Kemono Mahjong

Fun, easy to hop in and out of, good support for all screen sizes that I’ve tried. The list of games I install on every iOS device is pretty small (this game, Frotz, Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection, Pathos: Nethack Codex, and Stardew Valley), but it’s very worthy of a spot on anyone’s device. I’d love to see more women as potential opponents (women appear to make up under 1/3 of the total), but the roster is already very good overall, with plenty of unique characters. (I wouldn’t say no to more guys either though, haha)

I bought this app for the first time before I switched to an iPhone, and it was just about the first app that I got once I did switch. The AI is not too bad really, and the differences between the computer characters adds a nice bit of variety. All the art assets (backgrounds, character icons, voice lines, etc.) are far beyond what I would have ever expected from a mostly single player mahjong app. Being able to pause a game and come back to it later is great, since this game is the one I always go to during brief periods of downtime. The developer is active, responsive, and very nice :)

Even after reading online tutorials, I still had trouble grasping how Japanese Mahjong worked. The tutorial is fantastic and you can always go back to chapters to brush up on concepts if you’ve been away from the game a while. I’ve been gifted a Mahjong set, but until I can find 3 more local players, this is the way to get my practice in! Solid UI and good selection of AI opponents. The only thing I would add is a learning mode that displays the name of the hand once you reach it or the hand that is most probable with current tiles. That would help a ton to keep from getting confused when becoming Furiten. This is a big request, so no stars removed. A great game!