Once upon a time, there lived a brother and sister named Karl and Gretta, who loved each other very much. They were having great fun sledding down the street by hanging on to the carriages as they passed by. It was Karl’s turn when a beautiful sleigh drawn by a magnificent team of snow white horses appeared. The driver was wrapped in long, flowing white fur coat with an elegant fur hat to match. Karl snatched up his sled and grabbed hold of the sleigh. Off he flew down the street as the mysterious driver urged the team into a gallop. The mysterious driver in the story is the Snow Queen, and Karl and Gretta the protagonists of this fairy tale adventure.
Besides the particular story, the game is a regular Mah Jong game with similar rules to other Mah Jong games. For those who don’t know what is Mah Jong about, let’s take a look at the basics. The game is based on a board of tiles with different icons on them. You must select two matching tiles to remove them from the board, being the goal to clear the board completely. You can also select any of two “Flowers” or “Seasons” tiles, even when they are not identical.
Matching tiles have to be free to be selected. Tiles are free when there are no tiles to the left of to the right of them. Bridges are special rows of tiles. You can clear the whole row by removing frozen tiles on both ends. Each level has special tiles. You have to remove them to complete the level before the time runs out. They are free when there are no tiles at both sides of them.
There are some main features you can use while playing. Let’s know them:
- Hint: if you’re stuck, select any free tile, and press Hint to see its match. If the matching tile is not free, you will see other available pair.
- Shuffle: use this when you have 1 or 2 matches left. It will shuffle all tiles and thus give you additional matches.
- Swap: use this when you need to access the tile which is not free. Select the tile you want to use first and then any other tile which is free. Their positions will be replaced and the tile that was inaccessible before will take place of the free tile.
- Change: just like shuffle, it will give you more matches when you have a few.
When you start a game you can choose from different difficulty levels. The levels are: Junior, the easiest; Amateur, medium; and Expert, the hardest.
When you enter the game, you reach the Main Menu, with the following options:
- Adventure: to start playing the game in this mode.
- Single: to play any board you like.
- Change Player: you can create several profiles to share your game with family and friends.
- Options: you can set the music volume, sound volume, and full screen, among many other options.
- Help: to see some information about the game.
- High Scores and Exit: no further explanation required.
You can try this game for 60 minutes before you buy the licensed version. If you like it, you can buy this game for only 19.95 dollars, right from the Oberon Media Game Center, on the Web. There is a mobile version available as well.
About system requirements, here’s a list for you to check out:
- Windows 2000 / XP / Vista
- Processor speed: 800 MHz or faster Processor
- RAM: 256 MB
- Hard drive space (uncompressed): 30 MB
- Graphics Card: Windows compatible 16MB
- Sound Card: Sound blaster compatible
- DirectX version: 7.0
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