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 Features – Rules
One of the main goals in the development of version 2 was
in providing a full coverage of all major versions of Mah Jong, allow full
customizability of rules and the scoring engine and do this all in a way
that does not result in an overly complex user interface.
We believe that we have succeeded in creating a game that
can be enjoyed by experienced and novice players alike. Expert players
will appreciate the flexibility of the program – rules and scoring can
be customized not only to tweak a predefined rule preset to meet
individual preferences, but bent in a way that allows experimenting with
quite unique configurations and scoring parameters.
On the other hand, novice players can choose their favorite
rules from a list of over 20 pre-defined rules without needing to know of
the hundreds of variations involved in the game of Mah Jong. Four
Winds 2 also features a guided tour that teaches interactively the
basics of the game. A separate tutorial is also available, either online
or as a download. In addition, Four Winds Knowledge Base provides a
traditional "rule book approach" to most common versions of Mah
Jong.
The following list highlights the major features related to
rules and scoring:
- Over 20 pre-defined rule presets covering all major
versions of Mah Jong, including classical and modern Chinese (Old Style
a.k.a. Hong Kong, New Style and Chinese Official),
classical and modern Japanese (Ari-Ari), classical and modern American
(but NOT the NMJL rules),
modern Australian, and several European versions (British, French, German,
Dutch and Italian). Four Winds 2
also supports Alan Kwan’s Zung Jung, WMPA,
IMS, MMM and Korean rules, as well as 12-tile and 16-tile (Taiwanese)
versions of Mah Jong. All predefined rules can be customized and saved as user-defined rule presets.
For more information about the supported rules, see the online
documentation.
- Over 300 patterns, scoring of which can be freely customized.
Scoring assignments can be specified separately for the winner and losers.
The available scoring units are
points, doubles, faan, han and
percentage of Limit, depending on
the
rules.
- The program also supports multiple limit hand scoring (hands with more than one limit pattern). In
addition, all patterns and hands can be renamed and printed.
- Full support of any payment scheme. The program comes with 10
predefined payoff schemes which can be fully customized, and supports customizable
Faan-Laak and Mangan settling tables (with the support for IMS and MMM auxiliary
points).
- Full support of
restrictions on a winning hand – e.g., for minimum point rules, restriction of
number of Chows and prohibition of mixed suits – allowing several
exceptions (e.g., for including or excluding Flowers, Dora tiles and
Kongs in minimum point calculation).
-
 Japanese specialties, including Dora tiles
(Dora, Kong Dora and Red Dora), support for all known
sacred hand rules, and fully customizable Riichi rules. Transparent tile
sets (in the style of Akagi) are also supported: you can choose 1 to 4
tile sets to be transparent and choose whether transparent tiles in
hand are mirrored on
the board or not (two additional patterns, All transparent,
and All opaque, have been added to support games with
transparent tiles).
- American specialties: support for Charleston, 4 or 8 jokers (with plenty of
options) and Pung
hand kitty.
Note: Jokers can be used with any rules, not only with
American; e.g., Four Winds supports 12-tile Asian games with virtual
jokers.
- Enhanced claiming rules, including
support for non-conventional Chow claiming restrictions, over-claiming and options for determining the winner in case
of competitive claims (support for multiple winners or
determination of the winner based on playing order, value of the hand or
the precedence order of the completing set).
- Enhanced draw rules, including support for dealer’s extra
hands, different kinds
of draw payments, conditions for passing the deal and deeming a
hand dead. In
addition, support for specific Goulash
deals with special rules.
- Customizability of the Dead Wall: replenishing/exhaustible with a
possibility to specify the number of tiles to be used in the Dead Wall; in addition,
an option for
disabling the Dead Wall.
- Support for game tournaments, allowing a specific prize scoring
system and change of seats between the deals or rounds.
- Miscellaneous: support for melding concealed Kongs and Flowers and
Seasons face down; three different options for interpreting Kongs as concealed Pungs;
support for unconventional round wind sequences (e.g., half games
consisting of the East and South rounds only), passing the deal after East’s win;
customization of penalty
and rounding rules, etc., etc.
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