Kyodai Mahjongg

On February 24th, 1997, a friend of mine told me she was addicted to Taipei. I felt that game just didn't cut the mustard, so I told her I could program something better in less than a week. It took me 4 days to make a working prototype 8-), and just a week to release a first playable version on March 1st. Kyodai Mahjongg was born. :great: And it never died. There is nothing more comforting for me than looking back over the last 10 years and realize how much I've been able to achieve in my quest for the perfect Mahjongg Solitaire game. And what can you improve in a game that is already perfect? Not much. A huge community loves it just like it is.
Share your ideas with us!
:yeah:
(And stop with the smilies, Nao! :p)
:silly:

Great Idea! If you are a New User - THIS IS THE GAME!!!
This Guy put his Heart and Soul into this...What have you got to lose?

Give it a TRY!!!

You just can't lose with this deal. I became addicted to this game since it first came out, and still am!!!!  :yes: :yeah: :yes: :yeahbaby:

GameLifeYears=DogYears=7xHumanYears

That makes KMJ the "Grand Dame" of the genre. Well done, Nao. A heart-felt "Thank You" for your many contributions.

Joyeuse Anniversaire!

Thanks, everyone ;)

congrats!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, KYODAI MAHJONGG!

CONGRATULATIONS, GILLES!


My parents were still considering joining, but have kept putting it off.  I'd better make sure to tell them about the "Anniversary Special."  Maybe that'll be the impetus to get them to join in!

KMJ sure is worth the money, no matter what the price.  I'm glad I stumbled upon it some 9 years ago.  It's my favorite game of all.

I started out being somewhat addicted to Taipei myself but thought it could be so much better than it was.  So I eventually tried a lot of Mah Jongg solitaire games over the years, and KMJ is easily the best.

Now if only KMJ allowed seven layers of tiles so I could play the standard Taipei layout!!!   :lol:

Here's a layout to commemorate the occasion.   :yeah:

[EDIT]

The layout didn't show up.  Not sure why.

[EDIT #2]

Well, it's available in the Private Downloads.

Congrats Nao!  :yeah:

I went hunting for a customizing replacement to Shanghai back in March of 2001, stumbled across Marc Lesselberg's site & Kyodai at the same time. Long story short...made my first tileset (Beermats) in the same month, and then went nuts making many more! :-)

I put in a shameless plug for KMJ on my Live Journal blog.  Yes, oh yes, I did!  Hey, when you have a good thing, you tell everyone, right?  ;)

One of my friends liked what she saw and said it's the prettiest setup she's ever seen of mahjongg.  Alas, she has a Mac, so the files are not compatible.  Bummer.  She needs a "real" computer so she can buy KMJ!  :lol:

Congratulations  Nao for excellent work all these years. Here's to many more years to come :yeah:

Congrats Nao  8-) :yeahbaby:
I've been enjoying playing it for about 8 years now  :great:

 :heart:
Kathie

Hi Kathie, welcome to the forums :-),

Nao, couldn't Boosters friend use a Windows emulator to run KMJ on her Mac?

Congrats, Nao. Here's hoping for another 10 years of success.  :app: :app: :yeah: :yeahbaby:

Hi Kathie and welcome to our forum.  :yeah:

Well, if she has an Intel Macintosh, she can still use BootCamp and install XP on her machine (multi-boot).
If she has an older Mac, she's probably out of luck. Emulators do work, but there's little chance they will run the latest versions of the game. The early 2D versions will probably work, though...

I join to the messages of CONGRATULATIONS..... HAPPY 10th ANNIVERSARY!!!  :yeah:  :app:

Kyodai is really a very good program... Thanks in order to have produced it.


P.S.: a special greet (salute) to all the members of the forum... :)

Hi Tayk, and welcome to our forum.  :yeah: :yeahbaby:

Happy Birthday !

Hello,

Thanks to realise Layouts, but the fils I upload is not openable by Kyodai !

Could you send me it by mail

Thanks in advance

Thanks for that note regarding the Mac, Gilles.  I'll pass it on to her, and then she can do as she wishes.  :)

Looks like another member from good ol' Arizona! Hi, Kathie!

Welcome to the forum Tayk :-)

Hi Webangel, Hi kryton and... Hi to all of you!!

Thanks for the positive acceptance.

Would that I were midway in the journey of my life. 8-)

Thanx for the welcome  :)

And John, yep, I live in Mesa........what part of Arizona are you from?

 :yeah:
Kathie

I'm up in Grayhawk, across the street from DC Ranch. If I were to look to the south off my balcony, I could probably see you waving "HI".

If my eyes were good enough, that is. :-D

Has it been ten years since I installed the first disquette?
Time sure flies... and Kyodai as been a faithful companion all along.
Thank you, a whole ten years of them.

Hi JP, and welcome to our forum.  :yeah: :yeahbaby:

Welcome to the forum JP :-)

Congratulations!
You are right, it's perfect.
My family and me still play it almost daily for years now, so it is money well spend.

Thanks again for a great game that never looses its value or its fun.

 :app:
Jan Roza

Hi JanRoza and welcome to our forum. Enjoy.  :yeah: :yeahbaby:

Welcome to the forum JanRoza :-)

So Naoki, are you saying that with Kyodai 2006 v1.42 you've finally reached the ultimate version ?  ;)

Welcome to the forum Filouk :-)

Welcome to our forum Filouk.  :yeah:

Thanks ! Years ago I helped Naoki a little, with beta-testing Kyodai and giving some suggestions. For example I remember that I used to create a lot of layouts (Hourglass and Hovercraft are by me) and the program would not allow to display them all in the list, so we had the idea of the "layout selector" you all know about. Good memories ! ;)

Hi filouk!

I remember the name "Vincent Krebs" associated with the Hourglass layout.  Is this you or am I mistaken?  Just curious...  :-)

Hello Raveneye. Yes it's me. I also made the layout called "one move", which I believe is the only 144-tile disposition that makes only 1 move available at the beginning of the game. Just have a look at the file "what'sold.rtf" in the "help" directory and see the section "New features in 5.28", where Naoki thanks me for beta-testing Kyodai. I was quite good at finding bugs.

Hi Vincent ;) Didn't think you still were into KMJ ;)
Yes, I remembered how many times you managed to piss me off with your requests and suggestions ;) And I just as well remember how many times you made good suggestions and submitted good stuff like Hourglass, which is still my favorite KMJ layout (just after the regular Traditional one)! (No wonder I used it for some screenshots!)
We shared a total of 197 e-mails between 1998 and 2001! (Plus 8 e-mails in June 2003) I kept them all. :D

As for your question...
Well, as far as I can tell, KMJ 2006 1.42 is the "final" offline version. I still have an update in the works, but it just adds transparent windows, which is really no big deal. (I'm through with the "cosmetic-only" changes...)

There are still things I could add:
- interoperability with the server (hall of fame, game matching, chat, ingame downloads)
- extra mini-games (but I'll never do these. And even if I did, it would be in a game separate from KMJ itself ;))
- err, probably lots of other things, but if I can't remember them, they're not so good after all ;)

So I'm not saying I'll release any more versions of KMJ, of course. But after 10 years of development, one could say I don't *have* to ;) I'm probably the only one who thinks the game is still far from what I envision.

Hi Naoki ! Nice to talk to you after all this time ;)



Sorry about that ;) I know that I may have sometimes seemed to you like an "enculeur de mouches" :lol: which I believe I can really be, from time to time  ^_^



Thanks ! I used to get happy each time we could agree with each other...   :yeah:



I remember, when I submitted it to you, you found it quite difficult  ;) I saw that a modified easier version had been created as well...



 :yes:



That's a great accomplishment !  :app:

:)

I think the English equivalent would be "nit-picking" ;)

That's also why it's so good! ;)
It looks great and it's a bit harder than the rest!

Oh my, it makes me think, I'd always promised myself to introduce difficulty settings into KMJ... "Normal" would be the current mode, "Easy" would be the same but without any maluses when you use Hint or Shuffle, and "Hard" would disable the "Hint" and "Shuffle" features. I for one would love to play KMJ with these features disabled ;)

I'm not so sure about that! One could call me lazy!

Hi Nao. I, for one, wouldn't call you lazy.  :no: I believe you accomplished a lot.  :yeah: :yeahbaby:

Hi, what about Windows Vista and directX 10 ?

Do you think would be worth to convert the game in Dx10 ? Any good change from them ?
I don't remember if the game now is in OpenGl or DX, I just remember time ago you rewrite the code but if my memory doesn't leak you came back from that update.

 :yeah:

Hi and welcome runfox, FYI the code is DX but does not use any DX10 specifics.

In my opinion Nao would be limiting the distribution somewhat to write for DX10. I personally can not see a "must have" feature of DX10 that would make Nao change. Just my 0.02 :D

Sure.
I don't even have a "must have" feature in DX9 itself ;)

We're talking about a Mahjongg game, really! It already has the best looking graphics for a mahjongg solitaire, I really don't see what I could do to improve the graphics by switching to a newer version of DirectX (and in the meantime make the game incompatible with older video cards)...

Hi, ...

Kyodai 10 year anniversary, ...  :yeah:

See the file attached, for the screenshot of Kyodai V1.21 in 1997.

The last version of Kyodai, with the transparent look, is verry good.

Also, and i have not make a bug report since a lot of months, ...

(It is solid and stable and transparent since some months, and cost the price of to be not the cheap imitation(s) type, = like a Diamond)  :great:

I have even made my part, to improve Kyodai.

Korgul

Hi, ...

>> Cost the price of to be not the cheap imitation(s) type, ...

I mean for the cost of money to buy a registration of Kyodai,  cost a little and worth the price.  :great:

And,  it not a cheap software multi-games = (in graphics, musics and mini games).

Sylvain St-Amand

Hey, KMJ really has come a long way in ten years!!    :yeah: :app:

Thanks for the reminder -- Nao should be very proud of what he has accomplished!    :yeahbaby:  :app: :app: :app:

Seconded, it sure has. It certainly has "kept up with the times" doesn't show its age at all :D I guess it is due to all its face lifts ;)

Oh, my!

"Remember the Asgard brothers"... That what one hell of a silly geeky comment! I'm ashamed of that one now :lol:

With the layup identity number maybe it is poss. to make Internet deathmatch/head2head - soo that 2 players over the internet finish the same layup and theone that is faster wins

Well it's always been somewhere "in my plans"... But I never got around to including this.

Although, you can somehow do that by sending the layout # to your friend by e-mail, and then you can compete over time ;)

I am a quiet, but confirmed addict. Thank you for a wonderful game that I am even more addicted to than WOW. Happy 10th, and many more to come. I would buy it again and again, and all my lil chillins <all 3 of my sons> love it too.  :app:

Welcome, MommaBear!  :-D

Yay, another quiet addict speaks up!  :app:

Thank you! :)

Welcome SirN and Mommabear to the forums :-)

Hi SirN and welcome to our forum.  :yeah: :yeahbaby:

I am one of the quiet devotees of KMJ.   I have had the game for 7 out of those 10 years and consider KMJ the ONLY Mahjongg worth playing! THANKS Nao for 7 yrs of fun! :app:

Hi dmnewlife, and welcome to our forum. Feel free to post on the other threads and meet some of our other bunch that hang out there. I'm sure you'll have fun there.  :yeah: :yeahbaby:

Welcome, dmnewlife.  Thanks for introducing yourself.  :)

And I couldn't agree with you more.  Nao's Kyodai Mahjongg is the best of them all!   :app:

Hi dmnewlife, Welcome to the forums :-)

 :app:
thank you for such a great game been playing for the last 5 years and still am.
once again
thank you
 :yeah: :app:

Thanks :)
Hope you enjoy the extra games on the private forum. They're not as good as KMJ but still, it's nice to be able to compete against each other once in a while ;)

snowman, I've moved your post there (http://cynagames.com/bbs/index.php?topic=1095.0), away from the public eye.

Naoki -- Definite thanks for 10 years of KMJ.  The only thing that could make it better is a way to incorporate two different tilesets into the game at the same time [and have 288-tile layouts, too!]

Just a thought [and a thinly veiled hint :eheh:]

I'll second that as a great idea!    :yes:  :yeah:   :app:   :great:

Two more layers of tiles would also be nice, and almost essential for 288 tile layouts!

But my real favorite is adding support for 24 bit color!!   ;)

@dmaggard> I'm afraid the ball is not in my league for this... It's a graphic driver issue I guess. Did you ever consider upgrading to a better video card? ;)

@mebewatashi> 288-tile layouts aren't the traditional way of playing MJS. And I'm afraid the KMJ engine is too rigid on the matter of layouts anyway. I mean, I could look into it, but I'd risk breaking many things by trying to add new features, lol. It's not like I'm very familiar with my own source code right now. I haven't touched it in years! :^^;:

Yeah I know, it's a shame etc... Only thing I can tell you is: when you work for 10 years making something perfect, all you can see after that is where you failed. Even though all I've heard in 2 years is "there's no room left for improvement, it's perfect as it is", seeing only KMJ's failed points is a curse. But it's a good thing that I'm the only one who can see them, isn't it? ;)

Hi, I've just finished looking through some old disks. My first Mahjongg was by Nels Anderson and was thoroughly enjoyable. I've been playing your Mahjongg for so long that I can't remember when I started. I have been remiss in thanking you for the many years of pleasure and the effort that you have devoted to this evolution of a great game. Please accept my apologies and

THANK YOU THANK YOU SO MUCH  :yeah:
     

You're welcome ;)

Many years ago I tried the game and bought it shortly thereafter. Absolutely loved it then and still do. Thanks so much for keeping the game and this website alive.