Riichi Endgames: Free Riichi Mahjong Puzzles

Riichi Endgames is a riichi mahjong puzzle game built the way chess players train endgames. Every puzzle is a single moment from a real-looking four-player hand: all four discard piles lie on a 3D table, the dora indicator sits on the console in the middle, you have just drawn your 14th tile, and you have to decide what to throw. Tap one tile and your tiger paw lays it in your discard pile. There is exactly one correct answer, and the game can prove it.

There are two kinds of puzzle. In attack puzzles you are close to winning and must pick the discard that leaves the most live winning tiles. A tile is live if you cannot see it anywhere: not in your hand, not in any discard pile, not as the dora indicator. The wait that looks widest on paper often loses, because three of its tiles are already sitting in the rivers. Early levels ask you to choose between ready (tenpai) hands; from level 41 you work one step earlier, at 1-shanten, and count every tile that would make you ready, which is what riichi players call acceptance or ukeire. It is a mahjong efficiency trainer that counts the table, not just your hand.

In defense puzzles an opponent has declared riichi, their declaring tile turned sideways, and you must find the one tile in your hand that is 100% safe. Riichi rules make that provable through furiten: a player can never win off a discard of a tile they already threw themselves (genbutsu), and after a riichi they can never win on a tile they let pass when someone else threw it. The game makes sure exactly one tile in your hand qualifies. Suji tiles, the classic one-to-four-to-seven reading, look tempting and show up as decoys in the later levels, but suji only rules out one two-sided wait, so they are never 100% safe. When you pick one, the game shows you a wait the riichi player could be holding that wins on it.

After every puzzle a Why? screen explains the answer. For attack it lists each candidate discard with its waits, greys out every copy already seen and rings those copies on the table. For defense it circles the safe tile in the right discard pile and shows a wait that beats every other tile you could have thrown. New terms such as tenpai, genbutsu, furiten and suji get a one-line definition the first time they appear.

The 80 main levels climb from obvious waits to close calls and from simple genbutsu to tiles passed after the riichi, and mixed drills continue beyond them. A daily puzzle, the same for everyone, makes a good warm-up and a good thing to share. Answers on the first try earn the most points, and your total goes to the leaderboard. It is free, needs no download or sign-up, and plays with a mouse or by touch.