2-4-1 Jewel Quest Solitaire & Super Mahjong Quest

When serious, brooding games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R and Gothic 3 are asserting themselves with ever more authority on the mobile platform, it's tempting to suppose that one day the casual games that get dismissed on most platforms will also be dismissed on mobile. One day, that is, solitaire and mahjong will make way for something proper.

We hope not. The mobile isn't just the platform that puts up with such shovelware, after all, but the platform that takes it seriously, the last refuge for a genre of games that was around long before Space Invaders, and still has plenty to offer. Both Jewel Quest Solitaire and Super Mahjong Quest are cases in point.

Jewel Quest Solitaire is set against the big-leafy backdrop of Central America, a curiously popular destination amongst puzzle game developers. What makes it work is the sheer profusion of features it tacks onto a game normally favoured by those who are in prison.

The object of solitaire, for those still ignorant, is to lay down seven progressively longer rows of cards – one at the left-hand side to seven at the right – all face down except for the lowermost card on each column. Then, using the rest of the pack as a buffer, you have to arrange the cards into suits and sequences by first ordering them numerically in alternating colours at the ends of the columns, and then in their own suits in little piles elsewhere.

Don't worry, nobody understands the rules of card games when they're written down like that. Suffice it to say, it's simple.

Encircling this core game are four chapters, each with eight levels, in which you have to arrange all of your cards into their suits to move onto the next. A system of goals and bonuses means you an take this as fast or slow as you like, carefully attempting to complete levels in suit order, and that kind of thing.

Abetting this impeccable version of solitaire is a series of inter-level Jewel Quest levels, in which you get to take a break from the cards with a bit of slim but perfectly respectable match-'em-up puzzling, where the number of moves available to you is linked with your performance in the previous card game.

Neither part of Jewel Quest Solitaire will blow your mind, but as Mike Abolins said in his original review:

"The two games combined manage to add enough entertainment to make Jewel Quest Solitaire seriously worth considering. After all, you are (just about) getting two games for the price of one."

Which means, we suppose, that I-play's latest 2-4-1 is really 3-4-1, buffered as it is by the recent Super Mahjong Quest.

Like Jewel Quest Solitaire, this game takes its source material and adorns it with extra features in order to elevate it above the others in its class. As well as the standard game of mahjong, the object of which is to remove tiles from a stack by pairing them with their twins, there's also the added spice of power-ups.

One of them, Earthquake, causes the stack of tiles to crack in places, revealing the edges of new tiles, while another causes the entire stack to disappear in a single bonus-showering deluge.

Original reviewer Will Freeman, had a couple of problems with Super Mahjong Quest, and not least amongst them was the complaint that some of the power-ups managed to detract from the mahjong experience, rather than enhance it. Receiving a shower of points is all very well, but not if it takes control of the game from you.

Still, with both a Story and Free Play modes, a friendly interface, and immaculate presentation, Super Mahjong Quest is well worth a go. Its only real crime, you could say, is that it tries too hard.

Together, these games represent a formidable puzzle package. As of writing, Super Mahjong Quest is less than three months old, and Jewel Quest Solitaire received an impressive Silver Award when we reviewed it back in January 2007. Solitaire and mahjong may not be unique in the cluttered world of mobile, but the games in this 2-4-1 are amongst the best of their kind.