And while the backdrops are nice, I would prefer to have an option of a plain background and my choice of tile design. The menu bar is also hidden away, although it does come into view with a tap on the dead areas of the screen - this is not indicated in the UI. This is an omission that really hurts the ergonomics when I'm playing. That might be fine if your target machine is a Surface 2 running Windows 8.1, but not for a handset that is geared towards being used as a portrait orientated device.

that's when the issues start to show up.įirst of all, everything is locked into landscape mode. But the next level up from that, making the basics work in the Windows Phone 8 environment.

You can pinch to zoom in and a drag of your finger will move your viewpoint around the zoomed in tiles. You simply tap tiles and if they match they'll be taken away, otherwise the app realises you are changing your selection, and highlights just the last tapped tile to help you find the matching partner. The UI when you are actually playing a game works. While it's great to see this title come from Microsoft, and to be labeled as an Xbox Live title, it's actually left me a touch disappointed in the implementation. While it's never caught on as strongly as Microsoft's implementations of solitaire and minesweeper, I've always been a fan of a good Mahjong Solitaire game (but for the rest of the review, let's just go with Mahjong as the name, agreed?).

Precariously balanced piles of tiles are presented to the player, and tiles are removed in matching pairs if (and only if) the tile has no tile resting on top of it and the tile can be drawn directly to the right hand or left hand side of the game play area. Rather than the four player game beloved in China, this version of Mahjong is the classic tile matching game.

The Mahjong here is, strictly speaking, Mahjong solitaire. Just after Christmas ( great timing there.) Microsoft released these three titles under the Xbox Live brand, and I'm going to start off the reviews by looking at Mahjong.Īuthor: Microsoft (developed by Arkadium) Just as every Christmas you'll find an orange at the bottom of your stocking, just as every student party there is a bottle of absinth nobody will risk opening until 3am, every smartphone needs a decent version of Solitaire, Minesweeper, and Mahjong. There are certain games that should be regarded as staples for any computing platform.

Microsoft mahjong mahjong solitaire