@~Something Different ....

                 Sarakon - Virgin Leisure Genius
                Reviewed on an STe by James Judge

Picture this:

The dark, dingy streets of Peking where a group of old, Chinese
men are sat around an upturned crate. Around them 'keriket' races
are going on, many types of fish are for sale and a couple of
people are being beaten up by a group of thugs.

On the table are many strange tablets, about the size of a small
matchbox laid out in a seemingly haphazard way. One old man,
peering over a pair of spectacles suddenly makes a flurry of
movements, pairing up equal pairs of these tablets and whisking
them off the crate in the blink of an eye.

That is the game of Mah Jongg.

Picture this:

A dark room inhabited by someone (who is called an 'adventurer')
who is poised over a table and computer, glaring at the screen. In
his right hand is clutched a mouse. On the screen are a number of
tablets resembling those found in Peking. The adventurer suddenly
makes a flurry of moves, failing to match any pairs at all and
runs out of time.

That is the game of Sarakon, a Mah Jongg, er, simulator (for want
of a better word).

The first time I saw the game Mah Jongg (MJ) was on a high
resolution emulator on the ST with piddly little tablets that you
could barely make out, I wasn't very impressed. Then I got a low
resolution game that was a great improvement, but sometimes on the
random levels the computer made the game impossible to complete
and it was just a standard MJ game.

Then Sue, in her complete kindness, send me this MJ game.

Upon loading you are given a nice little ditty that sounds like
tracker music and then it is straight onto the options menu.
There are two game choices (more on that later), info about the
program, high score table and quit to TOS.

Let me just explain, for the uninitiated, what MJ is. You start
off with little tablets (about the size of small matchboxes when
using a proper sized set, and not a computer mock-up) which are
laid randomly on a surface. Each tablet has got a little picture
or mark on them. The pictures vary from set to set and mean
different things. Each tablet has got a twin (sometimes more, but
always so that the total number of tablets with the same picture
on are even).

When all the pieces are laid out on the surface (sometimes in more
than one layer or 'stack') the timer then starts (I don't know
whether real MJ games are timed or not, but the computer versions
are) and it is up to you to remove pairs of the same picture.

Sounds easy, but it isn't. There are a few restrictions to your
pair-removal. Actually, there are only two ways in which you can
remove a pair of similar tablets and that is by:

     1) Being able to draw a line between the two that doesn't go
through any other piece, down or up a stack and has no less than
two changes of direction in it.
     2) The pieces being next to each other.

When you find a pair just (in the computer versions) click on them
and they should disappear, allowing you to pair off more and more
tablets until you have cleared the whole table.

Right, back to the review.

The two games you can choose from are expert or beginner. On
expert level you have a shorter time limit and you aren't able to
pair tablets off on different stacks. On the beginners level you
have far easier time limits (ie: on the expert level 3 you are
given 100 seconds to clear about 150 tablets (never counted them).
On the beginners level you are given closer to 300 seconds) and
can pair tablets off that are on different stacks. The inter-stack
pairing does have a draw-back, though, but you'll have to find
that out by yourself.

During the game you have got two jokers which are employed by
clicking the right mouse button. You are then able to click on one
type of tablet and all of the same tablets on that level
disappear.

Also during the game there are special tablets such as ones that
give you a free joker or more time and sometimes the computer will
highlight a tablet and if you are able to remove that tablet
within about 15 seconds you get a time bonus too.

Every fourth or fifth level you are given a bonus level to get you
more points. One notable one gives you to start with, two pairs of
tablets. You must then remove one pair and then another two appear
on the screen with the one remaining tablet. When you have removed
thirty odd pair the screen gets very confusing and you can't use
jokers and there aren't any time bonuses.  The other bonus stage
is where you have one stack of tablets all face down and it is
like the kiddies' card game where you must turn two over at a
time, trying to find pairs. With up to about 150 (or thereabouts)
tablets on the screen this, too, can get very difficult.

The manual, although it is short, is very well written, explaining
everything that you need to know. The rest is gained from playing
the game.

With clear graphics, smooth tablet removal, unobtrusive noises,
frustrating and exhilarating game play you couldn't ask for a
better game. This is by far the best MJ game that I have seen and
it will have me coming back to it quite regularly. Oh, and there
is a high score table that lets your friends see just how bad you
are at the game.



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