Actually, you can do "shuffle" and lives...no problem. The option would be to lose a life and then re-shuffle! The re-shuffle option becomes available when there are no more moves left. Just randomly re-shuffle the tiles. My wife actually plays a mahjong game that does that. OK...don't laugh...but it's on Webkinz! And while their game doesn't use mahjong tiles, it's the same concept. Undo is definitely a good thing to have, too! --DotComCTO
You lose a life anyway for running out of moves, so i guess the option to lose a 2nd life to shuffle instead (of restart) would seem rather harsh -- but I wouldn't mind adding the option. If you shuffle before the moves run out, that would be a sneaky advantage.
No. I meant lose a life and then re-shuffle when there are no moves...just 1 life lost, not 2. If the re-shuffle option is made to be "on demand" then it could also make you lose a life at that point. This would limit the number of times one could re-shuffle. --DotComCTO
I thought it through some more and think I may be able to add the option to shuffle when moves are exhausted. I imagine some people don't care so much about finding the solution to the level, but would rather just get it over with. I do understand some people play it for relaxation rather than puzzle/logic/strategy, so I don't mind adding options for that. One thing to consider. Would you expect the re-shuffle feature to give you a guaranteed solution? Sometimes it will be impossible to shuffle the tiles in such a way that there is a solution. The simplest example is when there are only two tiles left, and one covers the other. There are many more less obvious situations when that would happen. That could offset the advantage in allowing for a re-shuffle.
Exactly my thought on the implementation. No. It's just a re-shuffle. Again, watching my wife play online, that's how I've seen it implemented. When her "lives" are up, the game is over. --DotComCTO
