Mossback Mahjong

Old Mossback the pond tortoise has spent a whole year collecting river tiles on his shell, and now spring is here. Before he can swim to the spring pool, his back has to be bare. That is your job: lift matching pairs of tiles until nothing is left.

Mossback Mahjong is a mahjong solitaire game with its own set of tiles. Three numbered suits run from 1 to 7: green Lily pads, orange Koi and blue Raindrops. Four Moons show the phases from new to full, and three Charms carry the sun, the lotus and a tortoise shell. Every kind appears four times, 112 tiles in all.

A tile is free when nothing lies on top of it and its left or right side is open. Tap a free tile, then its twin, and both lift away. Tiles you cannot take yet are shaded, so the board always shows what is open.

Every deal is built backwards from an empty table, pair by pair, so every board you get can be cleared. Getting stuck is still possible if you take the wrong twin, and that is where the thinking lies: which of the four copies do you pair first?

Play eight ponds: the Shell itself, the round Lily Pad, the Twin Stones, the Moon Gate, where the side tiles do most of the blocking, the Koi, the Reeds, and the long-winged Dragonfly and Heron, the hardest of them all. The menu marks each pond with one to three stones for difficulty. Every pair scores, quick pairs build a combo, and a clear adds a bonus plus a time bonus. Hints, shuffles and undos are there when you need them, for a small price, and each one ends your combo. A new Daily Deal waits every day, the same board for every player.