For those who cannot read Japanese the rules for play described in game can be confusing. The goal in Togenkyou is to clear the board of every Mahjongg tile except for ones with the same symbols on them. An example would be clearing the board of all tiles but ones with 3 pips in a row on them. You get 200 points for each tile of that type that is on the board at the end of the level.

The Controls.

The controls for the MAME are the joystick and 2 buttons. Button 0 is the action button and button 1 is the undo button. The action button is used to select a tile to be moved and when pressed in a spot that is a legal move, will drop it. Button 0 is also used for selecting and dropping a bomb to remove a tile.

How to play.

A tile that is selected can only be played in an empty spot that is one tile away from another tile of the same type AND has a tile of a different type in between them. When this happens, the tile that is in between them will be removed. More than one tile can be removed in a single moved if for example you have another of the same type being placed in a spot intersecting the place you are dropping the tile.
Example: X=tile with 3 circles  O=tile with 5 circles Z=tile with 1 bamboo

                         X
                         O
                  X Z

If you place a 3 circle tile in the empty spot in the middle, both the 5 circle tile and 1 bamboo tiles would be removed.

If you find change your mind after selecting a tile to be moved Button 1 will allow you to select a different tile. If after several moves you get stuck, Button 1 will undo your moves at a cost of 50 points per undo.

Bombs.
You get 3 of them per game. To use one you move to the upper left of the screen and off the game board and click the action button on it. Then move the bomb over the tile you wish to get rid of. The Bomb supply gets renewed when you run out of time and need to continue.

The Timer.
The timer counts down and in a real arcade, would be the owners source of quarters. The timer can be filled up again in the middle of a level by removing the TIME tile. I found its best to save removing this tile as late in the level as possible. The timer also fills up at the start of each new level. If you run out of time the selecting the TOP option with the action button allows you to continue the level you were on RIGHT WHERE YOU LEFT OFF with 3 more bombs. You do lose all the points you accumulated though.

Completing a level.

When there are only identical tiles left on the board you get points for the remaining time on the timer (which is another reason to save the timer tile for near the end) and 200 points for each tile left. You are rewarded with either a woman removing her top, or fireworks, depending on the background.

Strategies.
Leapfrogging:
Since tiles need to be adjacent to remove other tiles, avoid leaving tiles stranded on the edges. The best way to do this is to move from the outside, into gaps that are also on the outside. Eventually you will have gaps form but you can move tiles next to the stranded ones while removing a tile that was behind it. I call this leapfrogging. Level 4 is nothing but a board full of gaps with 2 tiles that are moved leapfrog style around the board until they are the only 2 left.
When to use a bomb:
I find that the bomb is best used at the end of a level if you only have 1 tile that is stranded and unlike the others. Any other time I found after undoing several moves back that the tile I removed with it was best removed the standard way.

I found this little gem hiding in the very back of the Retro Game Room with hardly any plays on it and hope that with a brief explanation of how to play, maybe more people will try it out and compete for high scores with me.


Sprsoldier96