Why pressed flowers?

Mahjong tiles are lovely, but most kids can’t read the Chinese characters on them, and it’s hard to find a twin for a tile you can’t read. So we swapped them for things a child knows at a glance: a sunflower, a maple leaf, a snail, a strawberry. Each of the 36 faces has its own shape as well as its own color, so players who mix up some colors can still tell them apart.

The pressed look comes from the old trick of flattening a flower inside a heavy book until it turns thin and papery. Each tile is a little specimen on cream paper, and the board sits in a wooden press. Under the tiles there’s a painted garden, and each layer you clear brings out more of it.

A bit of real mahjong solitaire history

Mahjong itself is a game for four players from China, and it took shape in the 19th century. Many accounts point to the area around Ningbo, though Fujian has a claim too, and scholars still argue over the exact year. The oldest tile sets that survive date to around 1870. A standard set has 144 tiles, and four of its flower tiles show the plum, orchid, chrysanthemum and bamboo, the plants known as the Four Gentlemen.

The solo tile-matching game is much younger, and it only borrows the tiles. In 1981 Brodie Lockard wrote the first computer version on PLATO, an early computer teaching system from the University of Illinois. Lockard was a Stanford student when a trampoline accident in December 1979 left him paralyzed. He learned to type with a mouth stick, and he came across the tile game during his rehabilitation.

Activision released Lockard’s game as Shanghai in 1986, and it sold more than 500,000 copies by 1991. Activision’s marketing said it was based on a centuries-old Chinese game called the Turtle, though Lockard never made that claim himself. In 1990 Microsoft put a version called Taipei in its Entertainment Pack for Windows. The names keep changing, but the rule stays the same: you can only take a tile that is free.

The four gardens

• Spring Meadow: levels 1 to 5, from 24 to 40 tiles in two or three layers.
• Lily Pond: levels 6 to 10, from 44 to 60 tiles.
• Summer Orchard: levels 11 to 15, from 64 to 80 tiles.
• Moon Garden: levels 16 to 20, from 84 to 100 tiles, up to four layers high.

Up to 72 tiles, every face appears exactly twice, so you can’t get stuck. From 76 tiles up, some faces appear four times, and picking the right twin starts to matter.

How to play

• Tap a free tile to pick it, then tap its twin. The pair floats off the board.
• A tile is free when nothing sits on top of it and its left or right side is open. Blocked tiles look a little darker.
• Clear every tile to finish the level.
• Hint shows one free pair, 3 times per level.
• Shuffle mixes the tiles left into a deal that can still be cleared. Undo takes back a move for free.
• Three stars for no hints or shuffles, two for one or two, one for finishing. Stars and best times save on this device.
• Earn 3 stickers in this game for your QuickBOP sticker book.
• Sound is on to start. Tap 🔊 to mute, or 🎵 for music.

Tips from the press

Start at the top. Upper tiles sit on top of others, so taking them first frees the most.

Open up the long rows. A middle tile waits until a neighbor goes, so work from the ends inward.

Count the copies on big boards. When three matching tiles are free, take the two that hold other tiles in place.

Undo before you shuffle. Undo is free and keeps your stars. Shuffle always gets you moving again, but it counts against them.

Your turn

The press is open at the top of this page. Start with Seedling, 24 tiles in two layers, and see how much of the garden you can bring out.