Modern inventions › Mahjong solitaire (tiles only, not mahjong play)
Mahjong solitaire (tiles only, not mahjong play)
Lockard, 1981; Shanghai
Sources
The documents this entry rests on, as published. Each can be opened and checked; nothing in this part is anybody’s reading of them.
Wikipedia. "Mahjong solitaire." canonical checked 2026-09-25
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahjong_solitaire
AI summary A single-player tile-matching game created by Brodie Lockard on PLATO in 1981 and released by Activision as Shanghai in 1986. It uses the mahjong tile set, but 'the method of gameplay is unrelated'.
Only cited here · bibliography #122
Analysis
Written by an AI model from the sources above. It is a reading of them, not a source in its own right: every figure in it points back to a numbered source, and where the two disagree, the source is right.
Assessment
- Confidence
- documented a published ruleset or rule description exists and is cited
- Evidence
- single-source only one source was found; nothing independent confirms it
Added by this compendium
The source chart does not carry this variant. It was added because the research turned up a ruleset the chart has no node for. Everything the chart does claim is unchanged.
Parent link: sourced — a source states this parentage
Wikipedia states that the game takes the mahjong tile set and name but that 'the method of gameplay is unrelated'. It descends from no mahjong ruleset. It is recorded here because it is the most widely played thing called mahjong, and a reader looking for it should find it placed and labelled, not missing.
Cross-comparison
What each source was read to say, set side by side. The numbers are the sources above.
- [1] 'a single-player matching game that uses a set of mahjong tiles rather than cards ... Although named after the four-player tile game mahjong, the method of gameplay is unrelated.' Created by Brodie Lockard in 1981 on the PLATO system and named Mah-Jongg after the game whose tiles it uses. Activision released Shanghai in 1986, 'marketed ... as based on a centuries-old Chinese game called "the Turtle", though Lockard never made this claim himself'. Around 10 million copies were sold
Reading it
Only Wikipedia was read. The node is placed and labelled so that a reader can see what it is not: a mahjong variant. It shares the tile set and the name, and nothing of the play. The 'centuries-old Chinese game called the Turtle' is Activision's marketing, and Wikipedia notes that Lockard never claimed it. It is a modern invention in the plainest sense, 1981, and descends from no ruleset in this tree.
In the tree
Descends from Modern inventions, as the analysis above places it; the chart has no node for it.