Mahjong 4 Friends: Multiplayer

Mahjong is a fun and addictive game, and this app captures the enjoyment of playing. I like that it’s free, which is definitely its biggest advantage. That said, the app doesn’t seem to be designed with the player experience in mind. There are several areas that could be improved. Because players are anonymous, some people play extremely slowly, or the host may leave in the middle of a game without any consideration for the other players, which can end the game for everyone. There is also no option to call a hand dead, which can make games unnecessarily frustrating. Another area I would love to see improved is audio management. If you are the last one to join a game, you often don’t have time to decide whether all players have audio enabled. It would be much better to set this in the settings so the player’s preference applies to every game, instead of having to change it each time. I would love to see the developers address these issues and add features that improve the overall playing experience. With a few thoughtful updates, this could easily become an outstanding app. Until then, it’s still worth trying because it’s free and the game itself is always enjoyable.

I downloaded this app to learn enough about this game to play with friends irl. It’s been a great learning tool and it’s addictive to play. Because I’m just training myself, I’m using bots-only features right now. I’m impressed by how well and fast this app works. The “suggested hands” feature is a great way to learn the endless combos. Only a couple quibbles on that: the proceed button is tiny and sometimes it causes me to accidentally lose a tile I wanted to keep and expose because I accidentally hit it. Also, the cards I’ve seen in person tend to show when some set of tiles is interchangeable (eg if you can use red dragons or green dragons or if you can use lower or higher numbers). The suggested hands feature does adapt to what you have but does not show you when there’s another option, or if it does I haven’t found it. Finally, the reason for the one-star reduction is because of sound. This app makes the volume of anything I’m listening to on my phone drop down significantly and then when I leave the app, the volume blares because I had to turn it up to hear anything. I’ve checked the in-app settings, the Game Center/Apple Games settings, my focus settings, the app settings in the phone settings, and my game overlay settings and for the life of me I cannot figure out why this app screws with my volume.

As a brand new player I have found this app to help me improve my game which helps me be a better player in person. I play by myself and it has helped me learn the rules (i.e no joker in NEWS) by telling me it's not allowed and then me and the bots return to the game with me trying something else. I have improved my ability to pick which section of the card to play by deciding first, then checking the suggested hands to see if I'm on track. This helps me learn to look at more sections of the card. I have improved my speed in playing the game which means that I am better in person and even though I'm new, I am welcomed by experienced players at their table. I also love the card tracking which shows me my win/loss record by section which also gives me inspiration to branch out to other sections on the card. LOVE IT!!! And I get my mahjong fix daily when I don't have any people to play with in person.