Google Earth

I'm playing with the new Google Earth app, and it's very cool. I won't bother posting a link for you, it's at the top of the Free Apps list right now. Check it out.

Oh, and its 3D touch movement controls are exactly like Moonlight Mahjong's. Go figure!

Performance Improvements Coming

Since people have been submitting quite a few larger layouts (including some of my personal favorites, including today's), I've made some performance improvements to Moonlight Mahjong that will make large layouts render much more smoothly. I'm not sure yet whether the improvements will be delivered in a version 1.1.2 or 1.2, but the work is already done, so it will be showing up at some point. I'm in the middle of some other big projects, though, so it could be a few weeks before it does show up.

A New Old Review

I just stumbled across this nice review from Appletell that's a few months old now.  

For those who've discovered Moonlight Mahjong more recently, it may be worth reminiscing that Moonlight Mahjong was one of the first App Store games to offer a free "lite" version. Now, of course, almost everyone is offering one, unless the game is so massively promoted that it doesn't need one. But back in the early days of the App Store, with no sales information coming from Apple, releasing a free version represented something of a gamble. A few people even suggested I was crazy for doing it. In fact, for a while in the very early days it wasn't clear if Apple was going to let me do it. But I'd have to say it's worked out alright so far.

Moonlight Mahjong is currently featured under "What's Hot" on the App Store. Thank you, Apple.

Moonlight Mahjong version 1.1.1, featuring Undo

Moonlight Mahjong version 1.1.1 is now available. 

The biggest addition to this version is the "Undo" feature. You can now "undo" any match you make on the board by touching the "undo" icon that appears in the lower left of the screen after you've made the first match. You can "undo" all the way back to the beginning of the game. I worried that this feature would make the game to easy, but - long story short - it doesn't seem to. In fact, for a tricky board, it often doesn't seem to help much at all, which I think is terrific. If you have any objections to the Undo feature, or really like it, or even are neutral, feel free to sound off in the comments. I do listen to feedback.

In addition, tile selection has been improved somewhat. Now, if the exact area of the screen you actually tap just misses a tile, that tile may still be selected - just to make life a little bit easier. You may or may not consciously notice it, but in lab testing the difference was visible.

There are also a couple new options for editing layouts: Rotate the layout, and flip the layout vertically.

Most of the Midnight Martian-authored layouts that have been posted to the Layouts Blog to date, have now been added to the game. That brings us up to 41 built-in layouts, including some I'm particularly fond of, like "Castle." There are many other layouts contributed by Moonlight Mahjong players that are only available on the Layouts Blog, so be sure to check it out.

Finally, there are a handful of minor bug fixes.

As always, this is a free update to Moonlight Mahjong if you have already purchased the game. Please let me know if you have any problems downloading it.