Mahjong Sports

CUSTOMER REVIEW



--Update: I glanced back at this app a day later, and I found myself absolutely befuddled by the negative reviews that were generated. In complete sincerity, it is like folks were downloading a completely different game. Complex? This is one the easiest matching layouts I have seen with the "Tutorial Mode" on. Security issues? This plays offline without a hitch and there are NO intrusive permissions/code flags/analytics/nothing whatsoever. Touch sensitivity issues? I suppose if you have a screen protector on... I like reading negative reviews as they often will highlight aspects I had not encountered or considered (due to OS differences), but this slew of negatives are just bizarre.



--Original

Although I am not a particular player of mahjong myself, MAHJONG SPORTS has a set of interesting options and a design interface that does make it stand out from other mahjong games that I have seen, making this one an excellent choice for players of all calibers, especially beginners. It starts out with a HD background sports photo and stylized sport representational icons, but under [Game Options] is a slew of custom settings that can really tailor the game into nearly any preferred setup.



Game Mode: Standard, Race, Chase, and Memory

Tile Sets: Christmas or Sports, each with 5 different tile graphic options (green, orange, glossy, bamboo, and standard)

Picture Background: Random (sports) HD Images, Green Baize, Brushed Steel, Green Water, Brown Fleck, Blue Paper



And four game option on/off toggles: Show Splash, Animated Title, Game Sounds, and the really interesting one, Training Mode (this is defaulted on).



Training Mode is what really makes this game friendly to beginners to the western mahjong style games. It emphasizes selectable tiles by muting the colors of the non-playable tiles, making it super easy to see what you can match. Also, in the upper right of the play field is a [Moves] indicator, which is always on, showing how many matches you can currently make. At the bottom of the field is a small toolbar that does let you shift tile fields parts left/right and flip the entire board up/down, a shuffle, undo (as the "rewind" icon), pause, suggest match (as the fast forward icon), and finally the [Shortcut Menu] for New, Restart, and Select Board. By tapping the screen at the top, one last bar pops down; the far right arrow will solve the game automatically and the far left will take you back to the Main menu.



52 different tile boards to choose from, ranging from Small to Large, and different setups (standard, halves, trio) with a selection filter drop down. MAHJONG SPORTS only has Network Access as a permission, and uses Facebook SDK integration and Amazon's GameCircle along with a direct Amazon Appstore link that displays a random set of games (apparently the dev needs to recode the Appstore search criteria). However, there is nothing else of concern, the back-key exits cleanly, and the game does run OFFLINE consistently.



The backdrop assortment of pictures are High-Definition, so this does pad the installed file size a bit (23mbs with a device-enabled ability to move it to my SD card). Also considering I was finally forced into "upgrading" to KitKat 4.4.2, we also know it's KitKat compatible. Heh. All in all, I think this mahjong will be a huge hit with beginners and experienced players who love sports themes.



-- Daily FAOTD YouTube video review available @ [...](also Channel Link is listed under my Profile, or simply search Tinfoot Tall)