Plus Sign Mahjong Solitaire
About the Plus Sign Layout
The Plus Sign layout arranges 32 tiles into a single flat cross: a short vertical bar crossing a short horizontal bar, meeting in a solid center square. There are no stacked layers here, so every tile sits in plain view from the moment the board opens. The four arms of the plus reach out toward the edges of the play area, and the tiles in the middle of the cross are packed tightly together where the two bars overlap. It is an open, symmetrical board that looks calm and reads clearly, which is exactly the point for a one-star puzzle.
Playing the Plus Sign feels gentle and unhurried. Because the shape is a single layer, a tile is blocked only when it has neighbors pressing on both its left and right sides, never by something sitting on top of it. The tips of the four arms are free right away, and as you peel tiles inward the arms shorten until the dense crossing in the middle finally opens up. The difficulty is genuinely beginner-level: there is almost no hidden information, and the main thing you are learning is how horizontal blocking works on a shape that is not a plain rectangle.
Difficulty: Easy (1/5) | Tiles: 32
How to Clear the Plus Sign Layout
Start at the four arm tips. The single tile capping the top, bottom, left and right ends of the cross is always open on at least one side, so those eight or so outermost tiles are your easiest matches. Clearing them does double duty: it scores quick pairs and it begins shortening each arm toward the center.
Work the arms inward evenly rather than emptying one arm completely. The crux of the Plus Sign is the crowded crossing square in the middle, where tiles are boxed in on both sides by the arms feeding into it. If you shorten all four arms at a steady pace, the center tiles lose their horizontal neighbors sooner and a lot of locked pairs suddenly free up together.
Watch for matches that span two different arms. Because the layout is symmetrical, the same tile face often appears on opposite sides of the cross, and pairing a top-arm tile with a bottom-arm tile keeps both arms shrinking instead of leaving one long and stubborn. Treat the whole plus as one connected shape, not four separate sticks.
The endgame is the simplest part. Once the arms are gone, the few remaining center tiles are exposed on every side and you can clear them in almost any order. If you ever do paint yourself into a corner by gutting one arm too fast, the Shuffle button re-deals the remaining tiles into a fresh solvable arrangement, so a stuck Plus Sign is never a dead end.
The Story Behind the Plus Sign Layout
The plus sign, or cross, is one of the oldest and most universal marks humans make: it appears as a mathematical symbol of addition, as a medical and aid emblem, and as a sign of balance with four equal arms radiating from a shared heart. Its perfect fourfold symmetry is what makes it such a friendly teaching shape, every direction is the same, so nothing about it feels intimidating.
On a Mahjong board, the cross is the most natural way to step beyond the plain rectangle. The four arms create open ends and clear sightlines while the overlapping middle introduces a small, contained knot of difficulty. It is a shape that says addition in more ways than one: it adds a center of gravity to the puzzle and adds the idea that not every board is a solid block of tiles.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are the tiles in the middle of the plus the hardest to remove?
The center is where the horizontal and vertical arms overlap, so those tiles are wedged between neighbors on both sides at once. A tile only frees up when one of its sides is clear, and in the crossing square both sides stay blocked until the arms feeding into them have been shortened. Reduce the arms first and the center opens up on its own.
Does the Plus Sign have any stacked tiles I cannot see?
No. The Plus Sign is a single flat layer, so every one of its 32 tiles is visible from the start and nothing is hidden underneath another tile. The only thing that can block a tile is a neighbor directly to its left or right, which makes this one of the most transparent boards to read.
Should I clear one arm of the cross completely before starting another?
It is better to shorten all four arms roughly evenly. Emptying a single arm does not help the packed center much, but trimming every arm a little lets the middle tiles lose their side neighbors sooner, which releases several stuck pairs around the same time.
Is the Plus Sign always winnable?
Yes. Every deal is generated by working backwards from a fully solved board, so a complete solution always exists. If you remove tiles in an order that leaves no legal moves, press Shuffle to re-deal the remaining tiles into another guaranteed-solvable layout and keep going.
See more Easy Mahjong Solitaire boards, or browse all layouts.
