What is it?
Remove matching tiles in pairs from a stacked layout. A tile can be picked only when nothing is on top and its left or right side is open, so free the tall stacks and row ends first. Climb 24 floors across four wings — Gate, Hall, Library and Summit. Each cleared floor reveals a classic East Asian painting hidden beneath the tiles.
Play free in your browser without installation. No account needed: your current board and progress are saved on this device.
Mahjong Tower is a mahjong solitaire climb of 24 floors. Each floor is a stack of tiles two to five layers high, and you clear it by removing matching pairs. A tile can be taken only when nothing above overlaps it and its left or right neighbour on the same layer is gone, so the order you pick pairs in matters more than spotting them.
The floors are grouped into four wings: Gate, Hall, Library and Summit. Floors 1–6 use dots, bamboo and the three dragons on 32 to 72 tiles. The Hall adds the four winds, the Library adds characters, and the Summit adds flowers and seasons, ending with layouts of up to 144 tiles. Every layout was drawn for this game and fits within 10 tiles across and 9 down, so the largest board still works on an upright phone.
Under every floor lies an old East Asian painting covered by a silk veil. A patch of the veil lifts only when every tile stacked over that spot is gone, and the whole painting appears when the floor is cleared, together with a short note on what to look for in it.
Gameplay video and screens
How to play
- Pick an open floor on the tower map. Floors open in order from 1, and cleared floors can be replayed any time.
- Bright tiles are free. Tap two matching tiles in turn to remove them. The four flowers match each other, as do the four seasons.
- If you get stuck, use Undo, Hint or Shuffle. Clear without hints or shuffles and within the target time for three stars.
- Your board is saved on this device and resumes where you left off. ↻ at the top restarts the current floor with a fresh deal.
Modes
- Tower map
- Floors open one at a time: clearing a floor opens the next, and any cleared floor can be replayed for a better score. Each floor card shows its stars once cleared and a sealed thumbnail of its painting until then.
- Floor play
- One player removes all tiles in pairs. Undo, Hint and Shuffle are always available; Hint and Shuffle cost a star and points, Undo costs only time.
- Gallery
- Every painting you have uncovered is kept here with its title, artist, date, story and source. Paintings on floors you have not cleared stay blurred.
Controls
| Action | Mouse & keyboard | Touch |
|---|---|---|
| Pick a tile, then its match | Click; or arrow keys move between free tiles, then Enter or Space | Tap one tile, then the other |
| Drop the selection | Click the tile again, or Esc | Tap the tile again |
| Undo the last pair | Z, U or Backspace, or the Undo button | Undo button |
| Show a hint | H, or the Hint button | Hint button |
| Shuffle the remaining tiles | S, or the Shuffle button | Shuffle button |
| Back to the tower map | Map button | Map button |
Good to know
- Remove tiles on tall stacks and at the ends of long rows first — they free the most tiles.
- When three tiles of a kind are free, take the pair that unblocks the fourth.
- Hints show the first move of a route that clears the board, and warn you when the board can no longer be cleared.
Strategy tips
Work from the top and the row ends
Only the outermost tile of each row, and only the top of each stack, is free. Pairs that uncover a buried tile or shorten a long row open the most new moves; pairs between two tiles that are already free open nothing.
Count the four
Most patterns appear four times. If two of the four are stacked on top of each other, the top one can only be paired with one of the other two, so do not spend both of those on an easy pair elsewhere.
When three are free, think before taking two
With three free tiles of one pattern, look at what each one is holding down. Take the two that release the most, and leave the third for the fourth tile when it comes out.
Flowers and seasons are wildcards within their group
On Summit floors any flower matches any flower and any season matches any season. That makes them flexible, so they are often worth keeping for the end of a stack rather than taking at once.
Undo is free; hints are not
The second star needs a clear with no hints and no shuffles, but undo has no penalty other than time. If a pair turns out badly, step back instead of asking for a hint.
The time star is 2.5 seconds per tile
The third star needs a clear within the floor's par time, which is the tile count times 2.5 seconds: 80 seconds for 32 tiles, 6 minutes for 144. The clock stops while the GameNow menu is open or the tab is hidden.
At a glance
- Genre
- Puzzles & cards
- Players
- 1
- Price
- Free
- Available languages
- Korean · English · Japanese · Chinese · Spanish
- Platform
- Web browser (no install)
Developer notes
Every deal can be cleared
A random deal in this kind of solitaire can be impossible from the start. Here the board is built backwards: starting from the empty layout, the game repeatedly picks two positions that would be free and assigns them a matching pair, backtracking when it gets stuck. Playing that order forwards always clears the floor, and Shuffle uses the same method on the tiles that remain, so a shuffled board can always be cleared too. The tests clear all 24 floors on three different seeds with the solver.
Hints point at a clearable line
The hint keeps the removal order from the deal. Because removing tiles only ever frees other tiles, the stored order still works as long as every pair you took was in it. When you leave it, the hint searches for a new complete line, trying safe pairs first and then random play-outs, and warns you when the board can no longer be cleared.
Sized for a phone held upright
Each layer is drawn shifted up and left so stacks read like steps. With more layers the shift gets smaller so a five-layer floor does not eat the phone's width. On a 390-pixel-wide screen the largest floor still gives tiles of about 34 × 46 pixels.
Paintings with a known source
The 24 paintings are public-domain or CC0 files from Wikimedia Commons, including works by Kim Hong-do, Jeong Seon, Shin Yun-bok, Hokusai, Hiroshige, Fan Kuan and Wang Ximeng. The source link and licence are shown under each one, and a painting is only downloaded when you open its floor.
Update history
- First release: 24 floors in four wings, hidden paintings with a gallery, undo, hint and shuffle, three stars per floor, and a link to and from Shisen-Sho.
Questions and answers
Can a floor be impossible to clear?
Not as dealt, and not after a shuffle: both are built from a known clearing order. Your own order can still lead to a dead end. When that happens the hint says so, and you can undo or shuffle.
Do flowers and seasons need to be identical?
No. Any of the four flowers matches another flower, and any of the four seasons matches another season. They appear only on the Summit floors (19–24).
Where is my progress saved?
On this device, in the browser. Cleared floors, stars, best scores and a floor in progress are kept there, and reopening the game continues the same board. Clearing the browser's site data removes them; there is no account sync yet.
Does undo cost a star?
No. Only hints and shuffles cost the second star. Undo takes back one pair at a time, but the clock keeps running. Shuffling clears the undo history.
Where do the paintings come from?
From Wikimedia Commons, all in the public domain or released under CC0. The title, artist, date and source link are shown on the result screen and in the gallery.
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