Mahjongg+
by Chris Olson

Welcome to Mahjongg+ for the PalmOS.  This applicationis based on the original Mahjongg for PalmOS.  This particular version of Mahjongg has been optimized to work on all versions of the PalmOS greater than 3.0, and it works on all hardware currently available (including Sony devices) and should work on future devices as well.

The rules of this solitare game are very simple.  You must match pairs of tiles to remove them from the board.  A tile can only be selected if it is 'free' on the right or left (or both). A tile is free if it has no tile on the side being examined at the same level.  for example the 9-I piece on the bottom left f the board is free.  The 3-I piece judtto the right of it is not.

To win, remve all of the tiles.  At the top right of the display, you can see how many tiles are left, and how many pairs you can match.  This number has a distressing tendancy to go down faster than the number of tiles left :-).  The next two images show (in this order) what happens when you win, and what happens when you run out of options).

Those are the rules, simple as they are.  The game itself can be maddeningly difficult to win.  Byt that's beside the point.  Now is the time to take you through the detailed operation of the program.   One of the first things you need to understand is that the program is almost totally configurable.  But first, the menus (and all they imply).

The Game Menu

The game menu contains the four options: New, Restart, Undo and Hint.  The New menu option is how you start a new game.  Advanced warning:  A new game is started immediately.  You are assumed to know what you are doing.  You are not asked to confirm the choice, and there is no going back (I.e., you cannot Undo a new game, for instance).  This is on purpose.  If you pick the item from the menu, you are going through a lot of actions, too many for this to have been an accident.  Let me know if you think this is a mistake on my part, or if you ever actually manage to do this by accident and I may be convinced to change this.  

  The restart menu option displays a small form with a Game Number prompt.  By default, the current games' nnumber is displayed there.  You can replay any game you have ever played by simply entering the game number into this dialog.  Restart is like new in that once you hit OK, your curent game is lost.  Use the cancel button if you just wanted to look at the game number (say, if you wanted to make a note of the number.

The Undo menu option allows you to take back a previous move (especially if that move made the game suddenly unwinnable).  Undo can be used all the way to the beginning of the game, there is no limit.  Undo cannot be used across games.  Once you've started a new game, you've lost the previous game.

The hint menu option exists if you are stuck and cannot find a matching tile, and the game says that matches exist.  Select hint mutliple times for the program to step through all of the matches available.  If you do anything else after you ask for a hint, including just tapping anywhere on the screen, hinting starts over at the first pair again.  Tis can allow you to look through the pairs available and then go bak and look at the beginning again, if you need to.

These four menus are all that are really needed to play this game.  The next menu allows you to cusomize the game more to your liking.

Options Menu

Under the options menu you will find three choices.  The first choice is the key to the customization of the program: Setup.   The next menu option lets you beam tilesets and layouts to other people who also enjoy the game (more on layouts and tilesets in the setup options).  The final menu option (About) simply displays the whos and where fores of the program.  First, lets talk about the setup option.

The setup dialog, as you can see, has many controls on it to control the appearenc and behavior of the program.  The first item on the dialog (starting at the top) is the layout selector.  If you look at the images in the document above, you can see there are many ways that the tiles can be  laid out, thus the name.  If you select the layout, a list will be displayed and you can pick from all of the layouts on your handheld.  There are some layouts built in to the program, but many more can be loaded onto your pilot from various sources. (including my web site, PalmGear and Handango).  Please be aware that only the registered version supports external layouts (and tileset).  Any tileset you pick will not take affect until the next new game.

The tileset selector functions in the same manner as the layout selectoi, except this selector deals with the faces of the tiles.  An example tile can be seen in the lower right of the dialog.  The six colored boxes boxes below the selectors pop up a color selector box.  Just pick the color you want to use.  You can see the results (for all but the selection) in the example in the bottom right.

The colors prompt determines what mode the pilot is in.  The results look like below:

The guarenteed solution checkbox is an experimental feature.  Random shuffling of the tiles can produce games that cannot be solved.   This checkbox turns on an algorythm that attempts to prevent this from happening.  Below that  is the current game number (remember restart game)?

Thats about it.  Enjoy!

Chris Olson
chris@pdaguy.com