Maggie

Glad to help!

Without seeing the aforementioned videos or having any reference of your strategies & play style, it's hard to pinpoint what needs improvement - and how much I could actually help.


To give you an idea of Mahjong scoring, I just tried a Butterfly board (seconding Vendrus, it's the best one) and timed it; the board was cleared in 2 minutes, 12 seconds, with no shuffling and a score of 4,537 - just 5 points shy of my personal high score.

The time bonus accounted for 937 points, the other 3,600 being the base score with no penalties from shuffling. For the 4,400 points needed, the aim is to complete the board with a time bonus of at least 800, and no reshuffle. I do not know the minimum time needed off the top of my head, but I'll let you know if I find out.


So, yes, it sounds like time is your current struggle, but I'm not just gonna tell you to "go faster." If it turns out there is simply a hard-cap on how quickly you can play, you may or may not be able to get this achievement for the time being.

Still, I can't make that call for you, and even if practice doesn't make the achievement unlock any faster, you'll always make Treasure in the meantime.


My #1 tip is to focus on big-picture efficiency, not speedrunning. Mahjong is considered a strategy game, not just a puzzle game, and treating it as such may open you to opportunities you didn't see otherwise. Awareness of the board and understanding of the game is key.

That might sound obvious, but hunting and pecking for every match or taking every match you see is a common instinct, and it is deeply sub-optimal play. The goal of the game isn't just to make matches, it's to complete the board - and to do that efficiently, you need awareness of the entire board.

Put another way, developing speed is more important for your decision-making than physical action. If you're struggling on that front, practice and memorization are tools that can only be honed with time and continued effort. My advice can only go so far, and for all I know, you knew all of this already.

The good news is that building good technique tends to improve your speed over time, even if only marginally so in the moment. Practice makes perfect, and getting a better memory for the game & its tiles can't hurt, either.

For technique itself:

1. Instead of scrambling for every match available, stop to examine the board and see the options you have - ideally, look for matches that will expose more tiles you currently cannot see.
   
   That core principle is the backbone of everything I said above, and the key to everything I'll say below. Make more matches available faster, even if it means passing up on an easy one now. Strategy, not speed.
2. Keep in mind that each unique tile on the board comes in a set of 4*, which leaves you with 2 pairs of every tile available. Once you've matched both pairs, that tile type is removed from the board for the rest of the game, leaving you with 1 less symbol to look for.
   
   Broadly keep in mind which tiles you've removed from the current board, and which tiles still have a match waiting somewhere in the mess. Exact memorization isn't required, but knowing what you've already done can be valuable information.
   • *with the exception of the seasonal tiles, which only have 2 tiles apiece, but all of them can be matched together interchangeably, making 4 pairs altogether.
     
     Because of their versatility, I recommend leaving seasonal tiles alone and only removing them if they are blocking off other tiles you need access to (see tip #3 below). If you ever find yourself stumped without a reshuffling prompt, look to the seasonal tiles first.
3. Prioritize clearing tiles that are blocking off other tiles, be it horizontally (on the sides) or vertically (on top of a stack). Open tiles sitting by themselves are low-priority; leave them be until absolutely necessary.
   
   This is the primary reason you shouldn't take every match as soon as you see it. Remember, your goal isn't just to make matches, it's to clear the entire board, and that requires making every tile available to match sooner rather than later.
4. If you ever see 4 of the same non-seasonal tile, all ready-to-match, you can safely match all of them immediately. Keep an eye out for these valuable opportunities, especially near the start of the game.
   
   Conversely, if you have one easy match available, but haven't matched another pair of that tile already, consider saving them for later. It's usually easier to un-bury the second pair one at a time, and match each one with the easy tiles in order to dig deeper.
5. If you have any difficulty processing the tiles visually (the scratch-marks and coins are especially confusing), don't sweat memorizing them too hard. What works for me may not work for you, but the fact remains: you need to solve the entire board, not just individual pairs, and there's no penalty for clicking the wrong thing.
   
   The only concrete advice I have is that I prefer to read the tiles as blocks of color with different shapes, rather than bespoke icons with names. With enough practice, I got used to identifying which was which at a glance. Look at the board, and see what makes sense of it in your eyes.

Once again, I'm not sure how much of that was actually helpful at all. Specific questions are easier to answer. But, I hope this advice serves you well - I may re-use some of it to answer future Mahjong questions should they appear. Good luck!