dirtbag MAHJONG

I wanted a way to start learning richii mahjong (I'm more familiar with American style) and this delivers with a fun visual style while offering challenges to vary up my usual play strategies. Am I GOOD at it? Nope! But it's a great way to unwind at the end of the day.

I WILL be Rhea's girlfriend. Move over, losers

Dirtbag Mahjong is a well-rounded little game that's very personality-forward. This is a nice contrast to my first mahjong game, Kemono Mahjong: a slick, straightforward mahjong simulator. Dirtbag Mahjong, on the other hand, makes its characters a load-bearing part of the experience - and they hold up. The cast of six have distinct personalities that bounce off of each other very naturally. Dialogue is blithe and snappy, constantly barbed but lighthearted. (The amount of table banter is solid, and it's always a delight when the scenario's specifics twist it.) The harebrained schemes and comically asinine bets that make up the story mode are quite funny, though they work better as one-off episodes than coherent narrative arcs. The unlockable mahjong tiles and outfits are great - it's just a bit of a bummer that the outfits, by and large, only really feature in the Free Play mode... and there's not much incentive to play that. The story mode already gave me plenty of mahjong, and there's no other carrot to spend significant time with Free Play (e.g. something to unlock; unseen novelty). I also found myself scratching my head at the ability to end story mode games after any round. Given that objectives are often to end a round either with more than the starting value of points or placed above a certain character, it meant you could complete the game after a successful first round, rather than weather ensuing rounds trying to hold onto your lead. This makes the game significantly easier, but it also made it shorter... which may have been in its favor, keeping the experience short and sweet. This wasn't communicated as unintentional or a cop-out, so I made liberal use of it. An appropriately dirtbag strategy, perhaps! All in all, Dirtbag Mahjong was a great second mahjong game. I wonder if it would be good for a beginner looking to learn mahjong - I worry that the dirtbag abilities could be overwhelming, but the tutorial text is well-presented, difficulty options can worsen opponent AI, and a couple characters' story modes don't ask the player to win to progress. (I would, however, hesitate to recommend it to friends with poor eyesight - the tiles' numbers were *very* hard to read on my laptop screen.) Still, I'm excited to see what's next from this developer. Their comedic character writing skills are strong, and they did a great job adding an extra mechanical layer to mahjong. And this is an easy recommendation for anyone looking for a cozy single-player mahjong game. 7/10 ❤

If you, like me, love Mahjong but have an adult life and: 1) Find it hard to gather friends to your home and convince them to clack around tiles until three of you have been thoroughly destroyed and 2) Find it horrible that you don't have an HP and MP bar incorporated into your Mahjong experience, then: Dirtbag Mahjong is for you! You can, of course, disable the weapons at the table and simply play Mahjong the ~normal~ way. But. If everyone has the green light to be dirtbags to each other, why not embrace it? Strike everyone with lightning! The cast of six characters are cute and the main story of the game involves winning each chapter not by winning at Mahjong but by fulfilling unique conditions. This adds a satisfying spice when your instincts tell you to crush everyone at the table but you know the rule is: "Do not finish with a higher rank than Hana". Now you've gotta figure out how you're achieving that. 10/10, phenomenal Mahjong game.

real jong hours who up !!

Absolutely adore this game. It's a single-player Riichi Mahjong game with characters who really are dirtbags (affectionate,) but goes beyond just being an excuse to play Riichi Mahjong against CPUs- even though you totally could just play normal Riichi Mahjong with CPUs if that's what you wanted to do, as the game has a Normal Mahjong mode for that. The Cool Stuff You Should Know: Writing - Every character has their own story mode to go through with fun cutscenes and high-energy dialogue. - Despite the cutesy, quirky aesthetic, the writing is really good at not being annoying. If you've played other stuff in this style, you'll have a pretty good idea of what I mean. - It is GENUINELY funny. Great comedic timing, and fantastic pacing that avoids dragging dialogue scenes on for too long. Gameplay - Every Chapter in a character's storyline features a unique mission you have to complete during the match in order to advance further into their story. It's not always about winning the match. Sometimes the goal is to manipulate the game so that you rank below another character while avoiding being KO'd out of the match entirely. - As someone who has played a lot of Riichi Mahjong (to win obviously,) having to apply what I know about winning in order to orchestrate some other win condition is AWESOME. I feel like I'm being challenged to prove my mastery of the game in fresh and interesting ways. This is one of those things that I didn't realize I wanted out of a Mahjong game until I had it. Now I want way, way more of stuff like this. - The Kicker: Every character you can play as has a set of unique abilities you can use to affect the board state and other players. Every one has HP and MP, and if you lose all your HP, you're forced to skip a turn to revive. - This DRASTICALLY changes the typical strategy you might employ when building your hands or completing missions. - Abilities are kept low-to-the-ground, but when paired with the complexities of Mahjong, you end up with more than just one way to utilize them. - As an example, as Rhea, you can goad players into discarding mid-range number tiles to avoid your attacks early in the round, and then use her second ability to shuffle the discard piles and potentially throw them into furiten by laying traps inside your own discards BEFORE you shuffle. - That's just ONE strategy you can use with the character that's focused more on putting pressure. There's more. A LOT more you can do with that setup. - I think what I like about this game the most is that it is STILL Riichi Mahjong. It's not a roguelite with some mahjong elements, although I do like Aotenjo as well. It's riichi mahjong with a couple of extra features that work REALLY well with its traditional ruleset and general gameplay. I highly, highly recommend Dirtbag Mahjong if you like mahjong and are looking for a fresh take on the game that isn't super far removed from the actual rules of mahjong. This, to me, is what the ideal single-player mahjong game should play like. The ONLY thing I wish this had was a multiplayer component, and that's because I firmly believe that a multiplayer game of Dirtbag Mahjong, with four human players who can strategize with their character abilities, would go super hard. If you like mahjong, you owe it to yourself to pick this up. Period.

As a long-time Riichi Mahjong player, I'm always thrilled to see new takes on the game, and this is a very interesting one so far! The art style and characters are very charming, and I'm really enjoying the different goals you need to accomplish in story mode. Some of which have been forcing me to try and play in ways that I'm not used to, which has been quite refreshing.