Mahjick - The Realm Taker

She pon on my chii till I ron

For what amounts to a janky little Unity game, this is a very enjoyable and unique experience. The English is terrible, the UI is not great, but the Mahjong is there and it's fun. Ontop of the Mahjong, it is also a very satisfying strategy game, where planning out the turn just right will let you maximize your damage, minimize damage taken, and most importantly RON using the enemy's own tiles and deny them their turn. There's three classes to play as, and they all have something interesting going on for them. Highwayman lets you overpower enemies with snowballing, overwhelming force. Gunslinger lets you chain tiles together and poison enemies by overdrawing. Elementalist is the slowest to start but becomes unstoppable as you unlock his perks and get enough enchantments on your tiles. I was very happy to give this game a try, and you should too.

A hidden gem! This is one of the mahjong roguelikes that is actually really good! The rules are simple enough that I was able to grasp it in the middle of my first run. There's a lot of replayability, as in the end, it's a luck-based game (but you can manipulate that luck with mahjong skill), so that means lots of different hand combos, abilities to obtain, etc. Gameplay is also great- you feel like a badass when the enemy is preparing a powerful attack, but you Ron and stun/interrupt their actions. You can also choose your own playstyle, from aggressive, to defensive, to balanced. The game rewards you no matter which you choose. Definitely suggest picking this up on sale- I got it 70% off during a sale, and it is definitely worth it. If I paid full price for this, I also would be very satisfied.

I am a novice Riichi player, and when I saw the trailer for this, I was super excited for it. Now, maybe this is just me, and I am not that smart, or maybe this is a truly valid criticism, but the tutorial was very overwhelming to me. Introducing many mechanics at once, along with the very cluttered interface, left me very confused over the game and how it works. I just shut it off and I can't see myself coming back to it sadly. I can only imagine how someone who's never played Mahjong before would feel about it, however I also can't see someone who's never played Mahjong gravitating toward this game in the first place. I'm sure that this game is great for super-analytical people, and people that are well-versed in the roguelike genre, but for me, the barrier to entry was very high. That being said, if that describes you, I'd still give this game a shot. The graphics are nice and it also plays beautifully on a Steam Deck, which almost seems like a match made in heaven.

I went into this game with no expectations, but I was incredibly surprised with how engaged I was with the strategy. I've only partially gone through one run so far, but I'm hooked. Definitely give this game a try if you enjoy Mahjong, and/or if you're looking for a good crowdplay game.

playtime isn't accurate, i left the game open overnight. I'm maybe closer to 3-5 hours so far. Pretty good adaptation of riichi mahjong mechanics to a slay the spire-style dungeon run. The inter-room powerups don't seem particularly inspired and the scaling seems a little bit off, but it was definitely worth the sale price (~$4) for me. I'm not sure I'd be totally happy at $12 but there might be content and ideas I haven't seen yet.