Stifle The Yawns & Get Rid Of Boredom With A Little Alchemy

Stifle The Yawns & Get Rid Of Boredom With A Little Alchemy:

What sort of games do you like – The massively popular server based multiplayer skirmishes, or the ones which are uncomplicated and rarely need a help file before play? Well, both have their places in the grand scheme of boring days. But in my experience, a boring day brings on a disabling lethargy that somehow doesn’t make you feel like playing brain-jangling strategy games or the massively multiplayer games we usually talk about a lot here.

The web gives us quite a few little games which are boredom killers in their own right. That perhaps explains the success of games like Angry Birds. Little Alchemy is a little gem tucked away in the Chrome Web Store. So, let’s install the Chrome app and play this free Alchemy game.

A Game for the Entire Family

An uncomplicated game has the advantage that it can be enjoyed by the entire family. How easy is Little Alchemy? It’s as simple as mixing four basic elements to create something new. The four elements that one starts off with are water, fire, earth, and air. You have to combine them by dragging and dropping them (only two at a time) to produce new surprising new forms.

But if you think that this simple game is unsophisticated, then you are wrong because it gets pretty addictive.

Mix, Match, and Create

Gameplay is so simple that a child can pick it up without hitting the ‘help’ icon on the left. In fact, your child should definitely play this game as it is educational to a degree too.

The screen is divided into two areas – the one on the right has four elements that you are supposed to mix-match and combine in order to create some interesting combos. The mixing and matching happens on the workspace that lies on the left of the screen.

Combine any two elements. One way of making this more interesting would be to guess what the resulting mix would be. Some combinations (especially the earlier ones) are dead simple. For instance, water + fire = steam.

You can then take the resulting ‘element’ (for instance, steam) and combine it further with another element from the library of elements. For e.g. steam + air = cloud. You can in fact, right click on any formed element and check the combinations again. Remember, not all elements with combine. The combinations are all logical. You can in fact use a form (click the bulb) to suggest combos of your own.

The combinations keep getting more intricate and increasingly difficult to predict. In the third or fourth try, I got ‘gunpowder’ by combining fire and dust. Your library of elements on the right that you can use to build more elements also starts stacking up. Click on Type to Search is your library is choc-a-bloc and you need to search for an element.

The Challenge – Score of 230

Your target is the possible 230 combinations that can be created from four basic elements. The early stages of Little Alchemy do not give away signs that the game will be addictive, but it gradually gets challenging and the target of 230 or at least the maximum possible number could soon get to you. So, as the notification above says – stay positive. Oh, there is an official cheats page too.

Little Alchemy is a nice addition to Chrome’s lineup of games. Which is your favorite Chrome browser game? What do you think of Little Alchemy…did it help to ward off the boredom?