Tile Temple: mahjong solitaire tips to clear the board

How mahjong solitaire works in Tile Temple

Tile Temple is the single-player tile-matching game, not four-player mahjong. The table holds a layout of glossy 3D tiles stacked into a temple, a tower or a bridge, and you remove them in identical pairs until the table is empty. Tap one tile, then its twin, and both fly off together.

Only free tiles can be taken. A tile is free when nothing lies on top of it and its left or its right side is open. Both conditions count: a tile on the top layer is still blocked if tiles sit against it on both sides, and a tile with an open side is still blocked if another tile covers it. This one rule is the whole puzzle, and almost every tip below follows from it.

There is no timer, so the game rewards looking more than tapping. Take as long as you like over every pair.

Read the board before you tap

Tile Temple does some of the looking for you. Blocked tiles are softly shaded, so the bright ones are exactly the tiles you can take right now. Two pills at the top of the screen count the tiles left and the free pairs available at this moment.

Make the free-pairs pill part of every move. When it shows several pairs, you have room to choose the one that opens the most new tiles. When it drops to one, the next pair you take decides whether the board stays open, so stop and check what that pair will uncover before you tap.

Start at the top and at the ends of the rows

Tiles on the top layers sit on others, so taking them uncovers whatever is underneath. Tiles at the ends of long rows block their neighbours, so taking them opens the next tile along. A tile in the middle of a long row stays blocked until one end of that row is cleared, which is why a long row is best worked from the outside in.

So when two pairs are free and you can only pick one, prefer the pair that frees more tiles: a top tile over a bottom tile, a row end over a short stub that blocks nothing. Pairs on the bottom layer with nothing waiting behind them can usually wait, because they will still be free later.

It also helps to spread your work. Clearing one corner deep while the top of the temple is still full tends to leave the tiles you need buried under the part you have not touched.

Three or four of a kind: choose the right pair

The same face can be on the table four times, which makes two pairs. If all four copies are free at once, take both pairs and the face is gone for good. The tricky case is three free copies with the fourth still blocked somewhere.

Here the wrong pair can bury the last copy. Look at what each free copy is blocking. Keep the copy that blocks nothing important, and take the two that sit on top of or beside other tiles. And check where the blocked fourth copy is: if one of the free copies is the tile that covers it, take that one now, so the fourth copy can come out later and find a partner.

The same thinking works with only two copies free. If one of them is the only thing covering a tile you need, that pair is worth more than a pair that opens nothing.

Flowers, seasons and the other tile faces

The faces are drawn for the game: dots, bamboo and numbers from one to nine, four winds and three dragons. These match only an identical tile. Flowers and seasons are the exception: any flower matches any other flower, and any season matches any other season.

That makes flowers and seasons the most flexible tiles on the board. There is no need to rush them. Since any two of a kind will do, they can often sit and wait as a spare pair for the moment when nothing else is free.

Undo, shuffle, the bulb and your stars

Three helpers are always on screen. Undo takes the last pair back, and Ctrl+Z does the same on a computer. The bulb shows you a free pair when you cannot spot one. Shuffle deals the tiles that are left again, and the new deal is still clearable.

Use them freely if you just want to finish, but know what they cost: stars depend only on how much help you used, and a clean clear with no undo, shuffle or hint is worth three stars. If you run out of pairs, a shuffle is always better than a dead end. If you are chasing three stars, try a few undos first to find the move that went wrong, then replay that stretch.

Taking pairs quickly one after another plays a rising chime. It changes nothing in the score, but it is a nice sign that the board is opening up.

How the layouts grow, and what to play next

Levels run as an endless series of layouts. You start on a small two-layer staircase of 52 tiles, then move through a gate, twin towers, a diamond and a bridge to the full 144-tile temple. Bigger layouts mean taller stacks and longer rows, so the habits above matter more as you climb. Tile Temple is free on crokocat and runs in the browser on desktop, phone and tablet; on a phone, hold it upright.

If you want another calm game with a streak to keep alive between temples, try Three Peaks, a TriPeaks solitaire where you play cards one higher or one lower than the open card to clear three peaks.

Three PeaksTriPeaks solitaire — one up or one down, clear the three peaksPlay now

Frequently asked questions

Guides & tips

• The best free online games of 2026
• Free offline games you can play in your browser
• Games for grandma: easy free games with no timer

Play it here

• Tile Temple — Mahjong solitaire — take the free tiles in pairs and clear the temple
• Three Peaks — TriPeaks solitaire — one up or one down, clear the three peaks