GameLog Page

Please sign in or sign up!

...blogs for gamers

Find a GameLog

... by game	... by platform

[ advanced search ]

HOME	GAMES	LOGS	MEMBERS			ABOUT	HELP

jp's Mahjong Journey: Quest for Tikal (DS)

[April 14, 2022 05:43:59 PM]

I played a couple of hours of this - 10 levels or so. It's essentially a packaged set of 60 (or was it 30?) Mahjong levels. I even played the last level because I was curious if there was a difficulty ramp or not (I don't think there is much of one, other than the fact that further in the game you get access to more/new/different special tiles). I like mahjong, so I have no real complaints - if anything the game was a bit too easy? I did appreciate the undo button as well as a "shuffle" button when you're stuck. I guess it's a really laid back casual game - which, seems really interesting and strange and weird for the Nintendo DS. I guess the platform had a much wider and broader reach in terms of audience than I expected? So, it definitely skewed to a younger audience - but games like these are "firmly"(?) in a style that I would not have assumed someone would have bought a DS for in the first place! I'm now curious if this was just a port of a "casual" game that was very popular on the PC? The game is published by Mumbo Jumbo which definitely rings a bell in that space - so... did this game sell well enough? Really well? Poorly? I'm SO CURIOUS.

Gameplay wise I really struggled with one of the special tiles that seems - on paper - to be a great idea/addition, but in practice tripped me up a bit. I almost resented having to use it because I felt it would screw me over later in the game: the "you can match this tile with anything" special tile. My assumption is that every tile has a pair and that you just need to uncover things in the right order (a harder mahjong layout would be one with only one solution as it where - this one felt really flexible/loose - I think there were often many solutions, which I did enjoy - for me playing mahjong is more about relaxing than having a puzzle challenge). So, whenever I felt like I had to match with the special I thought that I'd be now creating an "orphan" tile I'd be screwed over with later. Maybe this was all just in my head? I don't know.

I'm thinking that there's definitely a lot of design space to explore in this genre...or maybe it has been explored but I just need to dig a little deeper. On the DS I've played maybe 3-4 mahjong games already?