What are your favorite Mahjong games in the Mac App store

March 25, 2013 10:07 AM

My mom really enjoys Mahjong. She had a version she really liked on her old Windows machine, but it died. She's using a Mac now. There's a ton of Mahjong games in the Mac App store. She's tried a few but they were too simple. Anyone have recommendations for a Mahjong game from the Mac App store for a Mahjong fanatic?
posted by StimulatingPixels to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

Well it's not app-store-simple, but since nobody else is speaking up: She could install Xquartz and run xmahjongg, a lovely Mahjong game written by a friend of mine. I have no idea if any of the hundreds of others are lovelier, but there ya go. (She'd want the "Mac OS X package, with graphical launcher", but she has to start X11 before running it.)
posted by spbmp at 10:48 AM on March 25, 2013

Clarification: Do you want Mah Jongg solitaire, or the 4-player game?
posted by BrashTech at 10:48 AM on March 25, 2013

I play Ivory, a mahjong equivalent all the time. It's often extremely challenging as there are many different styles of boards. Download Ivory here. It also offers two different faces for the tiles; I use the bibliography one, since the character font (pictured) is too hard for me to read.
posted by Lynsey at 11:38 AM on March 25, 2013

Ivory is nice. It hasn't been updated in a while though (current release is from 2008). There are 10 different layouts, the board can be tilted using the arrow keys to make it easier to see what tiles are stacked. I've had it kicking around on my hard drive for a long time now; there was a decent app I used to use on Windows; I found Ivory shortly after buying a Mac in 2007.

Looks like the developers are still somewhat active though, as they have an App Store and an iOS version (last news update said total rewrite is underway to develop an iPad version). iOS version is not free, while desktop one is. App Store version appears to be limited in comparison with the download from the developer's site.
posted by caution live frogs at 12:06 PM on March 25, 2013

Best answer: There's also Moonlight Mahjong, free in the Mac App Store. This game differentiates itself by allowing you to rotate the game board. Tiles are stacked deeper and you often need to rotate the board to expose a match.

Whether these are features your mom would like is another story.
posted by pmbuko at 12:36 PM on March 25, 2013

Response by poster: Note to all, free apps are nice, but I've got no problem buying her one to support a good game. Just looking for insight before spending the money.

spbmp: I'm trying to keep the install of her machine as close to stock as possible. Since I'm her tech support, I try to avoid anything that increases complexity. That said, I'll be playing around with that on my machine.

BrashTech: To clarify, I'm after the solitaire version of Mah Jongg (or Mahjong, or however it's supposed to be spelled.)

I'll install Ivory and Moonlight and see what she thinks.
posted by StimulatingPixels at 1:40 PM on March 25, 2013

Response by poster: FYI: The version of Ivory on the website (ivorymahjongg.com) requires Java. In my case, this means it's out because I'm not going to install Java on Mom's machine if at all possible. (Once again, the fewer moving parts, the fewer calls I'll get. At least hopefully.)
posted by StimulatingPixels at 2:20 PM on March 25, 2013

Big Fish Games has some Mahjong games for Mac (website not Mac App Store).
posted by plokent at 9:58 AM on March 26, 2013

Response by poster: Mom "Loves, Loves, Loves" Moonlight Mahjong. Thanks pmbuko.
posted by StimulatingPixels at 6:44 PM on March 27, 2013 [1 favorite]