Qi Zi: Go, Chess & Mahjong

New in 1.3: easier to hit the right point on big boards. Tap once to aim, again to play, and pinch to zoom. The start screen's board turns over the way you flick it.

Four classic games, made for touch, for learning, and for playing with friends: Go, Gomoku, Chess and Mahjong.

The start screen is the app icon come alive: tap the dragon or the snake for Go, the tomato for Gomoku, the tile for Mahjong, or turn the board over for chess.

GO (WEIQI · BADUK) Place stones, surround territory, capture what you can, on 9×9, 13×13 or 19×19. Turn on the coach and a ring marks the most urgent move with a sentence explaining why. When both players pass, mark the dead groups and the board counts itself. In 3D every group becomes an animal that grows with it: Black's are snakes, White's dragons. Capture a big one and it is slain, with a temple bell. Watch famous games, from Shusaku's ear-reddening game to AlphaGo, each with a win-rate graph, and solve life-and-death problems from the Yuan-dynasty classic Xuanxuan Qijing.

GOMOKU (FIVE IN A ROW) The first unbroken line of five wins. Three computer levels and a coach that rings winning moves and must-block points. In 3D the board is a vegetable garden: Black grows tomatoes, White daikon radishes, growing as the lines grow.

CHESS Pieces carved from river pebble and seashell: a stone lantern for the rook, a seahorse for the knight. Three computer levels and a coach that spots mate in one, loose pieces and pieces in danger. Full rules: castling, en passant, promotion and every kind of draw.

MAHJONG (SIMPLE CHINESE RULES) Four players, 136 tiles: chow, pung, kong, and win with four sets and a pair or seven pairs. Play three computers at Easy, Normal or Hard, with a coach that suggests a discard and says why. Between hands an automatic table sweeps the tiles away, shuffles and raises the four walls.

SEE WHERE IT TURNED A win-rate bar follows every move in Go, Gomoku and Chess. After the game, step through it on a win-rate graph that marks the blunders and the turning point.

SIX BOARDS Stone, wood, water, steel, sky and garden, each with its own sound. Show the 3D board beside the 2D one, or swap them.

PLAY FRIENDS On one device, or online: create a room, send the code, and play from anywhere, up to four at a Mahjong table. Online Mahjong uses encrypted private hands and supports replay after the hand. Rooms are shared with the browser version at lifegameproject.com, so friends without an iPhone can join. Sharing an iPad across a table? Face to face turns Black's pieces toward the other player.

Plays offline against the computer. Online rooms need no account. English and 中文. No ads. No tracking.