If you've not heard of Mahjong (or Mahjongg as its sometimes called) it's one of the most popular casual games on the Internet - as big as Solitaire.

Believed to have been invented hundreds of years ago in China, the modern version of the game is similar to Solitaire but uses unique playing tiles, and has different gameplay. It's an intellectual challenge (but not overbearing) and fun.

The object of the game is to clear a 3D pyramid of tiles by matching tiles with one another. You click on one tile, you click on a matching tile and the pair disappears.

Sounds simple enough, but not every matching tile is clickable. You can only click tiles that are able to slide towards the left or the right. Also they cannot be covered by other tiles. This is the least you need to know.

A subtlety is that 'Flower' tiles do not have to exactly match one another (there's 4 of them), and the same goes for 'Seasons' tiles which are sometimes depicted as 4 farmers.

There are many free online versions of Mahjong, but most are over-run with advertising. More links than you could ever want to know can be found here, or, more simply there is a new, excellent version of Mahjong from the Free Video Games Project called simply Free Mahjong.

Enjoy!

Posted by Alx Klive at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Solitaire is enjoying something of a resurgence these days with searches for Solitaire up almost 100% since reaching a low in 2007. As regular readers know I have an interest in online, browser based versions of games like Solitaire having set up the Free Video Games Project in 2005.

The reasons for the renewed interest in Solitaire are not clear but a possible reason may be companies restricting access to the game by removing the built-in Solitaire game on Windows computers from the workplace. Several people who work in offices have told me that their company removes the games from the computers and clearly a lot of people are searching for an online version to get round this. Users in France seem to be particularly interested. One of the biggest searches is for "solitaire en ligne".

While there are many online versions of Solitaire available it can be frustrating to wade through the rubbish to find a good, Flash-based, clean version that does not require a download, is fun to play and is not over-run with advertising.

Happily I'm pleased to say that there is now a new, awesome online version of Solitaire from the Free Video Games Project.

Bookmark it, pass it on, enjoy!

Posted by Alx Klive at 1:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over at the Free Video Games Project, some news to announce with the release of an awesome free Flash version of Frogger.

If you used to like playing Frogger in the arcades back in the 80's this site's for you. As with all video games from the Project this version is easy to play, no download required, in full screen, and is refreshingly clear from annoying ads and commercial messages. It's also got a cool url - freefrogger.org!

We hope it will prove a popular addition to the current stable of games which includes Tetris, Pacman, Space Invaders and Sonic the Hedgehog.

Over 100,000 people a month can't be wrong!

Posted by Alx Klive at 2:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here at WorldTV we like to let off some steam occasionally and play video games - classic arcade games like Tetris, Pacman, Space Invaders usually. We're particularly fond of flash games but most of the flash gaming sites are filled with ads and annoying smiley 'oh my god!' pop unders which quite frankly are way over the top and which leave very little space on the screen for the actual game. We thought there had to be a better way...

A while back we began supporting something pretty amazing called the Free Video Games project which aims to bring free full-screen flash versions of old classic video games in a predominantly non-commercial setting. Ads, if any, are minimal and each game is hosted on its own easy to remember domain.

Here's the games the project has come up with so far...

Tetris
Pacman
Space Invaders
Sonic the Hedgehog

The Free Video Games Project will have more games coming over time, so do leave your e-mail address at the main project site.

Enjoy!

Posted by Alx Klive at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lots of people like to play tetris online - I know this for a fact. Free Tetris is a site we help support and its growth over the last few months has been phenomenal. Where are most of the Tetris players in the world? America. What kind of people like to play Tetris online the most? US office workers!

I know this because the other day I watched game players over the course of a few hours from 9am Eastern to about 5pm Pacific. The results were pretty clear. As soon as the office lights came on in the east, the play begins. The numbers grow until a peak around Noon when the West coast workers start their day. It's clear a lot of people are skiving off work playing Tetris!

Anyway, if you fancy a free simple game of classic Tetris check out FreeTetris.org. No download is required, it's all done brilliantly in flash by master games artist Paul Neave.

P.S. If I have time tomorrow I'll try to create a little animation of the map of users as it sweeps across the continent.

Posted by Alx Klive at 12:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)