speaking of mahjong

[mmcirvin]

Mahjong is not an ancient game, you lazy scribblers. Also, I wonder if the article would have the same tone if they were playing poker.

Comments

[piehead.livejournal.com]

That first article left out the "third phase": mid 1980s when Activision released a game called "Shanghai" that used Mahjong tiles for a kind of solitaire matching puzzle (but you knew this.)

If I remember the videogame box copy, which was a long time ago, it made dubious claims as to the tiles' histories as well.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Was that the beginning of all the matching puzzles? I didn't know.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...The tile designs, particularly the balls/sticks/characters suits, do have antecedents in Chinese playing cards going back a few hundred years, if I recall correctly. The games played with them were completely different, though.

mahjong history

[mahjong-game.livejournal.com]

How disappointing to discover it's not as ancient as they make out. I certainly bought the hype. Shame on me for not doing more research.