Tiles of The Dragon

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs

GAME DESIGNER:Tom Hall
GAME DEVELOPER:SoftDisk Publishing
GAME PUBLISHER:SoftDisk Publishing
Copyright 1993, SoftDisk Publishing

Tiles of The Dragon is a fun, no-frills Mah Jongg game from id legend Tom Hall’s early days at SoftDisk. For those who are unfamiliar with the game, the goal is to remove as many tiles from the board as possible. Tiles are removed 2 at a time, matched tiles only, and, an eligible tile must have no other tile on top of it or touching it on at least one side… it must be open on either its left or right side.

While the game pales beside Activision’s acclaims Shanghai series (which shouldn’t be surprising, given its budget, shareware status), Tiles of the Dragon is good at what it does. You can play in either solitaire or tournament modes. In solitaire, there is no time limit, and you remove tiles until either they are all gone or you have no more possible matches left to remove. In tournament mode, there will be a pre-established time limit per game, but is otherwise the same game as solitaire. You can read concise rules of the game, ask the computer for hints, change background color of the board, choose the tile set, undo your last move, as well as save and load a game in progress. Overall, a nice, straightforward Mah Jongg game that is probably one of the best freeware/shareware versions ever made of this Chinese parlor classic. Thumbs up!