Mahjong Garden

Mahjong Garden is mahjong solitaire laid out on a teak table in a garden. A hundred and forty-four tiles are stacked into a shape and the job is to take them all off again, two at a time. A tile is free when nothing rests on top of it and its left or right side is open: pick two free tiles that match and they lift away with a soft wooden clack. Seasons match any season and flowers match any flower. Every tile is drawn in code, from the brushed numerals and coin circles to the jointed bamboo with its little bird, the wind characters, the dragons and small paintings for the seasons and flowers, all on an ivory face with a bevelled edge and a bamboo-green back. In the corner a koi pond ripples and cherry petals drift across the table.

There are eight hand-made layouts: the classic Turtle, a stepped Pyramid, a walled Fortress, a Butterfly, a coiled Dragon, a moon Bridge, a Garden of hedges and blooms, and a Spiral that climbs towards the middle. Each deal is built backwards from an empty table, placing pairs only where they could be lifted off again, so every deal can be cleared. If you paint yourself into a corner, Shuffle re-deals the faces still on the table into an arrangement that can be finished, at a small cost to your score. Hint lights up a good pair and Undo puts the last pair back.

Classic runs a clock and keeps your best time and high score for every layout. Relaxed drops the clock and the score and makes hints and shuffles free, for when you just want to relax and give your brain a gentle workout. The daily garden is dealt from the date, so everyone gets the same layout and the same tiles until midnight, and clearing it grows your daily streak. Play with a mouse, a finger or the keyboard; on a small phone screen the magnifier zooms the table and you drag to look around.