How to play Hong Kong on Mac
Game summary
The first game to be produced as a coverdisk for Japanese Famicom magazine Famimaga, Hong Kong is a points-based variant of Mahjong Solitaire (a.k.a. Shanghai) that also plays a little bit like Jenga.
Hong Kong, or Famimaga Disk Vol. 1 Hong Kong, is a Shanghai variant in which players must remove specified tiles from a pattern. The player can select which pattern (from pyramids and hourglasses to more complex designs) from which to draw tiles as well as inputting a three letter code which offers several thousand possible combinations of the tiles within that pattern.
Rather than removing tiles in pairs on the edge of the pattern in order to access buried tiles, as is the norm in Shanghai, the player can select any tile on the board as long as it corresponds to the tile the game requests. However, points are scored based on how many other tiles surround the selected tile: A maximum of 320 points are awarded for tiles completely surrounded on all six sides by other tiles. Any tiles that aren't "standing" on at least one other tile will fall off the board causing a premature game over: players need to balance earning points by removing entrenched tiles while ensuring that no tile will fall off the table as a result of the removal.
Because the game is not a true version of Shanghai it is named after another Chinese city - Hong Kong - instead.
First released: Mar 1990
Play Hong Kong on Mac with Parallels (virtualized)
The easiest way to play Hong Kong on a Mac is through Parallels, which allows you to virtualize a Windows machine on Macs. The setup is very easy and it works for Apple Silicon Macs as well as for older Intel-based Macs.
Parallels supports the latest version of DirectX and OpenGL, allowing you to play the latest PC games on any Mac. The latest version of DirectX is up to 20% faster.
Our favorite feature of Parallels Desktop is that when you turn off your virtual machine, all the unused disk space gets returned to your main OS, thus minimizing resource waste (which used to be a problem with virtualization).
Hong Kong installation steps for Mac
Step 1
Go to Parallels.com and download the latest version of the software.
Step 2
Follow the installation process and make sure you allow Parallels in your Mac’s security preferences (it will prompt you to do so).
Step 3
When prompted, download and install Windows 10. The download is around 5.7GB. Make sure you give it all the permissions that it asks for.
Step 4
Once Windows is done installing, you are ready to go. All that’s left to do is install Hong Kong like you would on any PC.
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