Initial public preview

Introduction

Game On! Mah Jong is a mah jong inspired rogue-lite game using hockey as a backdrop. You play hands of tiles to score momentum and once the momentum threshold is crossed you score a goal.  At faceoff times you are presented with various upgrade options that will enhance your play such as modified tiles or special hands. When a match is started each team contributes 70 tiles (effectively half the set) which may have intrinsic modifiers. Its possible that either team could draw these tiles so consideration of what to bring with you will be important. In addition to these 140 tiles 4 tiles will be contributed representing the environment itself.  These will include weather effects, random events, etc.

This is obviously a very early preview of what I am aiming for.  I know it is riddled with bugs but they are not my focus - I have been plucking away at this for so long now that I am unable to tell if it's actually any fun or not.  The feedback I am looking for at this time is entirely on the gameplay loop. Is this fun or not? 

0.2 - May 20, 2025

Fixes:

• fixed stinky neutralizing perk
• ensured team-specific perks do not appear for the wrong teams
• fix possible issue resuming saved games

Features:

• updated team selection screen to show list of possible faceoff perks per team
• added tile upgrade factories for common tile suit upgrades
• game over dialog
• change behaviour of Enshrounded in Stench to also work if the goalie tile has the Stinky modifier
• variable number of discards. Testing at 5 to see impact on game pace.

Regressions:

• AI play can sometimes be slow
• performance issues when going into team selection

0.1 - May 14, 2025

The game is basically playable as is with a good deal of placeholder content. 

Details:

• drawing from the discard pile vs drawing from remaining tiles is done via clicking on the discard pile.
• puck is a puck instead of a ball. Shut up.
• minimal sound or sounds recorded in my kitchen. Music is 'False Night Upon the Road' (a Nova Scotia folks song.)
• few perk upgrades implemented with little indication of what they do - as placeholders you can choose unmodified tiles or just skip

Teams:

Two fixed teams with initial tiles and perks. Some effort has been spent on balancing but it is not perfect.

• Cole Harbour Chevaliers - a team that can generate debuffed tiles for your opponent or convert those tiles into explosive offense 
• Highfield Park Refuse - a team focusing on support perks and debuffs

Tile upgrades:

• explosive tiles score 1.5X 
• offensive tiles score 1.5X when played on offence
• defensive tiles score 1.5X when played on defence
• balanced tiles score 5 regardless of rank
• recyclable tiles grant an extra reroll in future faceoffs
• stinky tiles are debuffed without a neutralizing perk. Can spread to other tile after the draw phase
• loyal tiles are debuffed for the opposing team
• wild tiles can be use as any suit

Perks (including but not limited to):

• Slap-Happy - increases the commonality of Slapshot to Common. Lasts for the entire match.
• Hopscotch - 36 point bonus to next hand played in this turn. Single use.
• Underdog - an extra 2X scoring on plays if you have less goals than your opponent. Lasts for the current period.
• Suit Defence - protects against tiles of a given suit for some period of time. These are exclusive - you can only have one suit defence at a time.
• General Defence - protects against all tiles to a lesser degree than Suit Defence

Common Hand Types:

• pair
• three of a kind
• four of a kind
• runs of three in the same suit
• pairs of goalie or fight tiles (see below)

Unlockable hand types:

• "Royal Sampler" - three tiles all the same rank one from each suit stick, puck and book. Only available if unlock has been offered and chosen chosen.
• Slapshot - a single use hand that takes any one tile and scores it at 5X. Only available if unlock has been offered and chosen chosen.
• See team player cards for team-specific hands

Goalie hands:

pair or more of goalie tiles will buff your goalie increasing their momentum target (the amount required for your oppoent to score a goal against you) by 20. This value is reset every time momentum is reset (ie: at the beginning of periods, after a goal, etc.)

Fight hands:

pair or more of fight tiles will end your turn and immediately cause a faceoff with the following characteristics:

• if you are on offense (ie: you have momentum advantage) and are first to score tiles you will immediately score a goal regardless of momentum scored
• if you are on defence (ie: your opponent has momentum advantage) and are first to score tiles momentum is reset to 0
• if neither team is on offence (ie: momentum is 0) and are first to score tiles and that score is >= 1/2 of the opponents momentum target you score a goal

Known issues:

• playing hands with extra tiles discards those tiles.  Unsure yet whether or not that will be allowed going forward
• behaviour at end of game isnt well defined. it will just stop or otherwie become unplayable
• behaviour at period change isn't obvious - you're just sent to a face-off 
• the more perks and special tiles are in play the worse the AI gets
• instructions in messaging area are inconsistent after opponent plays hands. It may read 'discard' when you have to draw a tile