What is Shanghai II: Dragon's Eye?

Shanghai is a supurb game. The new ultra-deluxe version, Shanghai II: Dragon’s Eye, comes on four floppies and takes up a colossal 4MB — a far cry from the original, which required neither color nor sound to hold game players’ interest.

Just to recap, for the reader who has never encountered Shanghai: At game’s start, you see a top view of a pyramidal stack that contains 144 patterned tiles. You re- move matching pairs (some tiles are free, others are blocked) to clear the board. That’s it. There’s strategy, but not much complexity. It’s one of those solid, classic, addictive games. You can play it in Solitaire, Challenge, or Tournament mode.

Shanghai’s big advance came with version 2.0 a few years ago, when the tile layout was elegantly redesigned to add a 3-D effect that visually clarified which tiles were free. Shanghai IPs improvements, though impressive, are largely cosmetic. You get a wide assortment of tile types — the familiar mah-jonggset plus playing cards, flags, fantasy images (dungeon-and-dragon stuff), sports images, alphabet blocks, Japanese flower cards, and animals. All are splendid in color. In most of the tile sets, when you click on certain pairs, tiny animations appear within the tiles: fish disappear with a splash, royal personages become crowned frogs, and UN flags disappear to reveal Planet Earth spinning in deep blue space. Many of the tiles also make sounds when you match them correctly; flags say “thank you” in the appropriate language, for example.

You can choose from several tile layouts or easily create custom layouts. The layouts provided (some of which are extremely challenging) correspond to the 12 animals of the Chinese “zodiac”; and the manual has a lengthy, elaborate section called “The Twelve Animals of Time,” replete with gratuitous factoids. Thanks, but I didn’t really need to know that “Beer Barrel Polka” became popular in the Year of the Rabbit and that bingo was developed in Italy in the Year of the Dragon. Overall, the manual is long on production value and short on salience. Only about 13 of its 64 pages deal with game play and strategy; the rest is taken up with illustrations of the tiles, legends about emperors and the like, and 24 pages devoted to the rat, ox, tiger, and so on. I hope it’s printed on recycled paper (I couldn’t find that info in it, though).

A new game, Dragon’s Eye, comes with Shanghai II. You play against the computer or a human opponent; the Dragon Master tries to build the Dragon (a formation of tiles), while the Dragon Slayer tries to dismantle it. The instructions are confusing, but if you just dive in and start playing, perhaps referring to the manual to see what you’re doing, you’ll get it. It’s a good game, a worthy addition to the Shanghai package.

Are the flashy new enhancements reason enough to buy Shanghai II if you already have Shanghai? Maybe yes, maybe no. But if you don’t already have Shanghai, go for it.

O'Meara, Felicity. (May 1992). Shanghai II: Dragon's Eye. Macworld. (pg. 194).

Download Shanghai II: Dragon's Eye for Mac

Architecture

Motorola 68K

System Requirements

From Mac OS 6.0 up to Mac OS 9.2

Compatibility notes

• Macintosh 512KE
• Hard disk drive
• Extended keyboard
• System 6.0.2 or later
• 1 MB RAM recommended

Emulating this? It could probably run under: Basilisk II