Sun Mahjong Solitaire
About the Sun Layout
Sun is a bold, radiant design: a glowing central disc with eight rays shooting straight out from it, evenly spaced like the spokes of a wheel. The core is the densest part of the board, layered to give the sun its bright, solid heart, while the eight rays stretch outward as straplike arms that taper as they go. With 98 tiles the symmetry is striking and the whole layout has a confident, beaming presence, the eight rays giving it the look of a sun stamped on an old banner or a child's drawing of a summer day.
At 3 out of 5 this is a moderate board with a clear structural story. The rays are your friends, lined up with open edges and easy to clear, but the layered core holds a knot of tiles that stays locked until the rays have been drawn down to their roots. Sun therefore plays as a study in patience around the middle: the opening is breezy thanks to all those accessible rays, and the tension builds only as the glow at the center becomes the last thing standing. It is approachable without being trivial.
Difficulty: Hard (3/5) | Tiles: 98
How to Clear the Sun Layout
Start at the outer tips of the rays. The far ends of all eight rays are exposed and full of easy matches, so sweeping around the sun and clearing ray tips gives you the widest choice of moves and the smoothest start. Treat the rays like the petals of a pinwheel, working around the circle so you draw them all down fairly evenly.
Pull each ray inward toward the core, not the other way around. A ray is a line of tiles running outward, and you want to clear it from the tip back toward the center so that you steadily expose the point where it joins the disc. Avoid leaving long rays half-cleared in the middle, because the goal is to strip every ray back to its root and lay the central core bare.
The crux is the layered center. The sun's heart is stacked and ringed by the inner ends of all eight rays, so it cannot be touched until those ray roots are gone. Bring the rays down in balance, retiring each one back to the disc, and only then start on the core. Clearing opposite rays at a similar pace prevents the common mistake of stranding a pair whose last copies are buried in the glowing middle.
For the finish, the central disc is what is left, so keep a couple of wildcards for it. Flower and season tiles are perfect here, since a flower matches any flower and a season matches any season, and they let you break apart a stubborn core pair that has no ordinary match remaining. If the center does lock, do not worry: the board is guaranteed solvable, and Shuffle re-deals the remaining tiles into a fresh solvable arrangement.
The Story Behind the Sun Layout
The sun is the most elemental symbol there is, standing for light, warmth, energy and life across virtually every culture on earth. A radiant disc fringed with rays is its most ancient and recognizable form, found on flags, coins and temple carvings from antiquity onward, and an eight-rayed sun in particular carries a sense of wholeness and balance, the rays pointing to all directions at once. Casting that emblem in Mahjong tiles gives the board an immediately cheerful, almost heraldic character.
Choosing eight rays also gives Sun a pleasing kinship with the eight-petalled Flower, and the two share a building logic: a dense, layered heart guarded by a ring of radiating arms. Where the flower's arms are soft petals, the sun's are sharp beams of light, and you dismantle both the same way, drawing the outer arms inward to finally reveal the core. It is a clean piece of geometry that happens to make for an enjoyably structured puzzle.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I clear the bright center of the Sun?
The central disc is layered and surrounded by the inner ends of all eight rays, so it stays blocked until those ray roots are removed. Pull each ray inward from its tip back to the core, retiring them evenly, and the center will open up for you to finish on.
What is the best opening move on the Sun layout?
Begin at the outer tips of the rays. The far ends of all eight rays are exposed and offer the most easy matches, so sweeping around the sun clearing ray tips gives you the smoothest, most flexible start.
Why does the Sun feel similar to the Flower board?
Both share the same structure, a dense layered heart ringed by eight radiating arms, and both are solved by drawing those arms inward to expose the core. The difference is mainly cosmetic: the sun's arms are straight rays while the flower's are curved petals. They sit at the same 3 out of 5 difficulty.
I've cleared the rays but the last center tiles won't match. What now?
Check whether you are holding any flower or season tiles, which act as wildcards that match any flower or any season and can clear an awkward core pair. If no legal move exists, use Shuffle to re-deal the remaining tiles, since every Sun board is generated to be solvable.
See more Nature Mahjong boards, or browse all layouts.
