Tom Sloper (background) playing riichi with Japanese friends.

In the late 1990's, I had this e-mail interview with Tom Sloper. At the time he was still working at Activision. For this company, he made (amongst many others) Shanghai: Dynasty and Shanghai: Second Dynasty, two of the finest pieces of mahjongsoftware ever written; unfortunately, both are now discontinued games. Tom now teaches mahjong on several places in the USA and he is considered the 'internet mahjong guru'. Although he did not found it (the webmaster of Mahjong News claims that he did that himself) he is more or less the moderator of the internet mahjong usenet group.
Tom, could you tell us something about yourself, as personal as you want to?

I worked with Activision for eleven years, and I've been making electronic games for almost twenty. When I was a kid in upstate New York, we used to play lots of card games and board games, so I guess I was always a gamer. When I went to college, I didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up (I still don't). If you had told me that I would eventually make electronic games, I would have looked at you like you were crazy -- there was no such thing back then! In college, I studied theater, art, radio, and astronomy. There were no courses in computers (not that I was aware of anyway), much less games. My first electronic game design was a little game watch from GCE called Game Time in about 1981. You wore it on your wrist and it had two buttons. My favorite game in the watch was Firing Squad, where you tried to see how long you could dodge volleys of bullets shot at you. Recently I left Activision to start my own business, but I cannot tell to much about that yet.

How did you get in contact with mahjong?

How often do you play mahjong?

Several times a week. I play online on Friday nights. I play the NMJL game with some ladies every Saturday afternoon. I often get together with coworkers to play Chinese at lunchtime. And every couple weeks I go downtown and play Japanese.

What kind of mahjong rules do you like the best?

Everybody asks me that. I like them all, I really do. I was very challenged by the NMJL game, but I think I've figured that one out pretty well now -- so now my biggest challenge is the Japanese game. I'm still not good at it.

Do you ever play for money; I mean, real money?

Yes, the Japanese game. But I'd rather not talk about it. Ask me again sometime when I'm good at it!

You play all over the world, don't you; at least you did in Japan.

I wish I could claim to 'playing all over the world' -- but that would be an overstatement. I have played in Japan twice in the past couple of years, and I did play for a few minutes in Hong Kong once, and I played in my first tournament, in Las Vegas, this year. The one time I played in Hong Kong, we had to stop playing Mah-Jongg because my little niece wanted to join in, so we stopped playing Mah-Jongg and played Shanghai instead.

Do you ever play against (semi) professionals?

Yes, when I go downtown to play the Japanese players there. But I think the only true 'professional' I play there is the man who owns the place. He's great, he's taken me under his wing and has taught me a bit of basic strategy.

Who do you think are the best, the most fanatic mahjong players?

Anyone who plays for money twice a week or more, and wins, is the best. Anyone who plays more than I do is a fanatic.

What exactly did you do for Shanghai: Dynasty? Do you just think out the game and have other people write the program for you? If they do, how can they determine how strong the AI's are?

Designing new Shanghai games was one part of my job, yes. I designed Shanghai: Great Moments, Shanghai: Dynasty, and its sequel, Shanghai: 2nd Dynasty. In addition to 'thinking out' the game, I wrote a very detailed design document that clearly tells the programmers what the game should be. As for the A.I., the programmers start with making the program understand the rules of the game, then I write out strategies for the programmers to implement; we got experienced Mah-Jongg players to Beta-test the A.I. for us.

Is Activision's mahjong server a success? Do many people use it?

It's a success in that it's there and it's free and it works; not a whole lot of Shanghai Dynasty players play online (most of them play the game solo, either the solitaire modes or against A.I. opponents). And when they do decide to go online, they don't necessarily do it at the same time that somebody else decides to go online. A big difference between Activision's Shanghai Dynasty servers and other online game servers is that before you can go onto the server you have to buy the game CD.

What games are favorite there?

I assume you mean of Shanghai Dynasty's online Mah-Jongg games? Most folks play the Chinese game. I've played the Japanese game online a few times, and met a player last week who challenged me to a Western game.

Will the server remain free or will we have to pay - eventually?

Free, always. Once someone buys the CD, there's no way we're going to make'em pay more!

Is the Japanese game selling well in Japan?

We sold all the ones we made. The computer game market in Japan is much smaller than in other countries, due to the economic situation in Japan right now. Folks there don't tend to spend money on expensive game-capable computers for the home, nor do they tend to play online a lot. They play games in the arcade or on TV consoles instead there. So in Japan we did a better business licensing Shanghai for arcade and console hardware instead of for personal computers.

What other plans do you guys at Activision have in mind for Shanghai: Dynasty?

What do you think of the competition? Apart from S:D, what mahjong software do you like to play the most?

I think the best non-Shanghai, non-Japanese, computer Mah-Jongg games, are Hong Kong Mahjong, Internet Mahjong Server, and Four Winds. I don't play those very much, though. The program I play the most is a Japanese Nintendo 64 game, Majan 64. I like getting away from the computer and sitting in the living room in front of the TV for a change. And I need the practice that a made-in-Japan Japanese Mah-Jongg game can give me, to help me prepare for my games downtown.

Do you have a nice mahjong anecdote for us?

My favorite one is about my first Tokyo game, back when I was working on Shanghai: Dynasty. My Japanese counterpart, Hiroshi Seno, and I were to play with editors from Login Magazine, to try to win a 2-page article about the game. Although I'd been playing Japanese Playstation Mah-Jongg games a lot, I still didn't understand the Japanese rules (especially the dreaded 'chombo' or 'penalty mistake' rules). At Activision's Tokyo office, Seno-san and I did a practice run on a computer so I could try to gain clarity on the rules. At one point I noticed that Seno-san was building a 7 pairs hand -- I'd heard of it, but had never tried it myself (figured it was too hard). The next day we went to Ginza, to the Mah-Jongg parlor. The Login editors showed up. Their hands flew over the tiles -- those guys handled the tiles like professionals -- and I'd never even seen a dealing machine before! The game went okay for a while, but then I made chombo. I didn't even understand what I did wrong!

Needless to say, I didn't win that game. But Seno-san did, so we won our 2 pages in the magazine! The editors wanted a 2nd game, so we played again. And I made chombo again. After several hands, I found myself frustrated that I couldn't make any triples. I thought to myself: 'I have all these pairs, and I can't seem to. . .' Then I stopped. The realization hit me. 'I have all these pairs!' I counted the tiles in my hand, and realized that I could break up the one triple in my hand, and I would be one tile away from a 7 pairs hand! So that's what I did. Not only did I break up my triple, but I also placed a 1,000-point chip in the center of the table, declaring 'Reach.'

The other players were flabbergasted. They were experienced players, and they could not see any pattern to my discards. So they could not figure out what I was holding. Because of the dumb mistakes I'd been making, they figured I was either mistaken, or that I had a very valuable hand. So they got nervous about making discards. With each discard that first time around the table, each player showed me the tile he was throwing, to see if that was it. None of those first tiles were the one I needed, so I didn't have 'Ippatsu' -- but eventually one threw the tile I needed.

Everyone was amazed to see that in addition to Reach and Chii Toitsu (7 Pairs), one of my pairs was the Dora tile. They turned over the Ura Dora tile, and lo and behold, I had a pair of those too! 'Haneman'! My score was so big it wiped out my past mistakes. I won the game. Through sheer dumb luck. Now I know the rules much better -- I guess I'm too smart to get dumb luck anymore. That's one of the things I love about Mah-Jongg. The balance of luck and skill is so perfect."

 Review of Tom Sloper's book >>

 Tom Sloper's website >>

Print