Instructions

Welcome to the enchanting world of Mahjong: Journey of Enlightenment, this guide will show you the basic rules and game play.

Contents:
Basic overview
Unlocking Items
Playing a game from start to finish
Saving your game
Viewing unlocked items
The rules of Mahjong solitaire
The Scoring system

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Basic overview
The goal of Mahjong: JoE is to play through 6 rounds (tile layouts), each new round is harder than the last. If you reach the end of the 6th round then you have completed a whole journey and you will receive a rank and final score.

It's not all that easy though, you will be racing against the clock which constantly counts down to 0. Every tile matched will earn you extra time, the higher you score the more time and bonuses you receive. So you must play both quickly and wisely! Any extra time you have remaining at the end of a round is halved and carried forward to the next, which is essential as the later rounds start with very little time.

As well as having random tile layouts, some round will choose random tile sets, lighting modes, backgrounds and music, so your journey will never be the same twice.

Unlocking items
As you progress through the game, you will be able to unlock "secret" items, like new tile layouts, tile sets, lighting modes etc... Items are always unlocked at the end of a round, they will be awarded for many different things such as finishing a round very quickly, getting a high score, or completing a certain number of journeys.

Whenever you unlock an item, it gets added to the list of randomly chosen items the game picks when it creates a new journey (when you start a new game). So, if you unlock a new tile set, it becomes possible for that tileset to be randomly chosen in any future games. This means that the more items you unlock, the more varied and interesting your journeys will become!

There are over 550 items hidden within the game, waiting to be unlocked. If you can unlock 100% then you get to play a very special secret mode

Playing a game from start to finish
To start a new game, go to the title screen and press the "new game" button, this will create a new journey for you. It will choose random layouts, tilesets, lighting modes etc, from the items you have unlocked.

You will then see the Journey screen, this shows you an overview of your journey, with each round and the chosen layouts and tilesets.

From here you will begin playing the first round, the game is played like normal mahjong solitaire, however there is a timer which counts down in the bottom right of the screen. If this timer ever reaches 0 then the round is over. If your time runs out then you will be given the opportunity to "continue" (providing you have any continues remaining), which will re-start the current round and allow you to try again. If you run out of continues then your journey is over and you must return to the title screen.

If you manage to match all the tiles before the timer runs out then you will win that round, and proceed to the next round.

Every time you match a tile, you will receive some extra time which is added onto your timer. The amount of time you receive is based on how much the tile was worth, larger scoring tiles win you more time. Try and save as much time as you can, as any extra time you have at the end of a round is halved and added onto the next round.

After a round is completed, you will receive more bonuses depending on how well you scored. You can receive more:

+ Time, for the next round.
+ Hints, to be used in any of the other rounds to help you.
+ Continues, in case you fail and need to retry a round.

After you have received bonuses, you may or may not unlock a secret item. You have to do certain things while playing a round to unlock items, like getting a high score, or finishing in a fast time. There are many ways to unlock items.

From here you are back to the journey screen, and the next round will begin. This round will be harder than the last, you will start with less time, and the layout will be more challenging.

If you manage to complete all 6 layouts then you have completed your journey, you will be awarded a final score and a rank from A to F.

Saving your game
While playing through a journey, you can save your progress by simply quitting the game. The next time you play, there will be a "Continue" button above the new game button on the title screen. Pressing Continue will allow you to play the same journey as you had last time, starting you on the same round as before.

Please note that press "new game" will erase any saved game you had, there can be only 1 journey in progress at any time.

Viewing unlocked items
You can see all the items you have unlocked by clicking "unlocked items" on the title screen. This will take you to a screen which shows you all the different items you have unlocked, as well as the time and date when they were unlocked. It also shows you the percentage of the game items you have unlocked.

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+ It must not be covered at all by any other tile.

+ There must not be any other tiles touching one side of the tile, this does not apply to the top or bottom of the tile, just the sides (to the left or right).

Here are some examples of the rules:

In these examples, only the middle tile would be selectable, the side tiles are both covered by the middle tile and are therefore not free.

In these examples, only the tiles at the sides are free. The middle tile is not, as it is touching tiles on both the left and right sides.

In this example, all tiles are free, they are all free on both sides. The middle tile, although surrounded at both top and bottom, is still selectable.

To select a tile, move your mouse cursor over a tile, if the tile is free then it will glow. Click the tile with the left mouse button and it will glow a different color. Now you can select the matching tile, again just left-click a free tile. If you find a matching pair then they will disappear.

Special tiles
Usually, you must select a pair of tiles, however there are a 8 special tiles called "flowers" and "seasons". You can match any flower tile with any other flower tile, and any season tile with any season tile, however you cannot match a flower tile with a season tile.

The flower tiles:



The Season tiles:

So, for example, the Plum tile can be matched to the Bamboo tile, or the Winter tile to the Spring tile. Notice that all season tiles have a black number in the top left corner, while all flower tiles have a red number in the top right corner.

The Scoring system
Mahjong:JoE gives you a score for every tile you match, each tile may have a different score depending on the image on the tile and how many tiles there are left in play, here's how it works:

+ Every tile has a base value, whenever you remove a tile, your score increases by that tile's value multiplied by half the number of pieces in play. This means that to get a high score, you must choose your moves wisely, go for the highest scoring tiles early.

+ If you clear all 144 tiles you will receive a bonus to your score.

+ Time is against you, you will loose points the longer you take to finish. So play fast but carefully!

Here are the tiles with their scoring values:

So, for example if you matched a flower tile (worth 6 points), and there were 100 tiles left in the game, you would get (6 * 100 / 2 = 300) points. You can see the points value for any tile by running your mouse over it, the points will appear in the bottom right of the screen.

Tips for playing

+ Try and get the highest value tiles early on, this can land you a huge score.

+ Aim to clear tiles which sit on top of stacks of other tiles. Tile stacks can be hard to clear at the end of a game as they limit the number of available moves.

+ The order in which you clear tiles makes a big difference, if you play well then you can cut the chances of running out of moves at the end of the game.

+ The key to earning a big score is to play fast, but also to think about your move. You have to get the big scoring tiles while making sure that you wont run out of moves near the end of the game.