Product facts in one place
Mahjong Turtle FAQ
These answers describe the current game, controls, deterministic board generation, and local Daily record. For visual rule examples, use the How to Play reference.
Playing and matching
When is a tile free?
A tile is free when no higher-layer tile overlaps it and at least one horizontal side is open. One side may be blocked; the tile becomes side-blocked only when both its left and right sides are occupied on the same layer.
Which tile faces match?
Characters, bamboo, circles, winds, and dragons require an identical face. Any flower matches any other flower, and any season matches any other season. Flowers do not match seasons.
What ends a game?
Removing the final pair completes the game. If tiles remain but there is no legal matching pair among the free tiles, Mahjong Turtle reports a no-moves state and offers the applicable recovery or replay controls.
Controls and recovery
What does Hint show?
Hint highlights one currently available legal pair. It does not reveal a complete solution or guarantee that the suggested move is the best strategic choice.
What can Undo restore?
Undo restores the most recent successfully removed pair recorded in the current play history, one supported move at a time. It is disabled when that history is empty.
Does Shuffle guarantee a solution?
No. Shuffle reassigns the remaining faces among the remaining positions and may make a current move available, but it does not guarantee that the shuffled state or every later state can be solved.
What does Learn Mode explain?
Learn Mode explains whether cover or both horizontal sides block a selected tile. After a successful pair, it reports newly opened tiles and whether the move removed a top-layer blocker; it does not reveal a full solution.
Daily Challenge and local storage
How is the Daily Challenge selected?
Mahjong Turtle formats the visitor's local calendar date and hashes that date into the seed used for the Turtle layout. The same supported date input restores the same initial Daily board.
Where is Daily Challenge progress stored?
Completion history, best time, best move count, hint and undo counts, and streak information are stored in this browser's local storage. That history does not automatically follow you to another browser or device.
Layouts and deterministic generation
Does every generated initial board have a valid path?
Yes. During initial generation, Mahjong Turtle assigns matching pairs while simulating legal removals, so the returned initial board has at least one valid removal path. Player decisions can still create a later dead end.
Does every layout use 144 tiles?
No. The classic Turtle layout uses 144 tiles. The seven smaller layouts use even counts from 48 to 132 and receive deterministic subsets from the supported matching-pair pool.
What does Replay Same Board reproduce?
Replay Same Board runs the current layout and seed through initial generation again, reproducing the starting face assignment while resetting the timer, selections, play history, and counters.
Privacy and account behavior
Is an account required to play?
No. Mahjong Turtle does not require an account for the regular game, layouts, Daily Challenge, local Daily history, or learning pages.
What happens if I clear this site's data?
Clearing this site's browser data can remove locally stored Daily Challenge history, best results, and streak information. The playable game and static learning pages remain available.