Mahjong Journey®: Tile Match Reviews

by Deborific1

I play games to help distract me from the stresses in everyday life, and chose Mahjong Journey because of the beautifully drawn tiles. I enjoyed moving to a new country and discovering new tiles which offer a challenge for several levels until I learn them. Love the mini games and monthly challenge! I can’t wait to see the next country.
However, of all the Mahjong games I’ve played over many years, this one has the highest ratio of boards that I lose. I often use my 5 lives and get nowhere. Yes, my moves can affect the outcome, but getting down to the final two and having one on top of the other happens way too often. Is it intentional to encourage players to buy more? Last year my raise was $2 per month, so that’s not going to happen.
You have created a game that is beautiful and interesting. It’s too bad that it’s not user friendly.
I just played for 5 days and still cannot move to the next level. I don’t play to be stressed & frustrated. What’s the point if making it so hard?
Again I’ve played day after day with no progress, just loss after loss with an occasional win that still gives only one star. Is this actually a psych test to see how long someone will continue to play while continually getting beat up? I keep coming back in hope of a change in my favor and hope this time I won’t return. Perhaps you can make a new version for children. Call me if you do.

by Mawmaw19471

I have to say that I have become VERY frustrated with this last quest that is going on now. I worked through the necessary 25 levels just to find that “this time” there is an additional step before obtaining the daily gift item. I understand that you are just increasing the need to spend more $ in the games but I think it is a little greedy on your part. I regularly spend money on G5 games. Now you have added this additional twist that requires you go back through the special levels to find additional items to complete the quest. And the really irritating thing is that you have to use the required tokens (stars) to get into the level to get a chance at finding the necessary item. I have just completed one level 6 times and have yet to get the necessary item. Instead I get nothing and have to try again, using more tokens to get back into the game to try again. I guess you can tell that I am very frustrated but I am 72 years old and have been playing G5 games for a few years now. It is a good way to relax and also have some mild mental challenge. I currently play Mahjong Journey, Secret Society and In the past few months have also been playing Hidden Treasures. I purchase items in each of these games to make them enjoyable and not frustrating. However, I notice that you have also added a switch up in Hidden Society and I am seriously considering dropping all 3 games and move on to other, less enjoyable games. Thank you for listening.

by WJaMhIll

I have played this game for 10 months. Like other players, I find progress gets impeded unless you’re willing to plunk down a few bucks. I get frustrated, but ultimately conclude that it’s a free game and the developers’ rules, so I can play or not. I play until I lose a life or two, then cease playing until another day.

My one-star is about a new tactic G5 recently implemented: You now update from within the game. NO-NO-NO! Every app and its updates are vetted by Apple or Google when playing on their devices and obtained through their store(s). Within the last few weeks, I’ve discovered my progress on this game impeded by a requirement that I download updates (additional maps and the like) from within the game, and I find that enormously suspicious. I’ve had Apple devices for a decade or more and have never encountered this before. I thought it was a bug, and that I should report it.

So I sought to contact G5 directly to voice my concerns. Unfortunately, they do not want to speak to a human being (even digitally, via email). The contact requirements are Game Center or Facebook. I have neither (for that matter, I want neither...). So G5 creates an update round-about that evades vetting processes coupled with an inability to contact them. I’ve never worn a tin-foil hat, but this reeks of suspicious activity.

by Queen Of Frustration

I like this game, but have found over the last couple days, since I started playing again, that it is frustrating. The side game is very difficult. I was trying to use that game to gain coins to “renew” the mansion, but it uses way too many acorns and it is way too difficult to get 5-stars to help build the pyramid. I have spent hours and many boosts trying to get 5-stars & just trying to complete the level/game. You have to complete each collection, in order, to move forward to the next collection. I don’t know if it is me or the game, but I have been unable to collect items for each collection the first time I complete each game. Then, to obtain the collection items, I have to go back and replay the same games. To get the boost, or whatever, to put the collection together, I have had to go back to the start of each area and replay each game, multiple times, trying to collect these other items, frequently ending with “Sorry, you found no items. Please try again.”

You ending up playing the same games/levels over and over again, but still end up spending diamonds/gems to complete the collections. The coins are only found the first time you play each game/level, so you spend the majority of your time trying to gets items for the mansion repair & collections, but not getting the coins needed to move forward with the mansion repair.

At times, it starts feeling like a big waste of time.

by Natashatrip

My original review was more positive than this one & I gave 4 stars but because I’ve had more than a couple days of experience in playing, I’ve discovered you’ve made some of the levels so impossible to reach 3 stars to progress, that it makes me more frustrated than stress free. The time limit is absolutely impossible to beat on some of the levels. I realize most “free apps” have a goal to get the player so addicted that they eventually spend money at some point but it’s too expensive & is starting to get a bit redundant when I use up all my lives trying to beat ONE level & having to wait half an hour to get a life. I think u should tweak a few things like making the time limit a little less impossible to meet, give more boosters or prize boxes for completing goals & making purchases a little less expensive. if that were to happen, this game would most definitely get 5 stars & id recommend this to all my stressed out or bored friends. I’m just not that secure about positive endorsing at this point. It’s an extremely fun & challenging game & does relieve stress in the beginning but within no time, you’re basically stuck unless u make a purchase. I’m close to deleting because I’ve tried for a week to beat a level that’s just simply impossible to do unless I purchase a booster.

by Evy Itchybum

Honestly I’d have to say this is one of the best mahjong game I have ever played. Yet I’m terribly disappointed it is so hard to move on. No matter how many tries i do. It is nearly impossible to get 3 stars. In most mahjong games you win for the most part. In this game you lose for the most part and have to reshuffle or use a life. Their are times I’ve had to reshuffle like 3 times per game. And it cost me money it is not cheap either. I’d say over priced. 99.9% of the games you always have to reshuffle. If you use up your life’s the waiting span to get more is unbearable. Terrible,frustrating. Whenever you win those boost you get are usually ones I barely use and have enough on. You should instead give reshuffles and more life’s and those are the most used ones. Or reward us with diamonds to assist us in purchasing more boost. The firecracker boost I don’t even use no more. As for the most part instead of eliminating the tiles to help you go through the game. It makes me lose and I have to start over. The music is nice and soothing. Please change it every so often. It gets annoying to hear the same over and over again. I guest I may have to give up this game as it is come to the point I can’t afford it. You need to make lots of changes. I’ve read your reviews most are negative. We all have basically the same concerns.

by ChalleN75

Sadly I am getting very frustrated with Mahjong.... to the point of not wanting to playing at all anymore. The levels used to be fun, I have definitely enjoyed the addition of “free the kitty” levels to break the monotony of the same levels we play over and over again, BUT now the levels are becoming increasingly hard to pass (especially the side quest levels, like the Easter egg quest right now). It makes it so you can’t pass without using a booster, and I RARELY have ever had to use them. Are you purposely doing this to force people into buying items?? Because that’s how it feels.... I play the game to relax and unwind at the end of the day, I don’t need one more frustration, especially feeling like I have to spend money to even enjoy the game anymore!! From some other reviews I’ve read, I’m not the only player who feels this way. If that’s all your game is going to become, then I am done and will be passing the word on to my family and friends playing it as well. There are sooooo many more games out there to choose from, games just like this one, wouldn’t be a hard choice to make if I don’t need to buy items just to play a game that is supposed to be fun and enjoyable!

by Arblgrv

This is a reasonably fun game with a lot of variants, layers of bright cutesy graphics and a whole lot going on in general. There are a lot of games that look like this one: fantastical scenes densely littered with small brilliantly-colored icons that don’t stop sparkling or moving about. The intended audience seems to be preteens, especially given how sugary sweet and overly cute it all is. To me this style of game design only manages to be distracting and annoying. I don’t want to waste time waiting for things like the floating glove to point toward the next level before I can get on with playing.

My second major issue is the pay-for-cheats aspect. I play to test my skill, I want to win or lose fairly playing a challenging board. To me, having the option to buy out of a losing game is counter to the whole point of playing in the first place. It creates fake wins, so what’s the point?

On the positive side: the boards so far are neither stupidly simple or unreasonably hard, the tiles are easy to read and there are a lot of different card sets with unusual designs (though here again they tend to have a cartoonish/coloring book feel).

by Autobotashley

I’ve been playing this game off and on for about 2-3 years. It’s challenging and relaxing but only when there is significant progress being made. I’ve encountered, like other reviewers, levels where it continually makes it so I cannot win the level. The need to sometimes decide which tiles to choose is sometimes an welcome added challenge, but more often than not it leads to losing the level which will lead to my biggest and hugest complaint of the game: the heart replacement counter. I understand after using up a life that you’ll need to wait a certain amount of time to let it recharge, but the wait of 30 MINUTES PER LIFE is way too long of a wait. When you use all your lives up, sometimes on one level in the span of 10 minutes WITH boosts, you’ll have to wait almost 2+ hours to play with full lives again & that is one of my hugest complaints that I hope will be addressed. The price of boosts too, the in app purchases is also very overpriced. I can understand 99¢ to $4.99 for boosts but a minimum usable amount of diamonds for $4.99 to be able to get anything to use in the game to make progress is slightly unreasonable. I love this game, and I hope that the main issue, the heart regeneration rate, can openly be improved so I may be able to play more often as the game, legitimately, is addicting and invigorating.

by 2109lh

As someone who’s Permanently Disabled with extremely limited finances. I’m unable to ever buy anything when it comes to playing games; I barely have enough to live on after paying bills etc.. I understand it’s not needed to play; But it’s Extremely Frustrating when you’re stuck & can’t go further since you don’t have enough left to complete the level, send gifts. Have had to redo levels as short 1-2 tries for example . Understand why you charge; but it’s disappointing to those like myself who can’t participate more then other players due to this. Takes away some of the fun, enjoyment. It’s why I don’t play as often as I’d like. Also been recovering from recent illness, other med. issues. Wish there was another way you could earn the needed items, lives etc… so the game can be enjoyed more. It would also make it more enjoyable. There should be more given when you complete levels. You don’t get much reward as of now. Other games give much when levels are completed making it much more fun. That would be extremely helpful. Maybe a way to win great bundles of things (what you can buy) after a certain amount of levels completed. Way to have friends help giving lives & needed items like some of my other games offer.

by Uhuhamen

Find this relaxing as it focuses my mind on something irrelevant (the game) such that it can't be running over and dwelling on everything else life is throwing at me. The music is a great aid in that. However, the zen is shattered by all the annoying ads for all their copycat games, especially when accompanied by their jarring energetic music which you can't turn off or even cut short. Out of all those games and characters there is no non-white ethnic representation--no, the extremely stereotyped Japanese guys don't give you points in that area. It becomes increasingly difficult to progress without buying and using cheats, which I don't think is right; you should be able to complete w skill and perseverance alone. I wonder if it's even physically possible to tap that many tiles in 1.5 or 2 minutes, much less search, match, and tap. I dislike that the timer always keeps going for 3 seconds after you finish the game, but lately it even adds 30 second to my time before comparing to the cutoff, making it impossible to progress. Another bug is that the daily log-in sometimes won't accept input, or skips, or erases your progress. The constant nagging for donations or in-app purchases disrupts the good feeling that would be generated and assures that I will NOT reward that nagging with my $.

by Thomdeb

I hope this new Easter egg hunt will let me have the avatar at the end. Even though on four previous challenges I have completed everything I could not get the avatar in the end. Still not able to get the avatar even though everything else is complete. I suspect there may be a glitch somewhere because I have completed all levels and gotten rewards for all special collections but it shows that I only have 29/30 of the special items. Oh, well. My game”blew up” in the 1300’s and made me start back at 135. Boooo! I didn’t play for awhile I was so upset about it. I have finally started playing again and do enjoy it but it’s not quite the same. Oh, well. I guess you get what you pay for.🤣☹️😤 Well, I started playing again, even though I had to practically start over at the beginning, and it does seem to be working better than in the past. Maybe some of the ‘bugs’ have been fixed. Thanks! I have upped the rating to 4 stars since the game seems to be working better. Once again no special avatar! Once again no special avatar! Finally getting the special avatar for completing the special events. Game seems to be working much better. Doesn’t freeze up as much.

by Kkral

I played a level and didn’t use any Boosters and although I finished the level pretty quick I only received 1 star. I don’t know if I don’t understand the game completely or what, I thought I’d get more stars because I didn’t need any help with the level. I’ll play the game a little longer but if they want you to use boosters all the time therefore spending money all the time, I’ll delete the game.

I just purchased the $4.99 to get boosters and I got 6 of the boosters that start the game over if there’s no more moves and 3 hints but the game froze up on me and I don’t believe I got the boosters to start the game over if there are no more moves. This really upsets me because I’m a senior citizen on a fixed income and also on Hospice and even though I’m not totally sure what order I’m supposed to play the game I enjoy playing it. I don’t spend a lot of money on the game it’s frustrating when I do spend I get ripped off by the game freezing up. I wish you could fix this and also give me my boosters. I guess I learned my lesson on spending money I don’t have to throw away.

Thank you.

by Ambertalsma

I love the game but I've had issues with purchasing gems also I've lost and when I go to retry the level it didn't give me any tiles to play with so it ended up costing me 3 lives. It would be nice if there was extra ways to get gems since for some reason the game won't let me purchase anymore. But all in all I love the game I just would like more gems.

Ok months later and I do enjoy some of the repairs they've made but I'm having one issue and it's a silly one. Say I just finished level 9 in one of those 30 day challenges it sometimes when I click next completely bypasses level 10 and goes to 11. It's weird! Still love the game though.
Still needs work the diamonds need to be cheaper and the cost of playing special levels lower. Some of them in the last one were 30 flowers or whatever to play the level. Then you die and hafta pay it again. We all know you’re making plenty of $ off of this game so make it so the die hards like me can afford more.

by AprilFool32796

I really enjoy playing this game, because you are not bombarded with a lot of annoying ads. I really do appreciate that. You watch and ad when you want to. In most games you have one coming on seems like every minute or so. So thank you for keeping the ads to a minimum . Keep up the good work. I am still really enjoying playing, I don’t have anything bad to say about MahjongJourney. I will continue to play for a very long time. The one thing that I don’t do is pay to play a game, because of my family obligations that don’t allow me that luxury. So it may take me longer to get to a certain point or not be able to take advantage of some nice bonuses, but I don’t mind it gives me a little time to just reset and sometimes that all you need. Well I have now got to the point where you have to pay to get to a higher level, so I don’t know how much longer I will play. It has been fun but I guess it is time to move on. We will just see what happens. Thanks

by Bdbpr

I really enjoy playing this game but I don't understand why there are requirements to achieve a certain number of stars to move to the next level. The timing to achieve 3 stars is generally so fast that I don't have a ghost of a chance to do better than one star. I'd like to move forward but I find myself having to play the same level over and over in hopes of adding stars to advance. Update: I enjoy the extra mahjong cakes that are offered. Last one was required hot air balloons to play and this time it requires surfboards. I'm frustrated because there should be a way to earn surfboards without paying and there is not. Perhaps there's a bug in the game.
Update: I've gotten stuck at the end of another level without sufficient points to keep moving. I don't plan to pay to keep moving to new levels so I'm starting from the beginning on my phone. It's fun but only if you can achieve forward progress. I suspect that when I get stuck next time, I'll delete the game because it's too frustrating to not be able to start new levels.
Update#2: I took about a two year break from the game and just started playing it again. It’s enjoyable but I wish there was a way to ask friends to give you a life so you didn’t have to shut down the game while you’re still having fun.

by 51debh

This game is challenging and addicting, I finally found a game I can beat my children at! Love how the different levels keep it interesting. I have told all my friends to try and when they did, they love it as well. The new levels are addictive and it is my go to game! Enjoy the new levels but wish just a little more time could be allowed to beat the game. I love the new levels and the colors you use, think this is my favorite! Thank you for adding the treasures chests as well, little difficult at times because once you lose you need to start from beginning, would be more helpful if you could just go from where you lost. The newest updates you added finding the pieces and earning helps I cannot get enough of. Really enjoy this game!!
Enjoy the new challenges that have been added that give you many options when playing the game! I love this game and it is the one I go to several times a dayEach new level has been fun to try and beat and have enjoyed sharing this game with all my friends!

by Come On In ...

Hello, I have been playing this particular game for the last four years...I always recognize the old gentleman and the little girl. Actually I recognize them from further back, now that I think on it. So, every few years, I find it again, and start it anew. Usually I just play it until either it changes or I do. This time my life changed drastically. And when that happened, I was very happy to have this game show up again in this brand new adventure. And on my iPad. Thank you for all the added adventures. And the games within games...and the treasure chests. I blew one of those so bad, I lost four times in a row. Waited a few days, then came back and finally won. Success. Now I finally made it to a new level...whew! And with the update will be able to play longer. I have asked many family members to play it, but am not sure anyone tried. But I Love It! Thanks for all your hard work.
And being an artist, I wish I had taken computer programming also, in college. But, as an artist I truly appreciate your work...all of you. Thanks...Kaydee Chamberlain

by Jillyp27

Enjoyable and relaxing to play! Gets progressively more challenging! Nice zen music to go with it!! I love the game, but it constantly kicks me out in the middle of the game! It's really annoying! Tech support is extremely slow if ever to respond and then they don't fix it or recover lost funds! It's ashamed, because it's a really fun game! I had given 5 stars but took off 2 for the annoyance and lack of support!i am putting it back to 5 stars, the problem is interference with location being open on another site! Now that it is closed the problem is better! Loving the game!! I'm continuing to enjoy the game! It's challenging and fun!
I’ve been playing this game for years and enjoy it, but now, any time I need to reboot my phone, the adds in the game return. I paid to remove adds years ago. G5 wants me to show them the receipt. It’s was paid for many years ago and the receipt is lost in thousands of emails!! They should have this info in my account! This is extremely frustrating! 😡 I spent a good bit of money on this game for years. I refuse to spend another penny now!

by Elisabeth630101

Very undertaining but quite addictive game. In Mahjong matching tiles must be found. In this version of the gane the idea is to discover two gold tiles. The game takes you through a type of journey. In the beginning it is quite easy but soon enough it will become harder and harder. Parallel to this journey there is an additional game alternative which is linked to a seasonal event like Thanksgiving or Christmas. You can use the boosters for support or fun. The boosters can be achieved as a prize from a game or a series of games or bought in a store. As an additional motivation there are collections where you want to find a series of items.

I really enjoy playing Mahjong. It takes my mind away and distracts me which I personally find relaxing. The games are progressively getting harder and harder which can be quite frustrating. Nevertheless I always find the solution at some time and can keep going.

There are many other versions of Mahjong. What I love about this version is the lovely design of every detail. The team puts a lot of effort in the appearance of the game. It doesn’t look tinky or outdated, it‘s simply fun to look at the colourful background and the tiles, too.