Mostly between 1994 and 1997, UJA (Ulrike Jahnke, meanwhile Ulrike Jahnke-Soltau) wrote about forty games in Turbo Pascal for DOS. They all had hi-res VGA graphics, they nearly all had mouse support, and most of them were clones or variants of classic puzzle, board, or arcade games. Among these forty games Petite Fleur, which is Shisen-Sho with a few variations, is maybe my favorite.
A few elements in Petite Fleur are similar to Ishido. The default playing field is 12×8 tiles (with Shisen-Sho, it's typically 18×8) and the tiles come in six patterns and six colors, while there are 42 traditional MahJongg tiles, arranged in a completely different structure. These, and the fact that the tiles do not even remotely resemble MahJongg tiles, are the only variations. Petite Fleure is thus far more faithful than Sarakon, yet more independent than all those other Shisen-Sho clones that abounded in Germany in the early 90s.
There are one or two interface oddities that can be confusing if you do not read the instructions first. Instead of just clicking on the two matching tiles, you have to click on the bends, too. The arrow buttons on the right side resize the playing field (as far as I know, a unique feature among Shisen-Sho games), unfortunately they do so without giving any warning or asking for confirmation. If you click one of them in error, you lose your current game.
But these are minor flaws. What makes Petite Fleur stand out among the Shisen-Sho games is exactly what I mentioned above, that it delivers the original experience without clinging slavishly to all the associated clichés. (In this context it should not be forgotten that there is no evidence whatsoever that Shisen-Sho is a traditional board game, most likely it was invented by Tamtex for their arcade machine, Shisen-sho Joshiryo-Hen.) What makes it stand out among the ujagames are mainly the lovely flower graphics and the very harmonious color balance.
Download Petite Fleur (73kB)
| Shisen-Sho Clones and Variants | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Take Two |  |
89 |  |
||||||
| Match-It! | |
91 | |
Steffen Fischer | |||||
| Sixx |  |
93 | |
||||||
| Tautology | |
94 |  |
Reservoir Gods | |||||
| FourRivers |  |
 |
Kusunoki Masaya | ||||||
| Short Circuit |  |
95 |  |
Carl Limsico | |||||
| Pairs |  |
|
96 | |
Tobias Lenz | ||||
| Shisen-Sho | |
00 | |
Martin Fiedler | |||||
| AcChen | |
01 | |
Stefan Preuss | |||||
