Mahjong Trap

Mahjong Trap
Title screen of the Joy Van release.
Publisher	Thin Chen Enterprise
Developer	Joyvan
Cart ID(s)	TC-010
Console	Famicom
Date	1989 (Joy Van), 1990 (Sachen & Hacker)
Alternate names/hacks	Mahjong Trap (Sachen & Hacker), Shisen Mahjong (Hacker)

Mahjong Trap (四川麻將 in Chinese) is a Mahjong solitaire Famicom game developped by Joyvan and distributed by Thin Chen Enterprise. It's Joyvan's last released Famicom title before they got incorporated in Sachen.

Overview

The game is one of several mahjong solitaire games released by Sachen. In the game the player(s) tackle six difficulty levels with three levels in each that reward their own set of adult images upon completion of each stage. The game's notable in that it features voice clips (although low quality) and is very difficult, partially due to the lackluster programming.

There's a two-player mode in the game where if a connection isn't made in time, a sound clip will play and the other player will take control. This is probably the best way to tackle the game, considering how complex the puzzles get.

Gallery

Original cartridge

Complete copy of the Hacker release.

A win image from the Joy Van release.

Title screen of the Hacker release.

A win image from the Hacker release.

See also: Mahjong Trap/gallery

Trivia

• Sachen made a lot of changes to the game when they took over Joyvan. With Hacker International, they updated the title screen, removed credits and changed the adult content.
• Part of Joyvan staff left after this game to form Idea-Tek.
• The game is very rough, even compared to the mahjong solitaire minigame in Magic Mathematics. The cursor controls feel sticky and sometimes unresponsive and you can actually cause a game over by using the autocomplete feature too fast since the game hasn't caught up that there's more tiles that can be removed. This isn't helped by the fact that the stages are very tricky and give you very little time to complete them.
• Two versions of the game were released; the original Joy Van version and the Hacker International version which features music and upgraded graphics with the victory images being recycled from prior Sachen games like Bingo 75 and Lucky Casino 777.
• While the Hacker published versions feature their game revision, some copies that Sachen published within Taiwan feature it as well; it somewhat random what copy a cartridge will contain. The Joy Van one is typically found in non-Sachen molded carts, while the Hacker version is easier found in ones featuring the custom Sachen cartridge molding.