118: Shanghai

Number 118
(41.5 points)
Shanghai
1991: 44 (5.7)
1992: 59 (8.4)
1993: 40 (24.4)
1994: 96 (3.0)

One of the earliest games in this list, if not the earliest, Shanghai maintained its addictive popularity for years.

It's essentially mahjong solitaire, taking all 144 tiles of a standard mahjong set and arranging them in a pile. You remove tiles by matching pairs which have at least one vertical edge free. It's an incredibly simple concept, but proved extremely popular at the time due to its addictiveness, especially on the Amiga due to the colourful graphics. There are more modern ways to play the game, but this was arguably the release that popularised it.

You can spend a couple of minutes staring at your screen, doing nothing but searching for matching tiles. It's therefore the kind of game that can sap hours of your time if you allow it. I thought it was fine, but it's not really the kind of thing to grab me for long periods, but you should certainly have a go if you like such puzzle games (if you can class it as a puzzle game).

Recommended TOSEC disk(s):
Shanghai (1986)(Activision)[h Headbanger]