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Playing Mah Jong on your PC

This section covers (in alphabetical order) computer software for playing the Mah Jong game of Four Winds - as described throughout this site - and not the solitaire game of matching similar tiles, often called Shanghai.

There are versions available for other platforms, such as Apple Macintosh, Unix, Palm Pilot, Psion, etc. These can be found listed on Tom Sloper's FAQ #5, although the Psion is covered in more depth on my Psion Mah Jong software page.

Four Winds 2.0x

Windows 95 / 98 / Me / NT4 / 2000 / XP
http://www.4windsmj.com

Download size: 3MB - 21 MB

Commercial

Cost: €30 registration fee
CD-ROM : add €10 (plus P&P)
Regular updates available for download

Review:
This version from Lagarto in Finland has been described by some as the best version available for the PC. I would tend to agree.

This is a highly customizable version of Mah Jong, claiming to offer every current Mah Jong ruleset available, numerous themes and tilesets (or your own). Play it on your own, or with others across a LAN or the internet.

The user screen has been greatly improved since version 1.x allowing you to view much more information: special hands, discards, wall, tiles available, etc.

Once you have registered download it from the website. If this is too much for your internet connection you can order it on CD-ROM for an extra €10.00 plus postage and packing. Mine arrived in about 3 days.

Play is intutive and pleasing, building on the reliability of Four Winds version 1. The first thing I do when I play is to turn OFF the background music. As beautiful and atmospheric as it is, it really grates on me, besides I can't hear Slayer playing on my stereo.

Features:

Highly customizable
Almost the full-range of rule sets available, including Chinese Official (the rules of the World and European Championships)
Network and Internet play
Regular updates available for download
Cost: €30 registration fee
CD-ROM : add €10 (plus P&P)

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Four Winds 1.13

Windows 95 / 98 / Me / NT4 / 2000 / XP
http://www.4windsmj.com

Download size: 2.65 MB

Commercial (Unsupported)
Four Winds v.1.13 is no longer on sale, but is still available for download.

Once you have registered the latest version 2.x (€30) , you may also download, install and register version 1.13 with the same registration key. Hey! two versions for the price of one! Bargain!

You can have both versions installed on your PC at once, but cannot play them both simultaneously (why would you want to?!). Version 2 opens saved games from version 1.

Review:
Four Winds 1.13 screenshot This version offers rulesets for American, European, Japanese and Hong Kong, as well as a few in between.

The screen is laid out nicely, with players stacked one on top of the other, rather than at the four sides of the screen (left, right, top and bottom).

If it weren't that version 2 had been released this would be a close runner in the run for the best offering on the PC.

Summary:

Commercial (though unsupported)
Highly customizable
American, Chinese, European, Hong Kong and Japanese rulesets
Network and Internet play

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Mah Jongg - The Real Game

Windows 3.1 / 95 / 98 / Me / NT4 / 2000 / XP
http://www.mahjongg.com

Download size: 2.4 MB

Shareware
Berrie Bloem's excellent version which runs under Windows 3.1x and Windows 9x. This is a shareware version - registration costs UK £20 / US $29.95.

Review:
Mah Jongg - The Real Game screenshot This version (now 1.50 Beta 2) plays Chinese Classical rules with some customization available on scoring options. Highly customizable GUI - background, tile movements, tile design, etc.

This was the first Mah Jong PC game that I discovered for Windows. It is actually still a 16-bit application, and it is now beginning to show its age especially when run on a 32-bit system.

Pace of play is dictated by a customizable timer-bar, however the good news is that this can be tweaked during play if you find that you set it too slow or too fast. Some other play options are not available during play.

Having said all that, Mah Jongg - The Real Game is an enjoyable version to play. A nice feature during play is that each discard is accompanied by a speech-bubble above the discarding player's hand telling you what tile is being offered into the middle, and if that was not enough the name of the tile is also spoken by a polite, oriental-sounding woman. Circle, Bamboo and Wan, are the names given to the three suits.

Summary:

Shareware
Chinese Classical rules, with some customization
suitable for both 16-bit and 32-bit Windows
Cost: UK £20 / US $29.95 (CD-ROM available)

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Mimosil Mah Jong

Windows 95 / 98 / Me / NT4 / 2000 / XP
www.mimosil.co.uk

Demo download size: 720 KB

Commercial

Cost: UK £12.50 / US $21.25

A wonderful version of Mah Jong from another British company, Mimosil. Choose from Chinese, UK (BMJA), American, Hong Kong, Taiwanese, Japanese or your own configuration of rules.

Review:
Mimosil Mah Jong screenshot This was the second version of Mah Jong I bought for the PC, and there is still something charming about it. It has no sound, the graphics are rather chunky but it has still has a good feel to it.

Registration brings the registered version on a tasty green floppy disk (remember those days when you could still get a whole application on one 1.44MB disk?!). Note that if you do wish to make a back-up copy for your archives you must rename the disk the same as the original, as the set-up checks this.

Upon starting the game (which takes up the WHOLE screen, taskbar and all) you are invited to sort your tiles manually along the bottom of the screen. This is a nice feature, and has quite a satisfying floaty feel to it.

Some say that the lack of sound is a minus, and the graphics are a little clunky, but this is one of the most popular versions in the Saunders' household, and in fact until I began to review these versions for this site was the only other version installed besides Four Winds v.2.03.

Mimosil have promised a version 2 for a good few years now. Their website isn't updated terribly often, so maybe they've forgotten? I hope they haven't, version 1.0 is a good game, I'd love to see what they could build on top of this.

Summary:

Commerical
Cost: UK £12.50 / US $21.25
American, Chinese, Hong Kong, Japanese,

Taiwanese and UK and User-Defined rules
No sound
Fully-playable demo available

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MinderTech MJ 6.1 High-Color
Network Mahjong

Windows 95 / 98 / NT4 / 2000 / XP
www.mindertech.com

Download size: 1.95 MB

Shareware

Cost: US $14.00 registration fee

MinderTech MJ used to be freeware until financial troubles beset the software company and they began to charge for it.

Review:
While you can play this game on your own this version really comes into its own on a network, either a WAN such as the internet, or a LAN such as you might have in your own home.

Previous versions offered two installations depending on the capabilities of your graphic display (256 colours or High Colour), the latest offers only the latter.

Starting up you are given the option to play against the PC, connect to an existing game on the network, or start a new game as the game server and invite other players to join you.

There are various configurable settings such as strength of opponent AI players (speed, skill and aggression), scoring options, and sound, but very little else and certainly few scoring and rule customization options.

Before we had Four Winds v.2 or Shanghai Second Dynasty this was our only feasible option for network play. Add to this the fact that as we had a network running both Windows for Workgroups 3.11 and Windows 98se Mindertech's then option of both 16-bit/256 colour and 32-bit/High Colour offerings suited us fine, particularly since they were at the time freeware.

In my opinion Mindertech would have been better to retain their 16-bit version, even if they were to charge for the 32-bit version, and continue to offer 256 Colour and High Colour versions of this, as they have done in the past. In limiting their offering to one version they have lost potential users who are looking for a simple networkable version of Mah Jong. For better versions check out Julian Bradfield's offering (freeware) or Four Winds (€30).

Summary:

Shareware - try first
High-Color (32-bit) version only
Cost: US$14.00
Play on your network
Very limited configurability

Tips on backing up your registration (Text file, 3Kb)

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Sandbox Email Mahjongg

Abandonware
In 1999 Canadian software developer Sandbox Studios developed a software version of Mahjong that could be played by two players via e-mail.

Since March 2001, when Sandbox were bought out by Digital Illusions, they have withdrawn Email Mahjongg from their website. I e-mailed and asked if they would make it available - they said no; I asked if they would object to my making it available on this website - they didn't reply. So on the premise that no news is good news: here it is!

Review:
Sandbox Email Server screenshot Sandbox offered two versions for download on their website: a server version (to begin the game) and a client (to allow another person to reply).

To test out this version I have played one game by e-mail with Martin Rep in the Netherlands. He won.

One player installs the Server, the other installs the Client. The Server begins a new game and discards. You then have an option to save the move to file and send it by manually attaching the file to an e-mail, or the program can automatically send the move once you have provided SMTP information. The latter method has never worked for me.

The client receives the file, double-clicks it and is able to then discard, the server already having drawn a tile if the previous discard could not be chowed, punged or konged.

Remember, Mah Jong was designed for four players sitting together around a table, not two people sitting hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away, sending moves via electronic mail. However, that said, this is quite a fun game that can be played at your own pace.

Having not played it more than once I could not be sure exactly what the ruleset it, although it appears to be something akin to Classical Chinese... but with a hand of only 12 tiles!?

(It is worth noting that the game is played best where one player has installed the Server and the other the Client. If both have the Server installed it opens the possibility of cheating, by double-clicking your sent-move file and finding out the other player's hand. Don't do it! This software is a fun piece of nonsense that should be respected for that.)

Summary:

WAS freeware - now abandoned
Play at your own pace (!)
Only two (2) players
No rule configuration - Chinese Classical only

Download:

Download mj_email_server.zip (739 KB)
Download mj_email_client.zip (743 KB)

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Shanghai Dynasty v.1.21

Activision, licensed to Focus Multimedia

Commercial, now discontinued
This offering from Activision was licensed to Focus Multimedia briefly and cost £9.99. It now seems to be discontinued.

You may still be able to find it in shops, or find it on an internet auction site, such as eBay UK or eBay US.

Review:
Shanghai Dynasty offers four Shanghai tile-matching games plus the 'Ancient Game of Mah-Jongg'.

There are three versions of Mah-Jongg available: Chinese, Western (including the use of American jokers) and Japanese. You may also play across a network, or the internet.

As you would expect from Activision this is a highly polished game. The user interface is clean and quite intuitive, although it did take me a few moments to work out that I must click the 'Draw' button if I wanted a tile from the wall. All user input during play can be made using the mouse, from a row of buttons along the bottom of the screen, below your hand.

I bought this version after I had bought Second Dynasty, just to complete my collection. This is the work of our own dear Tom Sloper (of the Mah Jong FAQs fame)

Summary:

Discontinued commercial
Shanghai (tile matching) and Mah Jongg
Chinese, Western or Japanese rules
Network play
Requires CD-ROM in machine to play

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Shanghai Second Dynasty v.1.1

Commercial, now available from XPLOSIV
Hot on the heels of its little brother is Tom Sloper's most recent version for PC: Shanghai Second Dynasty (1999).

Hoorah! Shanghai Second Dynasty is now available from Xplosiv Software for £4.99.

The other way you will get your hands on this version is if you find it on an internet auction site, such as eBay UK or eBay US. I got my copy for £5.00 on eBay UK before it was licensed to Xplosiv.

Review:
This time there are eight versions of Shanghai (tile matching), some of which are very addictive, as well as four versions of Mah Jong.

The versions available are, again, Chinese, Western and Japanese, and this time also American. This latter version is endorsed by the American Mah-Jongg Association (AMJA) and allows you to input the annual AMJA card to be used either against the computer, or against other players over a network connection.

There is a 6MB patch (no longer downloadable from Activision) which will upgrade your copy from the CD-ROM version (v.1.0) to v.1.1. This is the version most people use to play across the internet. Note that you must be using the same version to play other people, i.e. players using version 1.0 cannot play against players using version 1.1.

Not much seems to have changed from Shanghai Dynasty as far as the user interface is concerned; I find moving from Dynasty to Second Dynasty quite straight forward. What has changed is the number of options on offer, and the introduction of American Mah Jong is welcomed, particularly now that AMJA players can use and practice with their special-hands cards.

As well as excellent network-enabled play, which requires Java Run-time Environment (JRE) to be installed, allowing true international play, the HTML help files included with this version are excellent.

If it was still available I would recommend that you buy it. If you can still find it, get your hands on a copy.

Summary:

Commercial and now available from Xplosiv (Also available on eBay UK or eBay US)
Shanghai (tile matching) and Mah Jongg
American, Chinese, Western or Japanese rules
Network play
Requires CD-ROM in machine to play
Patch available (6 MB) to upgrade to version 1.1. If you require this I can send it to you on CD-ROM or by e-mail.

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XMJ - Mah-Jong for Unix
(and Windows)

Windows 95 / 98 / Me / NT4 / 2000 / XP
Unix / GNU Linux / Solaris / Irix
www.stevens-bradfield.com/MahJong/

GNU License / Freeware / Donate
This version for Unix has also been compiled to run under the Windows operating system.

Review:
Mah-Jong for Unix has been developed by Edinburgh (Scotland, UK) based computer science lecturer, Julian Bradfield.

This version plays Chinese Classical rules, adhering strictly to the rules published in Millington's 'The Complete Book of Mah Jongg'.

As well as play against the computer (AI), you can play this version on a local area network, or even across the internet (although I have yet done neither).

This program requires the GTK library (1.37 MB) to be installed in the same directory as the application files, although it also worked when I copied these to the Windows\System folder. These DLL files can also be downloaded from Bradfield's website.

As this has been compiled from a Unix version the most immediate thing that a Windows-user, like myself, will notice is the rather unfamiliar graphic user-interface (GUI), not least that the pointer is orientated sloping up from left to right: '/', rather than the more familiar '\'.

Getting beyond aesthetics the game plays well, and readers of Millington will find the ruleset very straightforward.

Summary:

GNU License / Freeware
No installer - small download (856 KB)
Source code in C available for download
Chinese Classical (Millington rules)
Network play
Unusual GUI for Windows' users

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Other software

Chin-itsu Mania

Windows 95 / 98 / Me / NT4 / 2000 / XP
www.asahi-net.or.jp/~KU5M-FJI/index_e.htm

Freeware
The download from the developer's site is in LZH compressed format. If you use WinZip then you will need to install the LHA application into a sub-directory under WinZip in Program Files, eg. C:\Program Files\WinZip\LHA. You can find download locations at www.winzip.com/xextern.htm.

Screenshot:

Review:
'Chin-itsu Mania' is a Japanese Mah Jong-based puzzle. When you start Chin-itsu you are presented with 13 tiles, the problem is to work out which tiles you might need to complete your hand and go Mah Jong. Sounds simple? Give it a try.

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Mah-JoX (for Tournament)

Windows 95 / 98 / Me / NT4 / 2000 / XP
(Website no longer available at www.xeqt.com)

Download Mah-Jox v.2.13 (56KB)
Download Mah-Jox Tournament v.0.06 (37 KB)

Freeware:
Mah-JoX is packed in a 45 KB Zip-file (about 150 KB unzipped).

Screenshot:

Review:
Mah-JoX, and its big brother Mah-Jox for Tournament, is a small program that keeps track of the points during a Mah-Jong game.

It won't work out the points for each hand at the end of a game, but what it does is work out who pays whom, given the scores you enter and who went Mah Jong.

On request from Jelte Rep, the author also developed a version for tournaments. "The calculation is based on the standard Mah-JoX, but with the difference that it supports more than 4 players, based on the way Jelte and his friends conduct their tournament.

I have never used this application, given that I usually do not play next to the PC (and don't have a laptop). A more compact offering would be Mah Jong Scorer for the Psion.

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