XMAHJONGG(6)XMAHJONGG(6)NAMExmahjongg - colorful solitaire Mah Jongg game
SYNOPSISxmahjongg [--display display] [options]
DESCRIPTION
Real Mah Jongg is a social game that originated in China
thousands of years ago. Four players, named after the four
winds, take tiles from a wall in turn. The best tiles are
made of ivory and wood; they click pleasantly when you
knock them together. Computer Solitaire Mah Jongg
(xmahjongg being one of the sillier examples) is nothing
like that but it's fun, or it must be, since there are
like 300 shareware versions available for Windows. This
is for X11 and it's free.
HOW TO PLAY
The object is to remove all Mah Jongg tiles from the play
ing field by taking one matching pair at a time. Gener
ally, two tiles match if they have identical pictures on
top. There are some exceptions: any season tile (spring,
summer, autumn, or winter) matches any other season, and
any flower tile (bamboo, orchid, plum, or chrysathemum)
matches any other flower. There are 144 tiles in all --
one of each season and flower, and four copies of each of
the following: 1 to 9 dots; 1 to 9 bamboo sticks; charac
ters for 1 to 9; the four winds (north, south, east, and
west); and three dragons (red, green, and white).
Only free tiles can be removed. A tile is free if its
entire top face is unobstructed and either its left or its
right edge is open. (When looking at the left and right
edges, only tiles on the same level count.)
The rules are simple, but winning, it turns out, can be
pretty hard. It's easy to make a move that causes a stale
mate thirty or more moves later. What's worse, the
--any-boards option lets xmahjongg create boards that can
not be solved at all!
CONTROLS AND APPEARANCE
To select a free tile, simply click it with the left mouse
button and it will light up. Click it again to deselect
it. If you try to select a non-free tile, xmahjongg will
beep at you. To remove a matched pair, just select one of
the pair and click on the other one. The number in the
upper left corner tells you how many tiles you have left.
This is all you really need to know to play the game.
Xmahjongg comes with several features that may dismay
purists, but make the game more pleasant to play. First is
the match count, an array of small gold coins in the upper
middle. Each coin represents one potential match on the
board. (If three mutually matching tiles are free, it
counts as three matches, and if four are free, that's six
matches.) This will let you know when the game is over (no
gold coins means no matches -- a dead end) and when you're
getting close.
The five buttons along the top right have the following
functions:
New (keystroke: n)
Start a new game.
Quit (keystroke: q)
Quit xmahjongg.
Undo (keystroke: u)
Undoes your last move. You can undo multiple moves by
clicking multiple times. If you change your mind
about undoing a move, hold down Shift while you click
the Undo button (or press r) to redo it.
Hint (keystroke: h)
Gives you a hint by flashing a set of free matching
tiles. You can cycle through all existing matches by
clicking multiple times. If you select a tile and
then click Hint, xmahjongg will flash any free tiles
that match that tile, or beep if there aren't any.
Clean (keystroke: c)
Cleans the board by automatically removing obvious
matches. A match is obvious if it involves all the
remaining tiles of a given type. (For example, if
there are 2 green dragons left and they are both
free, they form an obvious match; but if there are 4
left and only 3 are free, they don't.) Cleaning the
board is guaranteed not to cause a stalemate later.
Solve (no button; keystroke: s)
If you get stuck, press the s key. After the board is
restored to its original state, xmahjongg will show
you one way to solve it by removing tiles two at a
time. Press s again to stop. This won't work if you
gave the --any-boards option (see below).
Additionally, the Escape key deselects any selected tile.
KEYBOARD TRAVERSAL
You can use the arrow keys and the spacebar to play
xmahjongg without using the mouse. These keys control the
cursor, which is shown as a flashing tile. The arrow keys
move the cursor around on the board in the obvious direc
tions. The spacebar is like clicking the mouse button on
the cursor tile: it either selects the tile or removes a
matching pair.
The hint key, `h', is also useful for playing without the
mouse. Experiment with `h', the spacebar, and the Return
key to see how this works. When a hint is active, the
spacebar is like clicking on one of the flashing hint
tiles, while the Return key is like clicking on two of
them (so it removes the tiles in one stroke). This method
gives the fastest playing speed.
OPTIONS
If you get bored with xmahjongg's original layout and
apperance, never fear: it comes with several tilesets
(tile images) and layouts (tile arrangements). In addition
to these, xmahjongg can read layout files from the origi
nal xmahjongg, KDE Mahjongg, and Kyodai Mahjongg, and
tilesets in KDE Mahjongg, Gnome Mahjongg, and Kyodai
Mahjongg format. (However, tilesets must be converted to
GIF format before xmahjongg can read them.) See the -l and
-t options.
Long option names can be abbreviated to their unique pre
fixes.
--number N
-n N Start with board number N.
-l layout
--layout layout
Use the specified game layout. xmahjongg comes with
several layouts. The normal layout is called default;
to see the other ones' names, run `xmahjongg --list'.
You can also use an arbitrary layout by giving its
filename. Xmahjongg can read layouts in its own sim
ple format, in KDE kmahjongg format, or in Kyodai
Mahjongg format. (Kyodai Mahjongg is one of the more
popular Windows Mah Jongg solitaire games. It's got
3D tiles and all sorts of stuff. See http://www.kyo
dai.com for more information. You can download a zip
archive with more than 100 different layouts, mostly
usable with xmahjongg, from http://www.kyodai.com/.)
--tileset tileset Use the specified tileset to draw
the Mah Jongg tiles. Xmahjongg comes with several
extra tilesets, particularly small (perfect for
smaller screens). There are others too; run
`xmahjongg --list' for a complete listing.
--background image
--bg image
The background image is set to image. Run `xmahjongg
--list' to see the backgrounds that come with
xmahjongg, or use an arbitrary GIF as a background
image by giving its filename.
--list
Lists all the layouts, tilesets, and backgrounds that
came with xmahjongg, then exits.
--solvable-boards
Always create solvable boards. This is the default.
--any-boards
Allow any legal board, some of which will be solvable
and some of which won't.
--display display
Sets the X display to display.
--name name
Specifies the application name under which resources
are found, rather than the default ``xmahjongg''.
Since xmahjongg itself does not use the resource
database, this is mostly useful for communication
with your window manager.
--geometry geometry
This standard X option specifies the preferred size
and position for the xmahjongg window.
--help
Prints usage information and exits.
--version
Prints the version number and some quickie warranty
information and exits.
BUGS
Please email suggestions, additions, patches and bugs to
eddietwo@lcs.mit.edu. The following features have not made
it into 3.0 as of yet:
* Tournament mode.
* Board setup mode.
HISTORYxmahjongg version 3 is a complete rewrite by Eddie Kohler
<eddietwo@lcs.mit.edu> of xmahjongg versions 1 and 2 by
Jeff S. Young <jsy@cray.com>.
The default tileset was originally created in color by
Dorothy Robinson <mokuren@teleport.com> with Mark A. Holm
<markh@aracnet.com>. The publically available version was
in black-and-white. Holm copyrighted the tiles in 1988,
giving permission to copy and distribute for non-profit
purposes. The significantly altered color version that
comes with xmahjongg was created by Eddie Kohler in 1993.
The `small' tileset was found at http://www.mahjongg.com/,
and is presumably by Berrie Bloem. The `gnome' and
`gnome2' tilesets were created by Jonathan Buzzard and Max
Watson. The `dorothys' and `dorwhite' tilesets were made
by Dorothy Robinson <mokuren@teleport.com>. The `real'
tileset was scanned by Mark Sanctuary <sanctuary@jps.net>.
Many of the layouts are based on layouts designed for Kyo
dai Mahjongg, a fun Windows Mah Jongg game. In particular,
`arena', `ceremonial', `deepwell', `farandole', and `the
ater' are by Naoki Haga, and `hourglass' and `papillon'
are by Vincent Krebs. Kyodai Mahjongg's Web homepage is
http://www.kyodai.com/.
AUTHOR
Eddie Kohler, eddietwo@lcs.mit.edu
http://www.pdos.lcs.mit.edu/~eddietwo/
http://www.lcdf.org/~eddietwo/xmahjongg/
The xmahjongg home page.
Version 3.6.1 5 Jan 2000 XMAHJONGG(6)
