Mahjong Magic Journey 2:

In Brief:
Mahjong Magic Journey 2 is a solo Mahjong matching pairs game, with the same game mechanic, trophies and level structure as previous Mahjong games given away here, for example Mahjong Gold 2: Pirates Island that was given away last month on the 6th June , Carnaval Mahjong 2 that was given away on May 8th & HERE, that was given away October 11th 2020. You can see a video of game play HERE & HERE.

You can see community reviews at the bottom of the Big Fish page HERE and Steam community reviews HERE

The Game:
The game starts with a tutorial, which I couldn’t skip. For those really familiar with solo Mahjong matching games this may be a little annoying, however the tutorial does serve to introduce you to the various bonus' available. From the options menu, you can select from three different tile styles; that include traditional Chinese symbols, a cute animal themed tile set and a numbered set. There are six sections, named Verdant Outskirts, Adept, Apprentice, Master, Magician and Magister, all but Verdant Outskirts are locked at the start of the game. Each of these sections have 20 boards, which apart from the first will also be locked. To unlock the next table you have to complete the previous table.

You start the game as a Student; as you earn points you will be promoted to Adept and beyond (requires 30 points to your first promotion). Each level is introduced by a level goals window. Each level can earn you thee gold stars; apart from giving you an incentive to replay the levels again if you fail to get three gold stars, the stars also serve towards your promotions. To earn all three you have to complete all the level goals that you'll see pop up at the start of each level; for example, the very first three level goals are to remove six Gold tiles, earn 500 points or 3000 points. Attaining only one of these will give you 1 gold star, two goals gives you two gold stars etc etc. The second level goals are even harder because you have to complete the level in 35 moves or less, collect 26 special tiles and earn 1900 points and as you progress further these level goals also become harder to attain. Once the last gold tile has been removed the level ends, even if you haven't removed the remaining tiles.

As most of you will know, the main aim of a solo Mahjong game is to find matching pairs of tiles and to remove all from the board. Click on each pair in turn to remove them from the board. You can't remove tiles that are surrounded on three sides and depending on their location when two sides are blocked. Tiles are considered to be matching if they are of the same category and value.

To make the game easier you can use the reveal skill (a symbol with two faces coloured yellow and grey facing each other in the bottom left corner of the board). This will shade out all tiles that are blocked. Even though flower and season tiles are different from each other, they can also be paired together. If it looks like there are no other pairs to match, due in part to them being blocked, you can use the shuffle key which is located in the bottom right corner of the board. To recharge the shuffle bonus you need to pair up a tile that is coloured silver. (See images). If there are no moves left the shuffle skill will activate automatically. All gold tiles need to be removed to complete a level. The quicker you remove tiles the higher your reward index will be. You can see the index next to the shuffle button. If you remove paired tiles quickly you'll see the index increase; if you are slow to create pairs the index will fall. The index is used as a multiplier; so, say for example, at the end of the round your score was 299, with an index of three, your final score for that level would be 3 x 299 = 897. Of the levels I've played so far I've failed to get enough multipliers to attain the score goal. You'll definitely need to get at least an index of 3 to ensure you attain the score goal.

Conclusion:
If you enjoy playing Mahjong match two games, then this is yet another you’ll probably enjoy. As for the music, it’s pretty nondescript and I found it a little annoying/distracting after several minutes; so, did eventually turn off the music via the options menu and played my own as background noise. The graphics are good, and the tiles are easily distinguished, especially if you choose the numbered tile set. I didn't find anything exceptional or original about Mahjong Magic Journey 2, especially as we hav had several games with exactly the same game mechanic, and similar level goals, but it is a decent time waster. I suggest you download, install and check it out. Let me know what you think.

Regards Whiterabbit-uk aka Stephen 4th July 2021

Notes on Security
I scanned a zipped copy of the installed game and it found four hits (BitDefender THeta, Jiangmin, VBA32 & Zillya) from 63 antimalware engines. These's are likely to be false positives bearing in mind 59 other antimalware suites gave it a clean bill of health. The downloaded executable may include some low level adware that only opens your browser to TooMky Games home page after the game has installed and places four shortcuts onto your desktop (which can be safely deleted once the game has installed). The installation does not inject any malware into your system. When your browser is opened to TooMky Games home page when the game has been installed, it earns TooMky Games some money, part of which is given to the developer of the game for allowing the game to be given away free. You can see the results of the scan via the following link:

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/9be01ff7364d0a796384bd186223c8643dc0660c9628976b1d46162b5899629f/detection

Other Free Games:
The latest free game from Epic is The Spectrum Retreat - a challenging, first-person puzzle game set in the near future. You awake at The Penrose hotel, a peaceful yet unsettling refuge from the outside world. As a valued guest, your existence is embedded into the corridors and guest rooms of The Penrose and will be availbe to add to your Epic account until Thursday 8th July at 4pm UK time/11am EST.
Two more games will then be given away called Bridge Constructor: The Walking Dead (looks great) which combines the legendary and challenging puzzle gameplay of Bridge Constructor™ with the post-apocalyptic zombie universe of AMC’s The Walking Dead and Ironcast that was Inspired by Victorian-era science fiction writers such as H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, Ironcast is set in an exciting alternative history; a time when refined men and women in top hats and bonnets commanded gigantic walking war machines, laying waste to the enemies of the British Empire! Take control of a 7 meter tall walking vehicle called an Ironcast and face off against an invading force of enemy Ironcast in order to defend 1880's Victorian England. The game is one of my favourite versions of a match three game where creating matches gives you chances to beat your AI opponent. I already have this game on Steam and love it. It has mainly positive reviews. These will be available to add to your EPIC games library from Thursday the 8th July to Thursday 15th July at 4pm UK time/11am EST when a new set of games will be available to add to your account. Since Epic Games started to give away games I've accumulated over 270 games not counting duplicates, most of which are either AAA or high end indie arcade games.

Also from Epic, If you play online with friends there are several free online games for example there 's a decent PvE/PvP FPS game called Scavengers with a coop mode (I checked it out recently and it looks fantastic as well as plays well) and you can still get the clicker RPG Idle Champions. I've posted some details about Idle Champions over in the forums HERE, where you'll also find links to a Reddit page where you can pick up codes to redeem chests for free that give you various buffs and other items to add to your account that boost your heroes abilities and health as well as affect your group of heroes in game, for example potions that boost health or DPS, contracts that can improve armour or weapons already used by the heroes or other contracts that add specific amounts of gold to your bank as well as items of jewellery, armour or weapons that buff your characters stats. I've stopped playing the game simply because it was too addicting.

Please see Delenn's threads for Steam and Non Steam freebies HERE and HERE respectively. Delenn has been updating these regularly for years now. It’s worth adding these links to your favourites 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. Delenn has recently posted details of more Steam games that are temporarily free. One may be until it leaves early access??? - i.e. Tower Ball - Incremental Tower Défense plus a reflex game called Keyboard Killers are still free. Delenn posted details of a free origin came called Battlefield 4 which is available for free if you have an Amazon Prime account (If you like FPS games, it's a brilliant game to own. (not sure if it's still live).


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.


The Indie Gala developers freebies are available HERE (latest additions) and HERE (81 games in the Showcase, most full versions). Recent additions include In Between Land Sonya: The Great Adventure, The Last Dream: Developer's Edition, Deep Despair Cube Runner, Agatha Christie - The ABC Murders, Whispering Willows Snow White Solitaire. Charmed Kingdom, Adam Wolfe (Complete Edition), Doodle Devil, Deep Space Anomaly and the latest addition Kick Ass Commandos; plus, many more in the showcase section HERE and the Freebies section HERE.

It’s worth adding most of the links to your favourites 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. :)