This traditional Chinese game for four players (human or computer) has a wide variety of rule options, including more than 20 fully customizable rule presets: Chinese Classical, Old Style (Hong Kong), New Style and Chinese Official, Japanese Classical and Modern, American Classical and Modern, Australian, and several European versions. The game supports 16-tile Taiwanese mah-jongg and 11- or 12-tile mah-jongg with virtual jokers. The game has gorgeous graphics, moody sound, and outstanding playability.

Mah Jong is easy to learn, though in the beginning the rather complicated scoring system may seem confusing. The element of luck is powerful, as in all card games, but you'll soon notice that having a good memory and intuition is rewarding, and that a player who is able to adapt to his luck by finding a balance between the offensive and defensive strategies is most likely to win in the long run. In the real game, it is important to have a good psychological eye, as well. To become a master of the game, several years of practicing is required.

The rule variations of Mah Jong are endless. Four Winds lets you customize many of the rules, enabling you to change the nature of the game from a sheer game of fortune to an intellectual challenge with an emphasis on strategic versatility. E.g., in addition to many European and Chinese versions, you can choose classical and modern American, Australian, or classical and the modern Japanese version of Mah Jong. You can also customize the rules, change the scoring, rename the scoring patterns and save your customized rules as user-defined rule presets.

The registered version comes with 12 alternative themes and several alternative tile sets, and it supports user-defined themes and custom tile sets. It includes a comprehensive help file explaining in detail all rule options, and a Flash tutorial is available as a separate download. Multiplayer games are supported via DirectX and can be played over the Internet or LAN (up to four human players and 10 spectators), or direct cable (up to two human players).

The classical rules serve well as an introduction to Mah Jong: the rules and scoring are simple and they are generally recognized around the world. Though the modern Asian rules differ significantly from the classical (especially the scoring and paying method is different), and American Mah Jong has introduced rules like prohibition of mixed suit (cleared-hand game), limitation in the number of Chows and Charleston, they still share the common basic concept, best embodied in the European Classical rule preset, a sort of a midway between the extremes.

The license of this software is Free Trial Software, the price is $30.00, you can free download and get a free trial.