Mah jong Import ?What is it ? How to play.

[ihaveanosebleed]

I was over to my buds house and he showed me this Japanese import He got that he couldn’t figure out. Starts off with this girl at a beach and then finally she starts playing this other chick, so the game board slides up. The computer players tiles are along the top and the tiles you keep go along the bottom of the screen. You can either choose to keep a tile or discard it to the center of the screen and there’s a few other sets of tiles on either side that we can’t figure out. I guess the object is to collect runs or pairs of these tiles ((something like rummy) and beat the other player but there’s a lot more to it than that. There seems to be half a dozen or more ways to score, or loose, if you don’t know what’s going on. Cut to your chick in her panties, you loose.

I don’t even know what the game is called but some english instructions would be sweet.

[cheryl771]

You're right you match tiles. I had this in a game boy cart a very long time ago. It can be really hard to match the tiles if you don't look closely since the tiles probably have japanese letters on them. At least the game boy version allowed you to change to english letters.

[cheryl771]

After some more thinking the Game Boy version of Mai Jong was titled "Shanghai".

[ottoman]

Nah, that sounds like real mah jong ( not the matching pairs game but the proper game).

Yr right, u have to collect matching 3's (called pungs) or 4's (called kongs),but theres also a million other rules as well. Try looking for mah jong rules on net. Must be sum specialist sites.

[ottoman]

k....Basics of mah jong.

You have four suites: Bamboo, characters,circles and another. These are numbered 1 to 9.

You also have North, south east and west winds (labelled N,S,E,W)

You also have red dragon (strange red symbol), green dragon (strange green symbol) and white dragon (blank white tile)

and finally you have seasons and flowers (spring,summer,autumn and winter + Orchid, chrisanthimum,bamboo and another i forget)

The tiles start in a square shape (four walls) and are dealt out, 14 tiles each with 15 for the dealer.

Dealer throws one away into the center and next player picks one up from the wall etc.

Some ways to win are collecting three or four of a kind (known as pungs for 3 and kongs for 4)

An open pung is if you have two of a kind and someone throws the third one you need into the middle you can pick it up and use it for ur three (also applies to kongs).

A concealed pung/kong is if u pick up the last tile you need from the wall and is worth more.

A good way to win is a run from 1 to 9 in a specific suite and either 5 odd "honours" (winds and dragons) or 5 winds ( all n,s,e,w and another wind).

If you pick up a season or flower you can keep without having to ditch a tile. Everyone for every game has a specific season with a related flower (i.e summer and orchid) If you collect one your final score is doubled and collecting another will double yr score again.

When you need one tile to win you are "fishing". This means that if another player disgards the tile you need into the middle you can pick it up and win.

As i said there are lot of other ways to win and get doubles (I think concealed kongs are doubles as well) but will be very tricky playing in japanese) Good Luck!! :)