Butterfly Kyodai is a mahjong based game developed by Bright Creations. Bright Creations is a software development firm based out of Dubai and Cairo. The firm creates software and applications that are published for themselves or creates innovative designs for individual clients. Butterfly Kyodai was released to the Apple Store in June, 2012. It is available for purchase for both iPhone and iPad applications. However, the game can be found free to play in several places on the internet.Butterfly Kyodai is a timed variation of mahjong. This means that players match identical pieces in order to clear the board. The game begins with a full board of different sets of butterfly wings in various colors and shapes. The word “kyodai” translated from Japanese means “brothers” and in this game, the idea is to find the brother for each of the wings. When a match is made, the wings come together to form a butterfly that flies off of the screen.

 

In traditional mahjong, players may only make matches of pieces that have at least one free edge. In this variation, players can match pieces in a few different ways. Matches can be made along the board as expected. Pairs can also be made between any two sets of wings that are next to one another. Once the board begins to clear, players can also match wings that begin to have free edges as long as there is a path available on the board between the pair.
Players are given several power-ups each level. These power-ups include a "hint" which illuminates an available match. There is also a swap which shuffles all of the remaining wings into a new pattern, allowing for more matches. At the end of each match, any additional time that is left on the clock will be added to the player's score. The player will also receive additional power ups to use in the next level. As the levels progress different obstacles are placed around the board to make it more challenging to clear the board before the time ends.