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How to Win Mahjong Garden HD Puzzles on Hard

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Mahjong Garden HD (Game Logo)Several badges and challenges for Mahjong Garden HD require you to complete puzzles on HARD difficulty. For some reason, Mahjong Garden got a lot harder when it was updated from Flash to HTML5 technology earlier this year. (Maybe the HD stands for Higher Difficulty?)

Never fear, though, BadgeHungry has all of the tips you’ll need to complete Mahjong Garden puzzles on Hard difficulty!

1. Play Out the Layout

When you play Mahjong Garden HD, you are given one of 12 different layouts to play. You have to play the layout you are given to move onto the next one. That said, some layouts are harder than others. For example, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, and Goat in the Animal Puzzle Set are the easiest to win.

Check that you’re playing the Animal Puzzle Set. Click on the TILES button in the lower right of the game screen. Then, click on the tab that says PUZZLE SETS. Select Animal so the thumbnail has a blue outline. Click OK.

Animal Puzzle Set in Mahjong Garden

You can also confirm you are playing the Animal Puzzle Set when your puzzle loads. If you are in Animal, it will say “Year of the…” (for example, Rat) instead of “Temple of the…”.

Now that you know which Animal Puzzle Set layouts are easier, you can complete the harder layouts on EASY difficulty and then switch to HARD when you begin a layout that is easier to complete on hard. You can switch your difficulty level using the arrows at the bottom middle of the game screen.

Difficulty Guide

Play Rat on Easy
Play Ox on Easy
Play Tiger on Hard
Play Rabbit on Hard
Play Dragon on Hard
Play Snake on Hard
Play Horse on Easy
Play Goat on Hard
Play Monkey on Easy
Play Rooster on Easy
Play Dog on Easy
Play Pig on Easy

2. Use Undo and Hints – They’re Free

There are no power-ups to purchase in Mahjong Garden HD, and even better you can use the Hint and Undo buttons an unlimited number of times.

Shelnick says:
If you are at the end of the puzzle but still have a few [tiles] left but have no matches redo some of the matches and maybe there are better moves to make. I did and it saved a couple of the hard puzzles. Anyway, it is worth a try rather then do the whole puzzle again if it works out.

Undo can be used either by clicking the UNDO button or right clicking your mouse on the game board.

3. If All Else Fails: Hints for the Win

As it turns out, all you really have to do is click! This method is completely mindless and doesn’t always result in removing all of the tiles, but if you’re really struggling it might help.

PrairiesDweller says:
How To Win Hard Games Without Really Trying!
1. Just keep on clicking on Hint.
2. If you run out of matches click on New Puzzle.
Feel free to multitask as you sort of play (lol). Watch tv, read, talk to someone,
eat a champagne meal followed by grapes being fed to you, etc.
Only do this on the 5 easier levels posted above.
They are: Tiger, Rabbit, Snake, Dragon & Goat.

You can also use this method when you bump the other layouts back down to easy to get through them without having to strategize in them either.

How About You?

Are you able to win Mahjong Garden puzzles on hard difficulty? Let us know your favorite strategies, tips, and tricks in a comment below.

Comments are closed.

Comments

  1. I agree with going back to easy for difficult animals. As with all Mahjong, I look to work the thickest stacks first. If I have a choice of two different matches for a tile, I look to see which frees up a tile that I can use soonest. M. Garden (even on hard) does not have more than 4 of any specific rank tile, so if you see all 4 take them out. Also if you see 3 of the same rank and one is free standing, match the other 2 because that will free up new possible matches and the free standing one will always be available when you uncover its mate.

  2. I actually had better luck playing the Horse & Pig on Hard, and Tiger & Rabbit on Easy overall.

    I played every animal on hard the first time, but if I didn’t come close I switched to easy. But some layouts are better than others no matter what difficulty level you are playing. Nothing ticked me off more than switching to easy and never having to use the slots…lol

    Good Luck to everyone still working on this badge!!

    Suz

  3. For M. Garden especially I use undo A LOT! When deciding which match to make, I will often click on a tile to see what is under it and undo it back in place to check under the other option.

  4. When I get a difficult puzzle such as the Rat or Rooster, I look to see what tiles are blocking me and if I do not see a match in the beginning I click “New Game” until I see a layout that may work.

  5. I played on hard all the way. Some puzzles I had to play more than once; I either reset or clicked on new puzzle. Hints did help a lot though; I would encourage everyone to use them. This was definitely a lot harder than the flash version though. Good luck to all who’s doing it.

  6. Just in case someone hasn’t noticed yet, Pogo did include the original ability to right click on the mouse button to undo a move, without having to go to the bottom of the page. (This wasn’t available in Java because it was used to access some menu items). It really helps with speeding up the game play.

    • Thanks for that info.!!

      I still have a bunch of M&M Badges to do for MG and will make use of that.

      Suz

    • Thanks for the information!

      Never even thought to try that. Every little bit helps when you have challenges like these. 🙂

    • Thank you, I had not noticed, because I did not know it. Thanks so much to letting us know!!

    • Thank you dottiedeedee. I am using the undo button a lot on the Hard level. I am another one that didn’t know about that.

  7. I played on hard and did the dragon .and won .. thanks for the tips
    question i noticed in the candy set of titles there are no dragons…….i wonder if pogo forget to put them on some of the title sets. we have badges for removing the dragons red green and white on occasion

    • Someone else mentioned this. So (I clicked into every tile set to check. None of them has the dragons.
      There is a WD, RD, GD on the tile set titled Simple (a horrible set of tiles… a mass of circles and squares). I always use the Gem tiles as they are easy to scan for color. And I do prefer the Temple layouts.

      • Excuse me, but those are the accessible tiles and are quite easy to use. I’m almost down to my old times of under 3 minutes using them. And I rarely get time to play them except for a badge.

        And every set has dragons in them. Ask Pogo they have to know which ones they are.

        Accessible has the initials, so they are there.

        Suz

        • Everybody likes what they like. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

          In the “Simple” (Accessible) Tile Set WD, RD, and GD stand for White Dragon, Red Dragon, and Green Dragon.

    • Out of curiosity about the dragons, I loaded a simple, accessible game where I could see WD and GD white and green dragons. In traditional tiles they appeared as blue outlined rectangle and green (grassy looking) Chinese character. In gems they changed to W west and W south winds. All the other tile sets changed to tiles that I could not recognize as distinctive such as curved multicolor candy, pink prickly circle, orange fish, female pogo character (I couldn’t remember what game) and so on. Further, I loaded a new puzzle and repeated the process and the tiles loaded were not the same as before except for traditionals and gems change to Winds.

  8. I too found the HD game more difficult. I loved this game and always played on hard and now it’s not a given on easy, I did quit playing it after ranking out so lost my eye. But it really is a different game.

    Will probably save that hard badge for the upcoming weekly, whatever it may be.

  9. Thanks so very much everyone for the tips! I still haven’t been able to get the badge. And as someone said yesterday about the difference between this game and QA, it has nothing to do with power-ups! It’s just much harder since it changed to HD.

    I’m going to try all these tips esp the first one about doing different puzzles on hard! Thanks so much!!

  10. Thank you Lura for putting up helpful info. I spent a few hours yesterday trying to win a game on Hard level. I didn’t know at that time which puzzle was best played on Hard or played on Easy. I was trying to play them all on Hard. I got 5 out of 10 and then got really stuck. With your help the rest should be a little easier.

  11. Used the hint as to which puzzles are easier to do on hard. Absolutely used the hint button many times and also did undo to back back a few moves in a puzzle and ended up solving it without using the hints. Sure was quicker than redoing an entire puzzle,
    Thanks to everyone who shared hints. It made a difficult badge easier.

  12. In the original version of Mahjong Garden, there used to be a limit to the number of times you could click on hint. I remember when I was first learning the game years ago and couldn’t figure it out and kept clicking on hint after hint and until it wouldn’t let me anymore. I’m sure there is no limit now, and this isn’t a tip, but just a fond memory, lol.

    • I know you could click as many times as you wanted from the time I started in 2008.

      Also the hints were “better” then…now when you use hint its not always the best move available.

      Example is (I use accessible tileset) click hint n Pogo will show you a pair of 8’s…however say there’s 3 available 8’s….your best option is to remove a pair that’s blocking or covering tiles…Pogo will often suggest you remove one of those and one that’s all by itself way out in the field.

  13. A tip of mine that I do is if a tile that has only 1 match (2 tiles each), such as WD., RD, and GD, or N-E-S-W comes up as a “lead” tile, that is a tile that you must get in order to get tons of other tiles in back of it, I always hit “new game” and “new puzzle” and 9/10 times another puzzle comes up with a tile in that spot that has 2 matches (4 tiles each).

    Thank you so much for all the other great tips — this is the best site ever for Pogo tips!

    Have a wonderful day all and good luck to those still doing this badge!

  14. My tips for getting Hard puzzle done are these:
    I seem to use Animal layout, not by choice, just how it happened to be.
    The first 6 are generally easier to get done, the last 4, no doubt I had to do on Easy Level just to bypass them.
    I use the accessible tiles, much easier for me to locate tiles, and expand the screen.
    My system was always trying to clear off top layers first, and work my way down, layer by layer.
    If there were any tiles I needed that as luck would have it, and they were by themselves or very easy to get to, I really tried to avoid using them quickly, cuz I knew I would need them later.
    In many cases, while trying to open up more tiles, I usually found a tile on the left with a coordinating tile on the right side of the puzzle.
    You sometimes need to spend a little time perusing existing tiles and also those you can see on a lower layer, then try to open that up.
    I did use undo and hint as often as I could.
    Sometimes I found that midway through a puzzle, it was just not going as I liked, I just opted for a new puzzle.
    And the best advice, if you’re getting aggravated, walk away, rest your brain and your eyes, and come back a bit later to try again. You’d be surprised that suddenly you get on a winning streak.
    Good luck.

  16. wonderful, don’t know what I would do without BH. Just a tip for the “Winter” MG you don’t have to finish the game just get the winter season up and click new game. GL to all and thank you BH
    rif1945

  17. I’ve done the dog and pig on hard, got them on first try. There’s enough tiles at the bottom to use to pick off the ones in the middle.

  18. Thanks, Lura, for this very helpful site. Just knowing others are struggling for a badge and have met the challenge with their best wits and given us all their best tips is helpful. I used a plan to win the hard puzzle that looked far to difficult. I worked it quickly, using the button below hints—I think it says show all. If I was stuck for a moment I hit that bottom button and it showed all of the moves that l followed quickly—ones I wouldn’t be aware of existed. I was surprised how many they were. I just kept my eye on the time to minimize my time on each puzzle and worked fast. I didn’t try to find the moves for a solution if stuck. I hit the “show all” button quickly and used their hints. I quickly solved the puzzle and hit “next puzzle” if there were few hints. A doable puzzle has lots of moves to make and I worked those. I did only a few puzzles each day and never got frustrated. It’s my way of dealing with the hard puzzles. Good luck all! Phyllis

  19. I completed the badge on hard on this game of month…. i just went thru the animal layout and played .
    If the layout was too hard and switched to east and finish the animal, on to the next animal….. It was challenging … now to try to finish the other game of month badges for this November…. we are also half way the month and Thanksgiving Holiday will be here before we know it… Happy Veterans day to all the vets and supporters..