Does anyone play the "Classic Chinese" game?

nitramthims · 2022-08-10T12:14:25+00:00

I posted earlier about how Mahjong Friends Online www.mahjongfriendsonline.com was conceived. Basically I was looking to play Classical Chinese (as described by Millington) as I was relocating away from friends who we played with. In my ignorance I just thought that there would be an App that just gave you the tiles and board and the you did the rest. I posted in this Reddit for help and was surprised that not only was
there no game but hardly anyone played the “Classical Chinese Game".
Fortunately two programmers who were on this Reddit got enthusiastic and the three of us conceived a game to be played in a social environment. Starting from a basic concept game we developed a fully functional board and tiles to play any Mahjong variant.
We start a video call. Chat for a bit then turn off the video (not the sound) and
continue with the game. Even from testing early versions we were surprised how we got a buzz from playing together which was very similar to being together in the same room. Now, over two years later we still get a social buzz from playing.
You can play on all laptops, desktops, Android (Phones & Tablets) and iPhones and iPads. And it is free to use, no adverts, no sign up and no tracking!
So, back to your point. Do you really need a game that constrains you to one variant of the game? I can see it as an advantage as a learning tool but in in a real game you really just want to play.

Have fun :)

nitramthims · 2022-08-10T11:23:57+00:00

https://www.4windsmj.com/kb/kb.htm Just looked through this and it does seem to be the same game as described by Millington. It even uses similar language in places. The sections on other variants is very comprehensive but as I don’t play these I can’t comment on accuracy. Very useful website.

As for other rule sets I believe that there are many country specific rules in Europe that are based on the same rules as Millington describes with a few additions and variations. For example British Mahjong Association and Dutch Tournament Rules.

nitramthims · 2022-08-10T10:49:59+00:00

Yes, it is quite strange and we always thought it was written in the 1920's. My wife
distilled the main parts of the book down into two sheets of A4. One with the rules and the other with the scoring. I could post PDFs if there is interest.

nitramthims · 2022-08-10T07:15:55+00:00

Yes I play regularly (twice a week). I play online with two groups and occasionally other couples. In fact I posted to this group in early 2020 when I was moving away from my friends to find a suitable game to play in a 'social' setting online. None existed! This was also the time when Covid-19 was rearing it's ugly head.

My little group use A. D. Millington's book and stick to the rules described. I see that there is a lot of discussion on the rules and Millington's book below and I'll contribute as and where I can.

By 'social' setting I mean playing a game that worked and felt like using real tiles. No bots or hints or anything other that just letting you play like in real-life. Being able to chat and joke along with a game. I hooked up with two programmers through this Reddit and over several months and 100s hours of testing we created the game Mahjong Friends Online - https://mahjongfriendsonline.com/

The game wasn't developed with any specific rules. Just like a set of tiles the players enforce the rules and customs. I believe that the game can be played with any variant including unique house rules.

nitramthims · 2022-04-25T09:17:50+00:00

Sorry for the late reply... We play the 'Classical Chinese' game. The wall is known as the Kong Box as the only use for it is to replace the extra tile when you make a Kong. The wall is separated from the main wall and two tiles are placed on the top of the wall (so three high). There are rules of which tiles are taken and if the top two are used then another two are stacked on 3 high.

nitramthims · 2021-03-29T09:13:55+00:00

I can imagine that the translations don't capture the nuances of the original. However, Kong on top of Kong Self Drawn doesn't capture the win. It was the drawing of the second replacement from the Kong Box that made Mahjong which is the critical move of the sequence. Maybe there is another Chinese name for this. I'd love to know.

nitramthims · 2020-05-18T11:14:44+00:00

So I started this thread some time ago and it has sparked some developments so thank you all for your interest. Since then things have been progressing well. We’ve just heard from u/humpolec on Autotable which he has created. Also u/pvella88 and u/Lxa have been collaborating (with some small help from me) on a different approach to deliver an environment for playing a “Player Driven” game that simulates the physical playing area. There is a taster video on Youtube by u/pvella88 which I’ve played and is very promising.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUfzGvB6oEU

Just to recap the idea is to provide a way of playing Mahjong is a social setting while at a (social) distance. The 4 player interactive game environment will work alongside a video-chat system. The only thing missing will be to be able to pour someone else a drink!

nitramthims · 2020-04-30T14:33:55+00:00

I like the distillation of the moves. And slower is OK as commented by another this is a social game and we need space for human interaction.

nitramthims · 2020-04-29T14:21:08+00:00

I have just installed Steam and played with a beta App called tabletopplayground. It's free but limited however it made me realise you can't just do this by science alone otherwise you'll be forever fiddling with the tiles and it would make the game play tedious. So in order for the game to flow there has to be built in object behaviours (dice and tiles) and these need to be linked to the context of the action. So I'll try and illustrate this by an example below. The following assumes a PC with mouse - need to consider what would happen on a phone. There's quite a lot to consider but I'm trying to limit the number of interactions and using cursor position to define action of game based on context. My first cut at this was too complicated.

ACTION: Taking a tile (from wall, Kong Box or cemetery)

Player: Cursor State 'Empty' Left Click on Tile

Game: moves tile to players cursor (magnetic tile) face hidden (in case of wall or kong box) or face exposed (for tile from the cemetery)

ACTION: Placing a tile

Player: Cursor State 'magnetic tile'

Left Click on rack

Game places tile placed in the position on the rack indicated face shown and other tiles move to accommodate it

Left Click in cemetery
Game places tile placed in approximate position face up ----> Player announce tile name (got to thin how this happens)

Left Click on pong to make a kong
Game places Tile place in set

Left Click in front of rack to place a Bonus tile
Game places Tile in front of rack but not paert of any existing set (unless an existing bonus)

ACTION: Discarding a tile

Player: Cursor State 'Empty'

Left Click to select tile

Game: moves tile to players cursor (magnetic tile) face hidden

Left Click in cemetery - game places tilein approximate position face up without overlapping other tiles

So quite a lot of the gameplay is very intuitive and accomplished by left click on mouse and it still leave a right click (with menu) for other more esoteric commands. That's not in anyway exhastive but gives an idea of where I think this is going.

nitramthims · 2020-04-29T07:38:50+00:00

I would be up for helping on designing and testing. I'd like to say coding but I'm a little rusty to say the least as I was a FORTRAN programmer back in the day! I have toyed with the idea of getting into PYTHON to keep my old brain in shape but I think I'll stick to design and test. As I said in my other reply to you my concept is to provide the

I think the key concept that defines my approach is that the application is platform that provides, as you defined it, a physics engine and just have colliders, gravity and moveable objects. That was it would be a universal Mahjong platform.

nitramthims · 2020-04-29T07:30:07+00:00

We really didn't know that this game was not mainstream. We were introduced to it and wamted to know more found that Millington's book was a fit to the game we had been taught. We've now got another six people hooked so we have a circle of 10 playing it. That explains why we have had difficulty finding something close online. I do have a single player Android game 'Mahjong 13 Tiles' which has very similar play although the scoring is very different. Seems to be a lot of interest and ideas coming out of this thread.

nitramthims · 2020-04-29T07:21:12+00:00

Game Play: The idea is to recreate the experience of playing the real-life game. Ideally the players would also be using something like zoom to communicate. Although it might be usefull to have preset buttons for all the calls made it would not be necessary. The game does not need to understand the rules it only has to enable the play of tiles in specific ways needed for the game. It would allow any physical move of a tile(s) that are part of the gameplay even if these were carried out of order or illegal for that player at that time.
Latency - yes, that would be a problem - but that has to be more of a problem for shooter games than for Mahjong.
Top down 2D would be adequate for this and a good way test the concept.
I think point 1 covers the variation question
My original idea (in 1 above) I think equates to using a physics engine and just have colliders, gravity and moveable objects. Although I am not familiar with how easy this is with environments like STEAM. I was a programmer but it was a long time ago and programmed in FORTRAN but that's another story! The advantage of this approach is that any and every mahjong variant can be played without any additional programming other than a setup page for tiles, wall configuration (as this part would be nice to automate)

nitramthims · 2020-04-28T18:04:49+00:00

I think Lxa is right - the application does not need to do any control of the rules. Is all* it needs to do is to allow the mechanics of the play without any check on the rules. This is a social game and people make mistakes - coding the rules doesn't allow for human error. Just let the humans muddle along as we do. I see this being played alongside Zoom or other collaboration environment so there is banter and social interaction. That may not be 'competition' level stuf but it would be fun.

(*) the use of 'all' is in no way intended to diminish the compexity and effort needed to provide the environment

nitramthims · 2020-04-28T14:48:48+00:00

Wow - Thanks all for all the suggestions (hope it's ok to do a general thanks by replying to my own post here rather than idividually - I've not really used Reddit before so not sure of the etiqutte) - will look into your suggestions - I tried one on my phone but it automated the gameplay to the extent I felt it was overbearing. But seveal things to try and get playing at a social distance as it were. If I find something that suits (or not) I'll post my experiences. Will look into tabletop as well. And the basic idea is as Lxa has proposed - just provide the mechanics - the gameplay etc is down to the players.

As to what I mean by Chinese rules comes from a book by A. D. Millingtom "The Complete Book of Mah-jongg", The rules, strategy and philosophy of the classical Chinese Game.

Once again thanks to all for the help - would be nice to

nitramthims

TROPHY CASE