東方十七歩

So instead of continuing with rules, I'm going to share something neat I found.

This is 東方十七歩 (Touhou Seventeen Steps would be a direct translation), or Touhou Landmine Mahjong is a better name for it.

What is Landmine Mahjong? I'm pretty sure there's a different name for it, but this is the only one I know. It's actually a concept that's new to me, and until playing this game, have never tried.

Well let's see what this game has to offer.

From the title screen, you can see four options. Pick the first one for CPU matches, the second for online matches with others, the third is options (This is in English for some reason), and the last option is exit.

The next screen has three more options. First one is Story Mode (Not working yet because this is just a preliminary version, 0.100), second is Arcade Mode (Probably the one you want to pick), and the third is free play mode, where you can pick your character and your opponent and play one match.

There are ten teams you can play as (choose by scrolling or with up and down arrow keys):

1) Border Team: Reimu & Yukari
2) Magic Team: Marisa & Alice
3) Moriya Team: Sanae, Suwako, & Kanako
4) Scarlet Devil Mansion Team: Remilia & Sakuya
5) Oni Team: Suika & Yuugi
6) Ghost Team: Youmu & Yuyuko
7) Hourai Team: Kaguya & Mokou
8) Subterranean Team: Rin & Utsuho (Orin & Okuu)
9) Komeji Team: Satori & Koishi
10) Tengu Team: Aya & Hatate

You can also see the abilities of each team; each character has their own spell card to alter the playing conditions (Such as adding a new dora indicator, hiding your discard, etc). I chose Magic Team (Their spell cards increase my fu or han) because I'm a Marisa x Alice Shipper.

When you choose your team, click on the character portrait, and an options screen appears. Since I'm strapped for time, I won't go over these options, but you should really only modify them if you know what you're doing in the first place. Click okay.

You get a nice VS screen, click again to start the game.

As you can see, this isn't your traditional Mahjong game. Here, you get a full wall to yourself (17 x 2, or 34 tiles) and from that wall you have 300 seconds to construct the best Tenpai hand you can.

Some things to note:
- The Dora indicator is the tile on the bottom right
- The blue orbs are what you press to activate your spell cards. Some you can only activate during hand construction, while others during the discarding session. The orange bar shows how much magic you have and it depletes when you use a spell card and fills the more you play.
- The rules button is the characters with the orange blob background. You can click this to go over how much certain hands are worth, etc. But this does not stop the timer.

I'll build a random hand now:

Observant people will notice that this isn't the same wall I had to begin with, as well as the top left number changing from 1 to 2. That is because there is no way to pause the game, and if you are doing something else (Such as making a blog post), the timer will eventually reach zero. When that happens, you get a randomly generated hand, which most of the time isn't in Tenpai.

Some other things to notice:
- The top now has colorful words. This indicates what conditions I have met in this hand.
- The top left above the hand shows what tiles I am waiting for.
- The blue orbs are now red. This indicates that I have used that spell card for that particular round. The orange bar depleted as a result.

When you are satisfied with the hand you made, click, then click continue. The discard portion of the game now begins:

Each player takes turns discarding tiles from their remaining wall. In this way, the only way to win is through your opponent playing into your hand; there is no Tsumo, only Ron.

This continues until either one player wins, or each player has dealt 17 tiles. If the latter, the game is a draw.

In this case I have won (obviously), and here is the results screen:

Again, it shows my conditions, as well as the Dora & Ura-Dora indicators.

Finally I take points from my opponent based on how good my hand is (We each started with 18.0). The point system is not the conventional Japanese way, but the same rule applies that a better hand gives more points.

You do this for a few more games, and then a winner is decided. Then you move on to the next opponent, regardless of whether you win or lose.

Overall this is a very fun way of playing Mahjong. This "Speed Mahjong" can help you develop your skills in hand construction, which is probably the most important skill of all in the game.

You can download the game here: http://www.mediafire.com/?pfg65qi54i5tz5a