Shanghai is Activision’s NES port of Brodie Lockard’s 1986 Mahjong solitaire — one of the first Western adaptations of the tile-matching game. One hundred and forty-four tiles are stacked in the classic tortoise shape; your task is to clear them all by selecting matched pairs, working down from the highest layers to the lowest.
How to play
A tile is playable when nothing rests on top of it and at least one of its long sides (left or right) is completely open. Move the cursor with the arrow keys, press Z to select a tile, then navigate to its matching tile and press Z again — a correct pair disappears. If no legal moves remain before the board is cleared, press Enter to start fresh.
| Arrow keys | Move cursor |
| Z | Select tile / confirm match |
| X | A button |
| Shift | Select (options) |
| Enter | Start / new game |
Tips
- Expose buried tiles first. Tiles hidden under other tiles cannot be reached — prioritise clearing the layers above a buried tile before working the open edges of the layout.
- Think ahead with duplicates. When four copies of a tile type are on the board and two are free, which pair you remove first determines whether you can ever reach the other two. Take the pair that opens the most future moves.
- A restart is information. The layout is fixed each game, so reaching a dead end teaches you the board. Start over and apply a different removal order with that knowledge.
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