How to Play Mosaic

1. Click or tap any highlighted (free) tile to select it.
2. Select a second free tile of the same type — both are removed and you score points.
3. A tile is free when nothing sits on top of it and at least one side is open.
4. Build combo streaks by matching pairs back-to-back without using hints.
5. Use Hint (H) to highlight a valid pair at a small score cost, or Shuffle to rearrange.
6. Clear all 144 tiles to win — a time bonus rewards fast clears.

Strategy Tips for Mosaic

Free online mahjong solitaire rewards careful order more than speed — and unlike download-only clients, Mosaic loads instantly in your browser. The most common mistake is matching the first free pair you see; the better habit is to scan all four copies of a tile type before committing. If three of the four are buried under upper layers and only one is currently free, removing the wrong pair early can strand its twin under a stack you can no longer reach. Free a tile, then check whether its match is also free and whether either was unblocking something more valuable underneath.

Keep an eye on the upper layers. The emperor tile on layer six and the tiles directly beneath it tend to be the last to open up, and a board can look comfortable until you realise four matching characters are buried in the central pillar with no path down. Whenever a layer-three or layer-four tile becomes free, prefer matching it first so its weight is removed from the stack. Flowers and Seasons are wildcards within their groups — any flower matches any other flower, and any season matches any other season — so use them to defuse a stuck stretch rather than hoarding them. Save hints for genuine dead-ends; a single hint costs fifty points and breaks your combo streak, while the streak itself can compound into far more than the hint refunds. Other tile-removal games on the site explore the same plan-ahead pressure with different rule sets — try our other browser puzzle games if you enjoy this kind of board-clearing.

Choosing a Board Layout

Each layout in Mosaic changes how stacking and free-tile detection feel in practice. The Classic turtle is the canonical 144-position Shanghai shape — broad base, narrowing peak, two wing tiles flanking the body. Pyramid trades the wings for a clean tapering pile that funnels every late match through the centre. Dragon spreads tiles along a long serpentine spine, which means more first-move options but harsher punishment for matching out of order on the ends. Fortress wraps an outer wall around an inner keep, so the early game opens edges while the late game forces you into the keep through narrow doorways. Daily reuses the Classic shape but pins the shuffle to today's date, so every player worldwide gets the same tile arrangement. Whether you're a Shanghai mahjong veteran or new to tile-matching games, each layout teaches a different cadence.

The Daily Challenge and Streak System

Daily Challenge mode replaces the random shuffle with a seeded Mulberry32 pseudo-random generator keyed off the current UTC date. The board is identical for every player on the same day, the daily leaderboard uses a per-day key so it does not mix with the standard high-score table, and your completion is stored locally so you can see your streak the moment you load the page. Mosaic shares a logic-and-deduction sensibility with the rest of our logic puzzle collection on the site, including Hanjie nonograms. The 36 tile types in Mosaic follow the standard mahjong set: nine bamboo, nine circles, nine characters, four winds, three dragons, four flowers and four seasons, four copies of each suited tile, with flowers and seasons matching by group rather than by exact tile.