
–Update— So we deleted this game and re-installed. Now it has declared that our name is "Bill", and we still don’t know how it happened or how to change it. Anyone know? ——————— we like this game, but we liked it better when it had the double tap to pause feature. We hope they put it back. For some reason it has a misspelling of our name, and we can’t figure out how to fix it. They simply added an "s" to the end of our name, and we’re pretty sure we didn’t do it – fat fingers and all…
There’s gotta be a way to pull the tile from the computer if you have a higher hand to play. There have been so many times the computer will pick up the tile we need to complete our hand.. They’ll play a pong or chow but we can’t declare a win with it because it’s automatically taken.
We bought this yesterday. Can’t figure it out. It plays our hand for us. Gives us a tile if we take more than 5 seconds to think. What a shame! Does anyone know of a good, easy to use mahjong app to play against other players?
We dont like the game There are too many kinks to work out. We cant play the game with the pad horizontally. The game gets stuck when it mixes the card, especially when we continue the game at a later time. Also frustrating is when we need a discard to win and someone needs a pong, we can’t get it. It makes the game not too much fun to play… We missed two times to retrieve a discarded tile and it wouldn’t let us take it. We are sorry we paid to get this apt. We are extremely dissatisfied.
We are a beginner Mahjong player and am totally enjoying this game, actually having a hard time putting it down! The reviews with complaints about having winning hands but not given credit is not true of this app. By going to settings and setting "base points to win" to 0 that will not happen. Until we better understand scoring of the various hands we will leave it set there. One review indicates that you can’t steal but you can. The rule is that you can steal to form pongs from any player but you can only steal from the player on your left to form chows, except when declaring a win. Our one suggestion for the developers is to give better instructions for using the app to help avoid the frustrations shown by some of the other reviewers. It is a complicated game and players really should do some searching online to better understand the game. Great app for learning the basics of the game.