Are Mahjong Solitaire Games Due for a Reinvention?
Since Solitaire Mahjong first came out in 1981, the game till today has practically in all ways, remained the same. There is basically one form of the game and that is matching like tiles together and getting them off the board. Today, a quarter of a century later, and with all the advances in technology, maybe it's time for the old Solitaire tile game to spawn some modern variants of its own.
Playing Mahjong Alone
Before 1981, no one ever thought that the old traditional philosophical game of tiles from the Far-East could be played alone. A traditional game for 4, and over the years, no one ever thought to rewrite the game's rules and make a new game out of it. Well, until Brodie Lockard came along.
Lockard, a computer whiz, took a hard look at the Mahjong tiles and inspired by the old Chinese children's game 'The Turtle", decided to use the tiles to create a similar puzzle solving game played solo. What's more, he ported his idea into the then popular “PLATO” terminal educational system, and by 1986, Lockard had ported the game over into the most popular commercially available Micro-computers of the day (Apple2, Mac, Amiga, etc.). The game was called "Shanghai" and was released by Activision.
Selling around 10 million copies across multiple platforms, the game established the classic "Turtle Pyramid" layout which the game continually used as the Solitaire Mahjong benchmark till today. By the 1990s, Microsoft included their basic version of the game as part of the Windows Operating System, introducing millions of office workers to it. They called it "Taipei".
Today, the entire gaming world is populated by various clones of the original Shanghai ported over from desktop, WWW, mobile, and even gaming consoles. Mahjong Solitaire and free mahjong games online continues to remain one of the foremost staple games of casual gaming in today's world.
When we say that Mahjong Solitaire has to be reinvented, we don't mean changing the game. The basic “Shanghai” game of tiles, is a modern-day legend that should be preserved as long as humanity survives. However, modern variants of the game can be introduced to not only increase the reach of the game much further, but to establish its legacy as one of the foremost game re-creations of the modern era.
Here are some interesting re-inventing ideas that can be applied to developing a new game from venerated legacy titles like Solitaire Mahjong Shanghai. Note however, that re-inventing a game may change it to a point that it can no longer be categorized as the same game, or a variant of the original concept, but then, it’s really up to the developer how far one should go.
Concepts of Reinvention
Mahjong Solitaire is a single player game designed to be played by oneself and oneself alone. Just like Card Solitaire, Solitaire is a game used not only for passing the time, deep meditative thought, or simply enjoying the game, but also carries some philosophical and divination undertones with it. Making it available for competitive multiplayer gameplay without reverting to the traditional 4 player game of the tiles would be a very good way to re-invent the game. Maybe a multiplayer Mahjong Solitaire variant where players play alone to tackle the tiles on the board but play in competition with others worldwide (online) may be a good idea to get going.
Another idea would be to drastically change the gameplay while maintaining the game’s solo-play functionality. Changing the rules a bit like placing the exposed tiles on a timer, shifting the board’s gravity, keep certain tiles hidden or locked till certain conditions are met, adding a robust meta-progression component to the game, or anything that could in many ways re-invent the gameplay while keeping the core game values intact.
Another is the application of Spatial and VR features to the game. Solitaire Mahjong has been mostly overhead 2D since introduction. Yes, computer graphics has advanced over the years but Shanghai remains Shanghai, the way it looks and the way it is played. Maybe, enabling the player to examine and manipulate the tiles not only from above but from the sides and under, would make the basic game a lot more interesting (VR headset or not). A well designed Solitaire Mahjong VR version may just do the trick to attract more people to play the games.
There are many ways that Solitaire Mahjong can be re-invented into a newer game, but as said, the original must be venerated and kept intact. Over 40 years of static matching puzzle-solving gameplay may not bother gamers who have started viewing the game like classic free mahjong online as traditional as the original 4 player Mahjong was, but in our continually evolving and changing global gaming environment, anything is possible.
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