Carnaval Mahjong 2 - (Carnival)

In Brief
Carnaval Mahjong 2 is a single player matching tiles Mahjong with a carnival theme. It was originally given away on the 8th September 2018, where it received a positive 81% from 26 votes with 8 comments, which you can see HERE

Introduction:
It's time to set off on a journey! Travel the world and immerse yourself in a holiday atmosphere! Earn a unique mask from each country. Collect them all to become the carnival king! Masquerades, colorful parades, fireworks and dances, all this awaits you in the new Carnival Mahjong 2!

Reference accessed HERE 8th Sept 2018, reposted 27th April 2021

Complete lots of layouts to become the master of mahjong in this logic game called Carnaval Mahjong 2! Launch the game and join in this adventure. Both adults and children will enjoy the gorgeous rich graphics and gameplay. You are to join the magic carnival, unlock picturesque locations and make pairs for all the tiles on each board of which there are 120 different layouts representing six locations around the world.

When you finish the 20 boards for each location, you'll get a trophy mask — collect all of them to become the champion! The rules are easy enough: a pair of available matching tiles can be removed from the game board. The quicker you remove the tiles — the higher is your score, it means that you get more points during the game. At the beginning of the level, you get the ordinary and special tasks to complete — remove the exact quantity of golden tiles, get the required number of points and comply the level within the designated amount of time or try not to exceed the limit of given moves.

Now the "flower" and "seasons" tiles look different, you'll see the tiles with pretty ladies and courageous gentlemen, but the mechanics is the same: if you see them unblocked, click on such a pair to remove. Besides the ordinary ones, there are silver and golden tiles on the board. Removing the silver tiles will restore your chip bonus but if you clear the board from golden tiles, the level is complete. More than 8 hours of captivating gameplay await you in 120 unique levels, are you ready? Cope with all the layouts and get a unique collection of trophies! Own the Kabuki Mask in the Japanese Carnival or add to your collection a Stranger's Mask from the German Festival. Have fun while playing the game Carnaval Mahjong 2 and explore the beautiful countries with their unique history!

Reference accessed HERE 8th Sept 2018, reposted 27th April 2021

The Game:
Carnaval Mahjong 2 (aka Mahjong Carnaval 2) is a standard mahjong game with a carnival theme; (I’m using the English spelling of Carnival as opposed to the Dutch, German, Spanish, Portuguese and French way of spelling it, i.e. Carnaval). You have six sections to complete, each comprising of 20 tables. Only the first set of tables are accessible at the start of the game. The first set is called Argentina. The locked sets have names like Connoisseur, adept, Expert Virtuoso and Maestro, but, once you’ve unlocked them the name of the country is revealed. You can see from the image below what countries are featured.

To make life easier, there are bonuses available such as the shuffle bonus; which is very useful if you are finding it difficult to find any matching tiles. You can access the shuffle button by clicking on the =icon located to the bottom right of the game board. The icon to the bottom left will reveal active pairs by shading out those that are immovable. The icon is represented by the Greek muse Thalia which equates to comedy as opposed to the weeping face representing Melpomene (tragedy). You can also choose from three different tile sets depending on how easy or hard you wish to make your game. The easiest I found was the numbered tiles. You can change tile sets even while in the middle of a game via the options menu. To access the options menu while in game click on the round icon located to the top left of the board. This opens up four buttons that allow you to open up the options menu, the help, and a restart and close game buttons.

The game starts with a tutorial, which I couldn’t skip. For those really familiar with Mahjong matching games this may be a little annoying, however the tutorial does serve to introduce you to the various bonus; available.

There does appear to be four language options i.e. English, German, Russian and French, but I don’t know how to change the language. I presume you’d need to edit the config file that is located in the Resources/XML folder of the installed game. Also, there’s no apparent way of changing the games music except for turning it off and playing your own. Overall, I found the game okay. I’ve played a lot of these so called Mahjong games, but I much prefer the traditional four player Mahjong.

Review by Whiterabbit-uk 8th Sept 2018, reposted 27th April 2021.

Gameplay Videos of Carnaval Mahjong 2:
You can see several videos of Carnaval Mahjong 2 gameplay HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE (русский/Russian).

Conclusion:
If you enjoy playing mahjong match two games, then this is yet another you’ll probably enjoy. It has a lighthearted carnival feel to the game. As for the music, it’s pretty nondescript and I found it a little annoying after several minutes so did eventually turn off the music and played my own as background noise. The graphics are good, and the tiles are easily distinguished, especially if you choose the number tile set. I cannot say there is anything exceptional about this game, but it is a decent time waster so suggest you download, install and check it out. Let me know what you think. Regards Whiterabbit

If you miss today's game giveaway you can always get the game via MyPlayCity 24/7 HERE; or, If you prefer to support the developer by purchasing the game you can get it directly from Big Fish Games HERE

Other Free Games
The latest game from Epic is now live and will be available until Thursday 13th May (4pm UK time), HERE . It's an open-world action adventure RPG set in a simulated world in which humans never reached the top of the food chain. Fight with or against a variety of species as you make your way to a new home for your human tribe. From the 13th it will be replaced with "The Lion’s Song" a narrative adventure game which you can find HERE.

There's also a Starter pack for World of Warships worth $25 being given away via Epic at the moment HERE and Nubarron: The adventure of an unlucky gnome is still totally free over on Steam until late Sunday 9th May.

Please see Delenns threads for Steam and Non Steam freebies HERE and HERE respectively. It’s worth adding these to your favorites and checking regularly for available freebies. Most are only free for a specific time. If you miss the deadline you’ll miss out. Once added to your account, it’s yours to keep.

You'll find hundreds of freeware games of all arcade and indie genres on Itch.io and Caimans Games as well as other sources. Please do check out the game discussion forums for older posts HERE (the sticky section is useful). Many of the earlier posts may be out of date with respect to the links I and others have provided to the free games; however, you only need to know the name of the game to find most of them via other sources. Many of those games from 2008 to around 2017 were posted as part of a project to supplement the lack of weekday games when the game giveaway went to weekend only games around Easter 2008 (mainly instigated due to the financial crisis of 2008) until November 2018 when Falcoware stepped into the weekday slot; however, from around 2015 onwards we did start to get the occasional Steam key for various games offered as limited giveaways, with a restriction on the number of keys available (anywhere from 25 to 2000+). These included over 60 decent AAA games and indie arcade games ; for example some of the better AAA games included , lucky Warhammer: Vermintide 1 & 2 plus DLC for version 2; Dreadlands, Mount & Blade: Warband, Immortal Unchained and Conan Exiles.

I've not posted details of any Indie Gala freebies since my older computer went on the Fritz back in October last year. Since then Indie Gala have added quite a few more free games, some of which are definitely worth downloading. You can find the latest freebies HERE and their showcase list, which includes all the freebies still current; (many of which have been included for a couple of years now) HERE.

It’s worth adding these links to your favorites and checking regularly for available freebies. Most are only free for a specific time. If you miss the deadline you’ll miss out. Once added to your account, they are yours to keep. :)