X-Jong Game Review

X-Jong Game Background

X-Jong is a Christmas-themed Mahjong Solitaire game. Select two identical free tiles to clear them from the stack. Clear out the entire stack before the timer runs out.

This game was developed by Zygomatic.

How to Play X-Jong

To select, left click with your mouse or tap on the touchscreen with your fingers. On the welcome screen, select Play to open the level selection screen. Select an unlocked level’s number to begin.

Select a tile, then select another identical one to clear it from the stack. Selected tiles have a golden border. If you select an invalid or non-matching tile, the first tile gets deselected. You can only clear free tiles, which have no blocks on top of them and have at least one horizontal side (left or right) without any adjacent tiles.

Basic Gameplay Advice

Basic Rules

Clear identical pairs of free tiles until the entire stack is cleared out. Clear out the stack within the time limit provided. Clearing tiles with a unique background pattern also lets you gain an extra 5 seconds of time. If the last pair of matching tiles are on top of one another (and thus are not free), the game ends the level and considers it a win regardless.

You will fail if you run out of time before clearing all the tiles. From there you can choose to end the game (and save your score) or try again.

Some tiles have temporary backgrounds. Clearing these tiles while the background is active grants you a bonus. Clearing tiles with a unique background pattern gives you an extra 5 seconds of time. Clearing tiles with a radiant background gives you 1,000 points.

Levels and Scoring

The game has 50 levels, which are unlocked sequentially. You can replay any of the levels you’ve previously beaten. Your web browser automatically saves your level progress. Each level has its own unique layout. As the game progresses, the level’s layout becomes more complex.

The amount of time varies between levels. On top of that, levels don’t uniformally have less or more time than their predecessors.

Scoring

You earn 100 points for every tile you clear. In addition, every second left on the timer once you finish is worth an extra 30 points. On top of that, you can gain an extra 1,000 points for matching a pair of tiles when one of them has a glowing radiant background.

Assistance

The game provides two options to help you out if you’re stuck. These can be found as a pair of brown buttons on the lower left corner of the game screen. Select the hint button to the left to highlight a pair of identical free tiles anywhere on the stack. Select the shuffle button on the right to change the arrangement of all the tiles on the stack.

Hints cost 200 points while shuffles cost 300. Use them only when you really need to.

Advanced Playing Tips & Strategy

The game automatically shuffles the board whenever you run out of valid pairs. If the game hasn’t shuffled yet, it means that there is a valid pair somewhere in the stack. This renders the shuffle option as a matter of last resort, reserved for when you’re running out of time. Choose hints over points in most other cases as it costs you fewer points.

Gain extra time whenever you can both to extend your playing time and to gain a score boost.

Educational Aspects

This game tests a player’s memory and pattern recognition skills.

Player Age Recommendations

This game is suitable for school-aged players and above. We recommend it for players who like Mahjong Solitaire games.