Mahjong with nothing hurrying you
Mahjong Relax is the classic 144-tile Turtle with the pressure taken out. There is no clock on the screen and no time kept, so there is no score to beat and no reason to rush. Take a pair, look around the board, put the kettle on, and come back: your game is saved just as you left it.
Nothing here can go wrong for long. Undo takes back any match, as many as you like, all the way to the start. Shuffle re-deals the tiles that are left whenever you want a fresh look at them. And if you ever run out of free pairs, the tiles are shuffled for you, so you can simply carry on.
Every deal can be cleared
Like every board on this site, each Relax deal is built so that a full clearing exists before you see it, and a shuffle always deals the remaining tiles so they can be cleared too. Hint is free and has no limit: it shows two tiles to match and says in a sentence why they are a good pair.
Quiet by default
The game makes no sound until you ask it to. The speaker button above the board turns on a set of soft, low tones for picking and matching tiles, and a gentle chord when the board is clear. Press it again to turn them off; the choice is remembered in this browser.
There is nothing to sign up for and nothing to install. When the board is clear you can start a new deal, or simply stop for the day.
How to play
Clear the board by taking away matching tiles in pairs. You can only take a tile that is free: nothing lies on top of it, and its left side or its right side is open. Pick one free tile, then a free tile that matches it, and both disappear. The full rules, with pictures.
- Matching tiles are identical: two East Winds, two 5 of Bamboo. The exceptions are the flowers and the seasons: any flower matches any other flower, and any season any season. Every tile and its name.
- Hint shows a pair you can take and explains why, in one sentence. It always picks a pair that keeps the whole board clearable.
- Undo takes back your last match, as often as you like.
- Shuffle re-deals the tiles that are left so that they can all be cleared again. Use it when no free pairs are left.
Controls
Click or tap a tile to pick it, then click or tap its partner. With a keyboard, Tab moves between the free tiles and Enter or Space picks one. H asks for a hint, U undoes, S shuffles and Esc lets go of a picked tile.
Tiles you cannot take yet are shown a little darker, so the free ones stand out. You can turn that off in Settings, where you can also make the text larger.
Other boards
The same calm rules apply everywhere, but the other boards keep time if you want it. Try the classic Turtle, the larger tiles of Easy, or one of the shaped layouts: Dragon, Spider and Cat. Daily Mahjong is one new deal a day, the same for everyone.