Overview
Mah Jongg is a shareware mahjong solitaire game developed and published by Nels Anderson (later as Arcanum Computing) for MS-DOS PCs on July 17, 1987.
One of the earliest mahjong solitaire games since the release of the 1986 game Shanghai, Mah Jongg features a simplistic keyboard system (where players input a pair of coordinates for each tile) and use of the high-definition 16-color mode for supported EGA cards. It also features game saving, a help system, and use of a seed randomizer for the starting tiles (0-65536).
It received numerous updates since its original release (with the last update, v4.2, released in 1994), adding mouse support, a "tournament mode" (where players can take turns solving the same puzzle as quick as they can with no cheats), additional monochrome graphics modes (for LCD laptops and Hercules cards), alternate tile arrangements and tilesets, and new quality-of-life features (such as Undo and Peek options).
Later versions included a tileset editor, which are also used for the concentration game Tile Match. Players could also purchase additional tilesets (as Tile Collections) through BBS or via mail order.
The game uses an unrestricted shareware model, with later versions only including (MAHJONG and FLAGS) and six arrangements (DEFAULT, ANTIGRAV, HORSESHU, STADIUM, TOWERS, and XRAY) unless players purchase the full release. It later received a sequel in 1995, titled Dragons Bane: Mah Jong II.
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