Alchemy

This app is discontinued!

Title: Alchemy for Windows
Version: 2.2.1
Requirements: .NET Framework 3.5 SP1
Minimum resolution: 1024×600
Short description: Start with four basic elements, Air, Earth, Fire and Water and combine them to create hundreds more.
Languages: English, Romanian, Dutch, Czech, Portuguese, Hungarian, French, Danish, German, Italian, Hebrew, Slovak, Indonesian, Spanish, Polish, Bulgarian (Cyrillic), Serbian (Cyrillic and Latin), Russian (Cyrillic)

You start with the four basic elements: air, earth, fire and water. You can combine them by dragging onto each other on the central area of the window, “the desktop”. When new elements are created they are added to the list from the left area. Some of them are terminal elements, which means you cannot combine them again with other elements. These are marked with a blocking icon shown on the bottom-right corner of the image. The non-terminal elements can be dragged from the list to the desktop area. The same effect is achieved by double clicking on them.

You can quickly bring onto the desktop the four basic elements by double clicking on an empty area of it. Double clicking on an element from the desktop creates a duplicate of it. You can remove all the elements from the desktop area by clicking the Clean button.

You can also delete only some elements from the desktop, by first selecting them with the mouse while holding the CTRL button pressed. Then, press the Delete key to remove them from the desktop. When selected for deletion they are marked with a red border (a white border indicates the current selected element when option Tap to combine is enabled – see below).

When the number of elements gets too big scrolling through the list might be cumbersome. You can use the search textbox to filter the elements in the list. As you type only the elements that contain the typed text are displayed. It you press the X button of the textbox or clear its content, the list displays again all the unlocked elements.

On the right area of the window you find a help pane. When you select an element from one of the two lists on the left side, you can see a list of all the unlocked combinations in which the elements appears (either as input or output).

When you unlock all the elements in the game you are notified with the following window:

There are also several buttons on top of the right area: Hint, Wiki, More, Help and About.

Button Hints pops-up a window displaying one possible element you can create, also indicating one of the two elements used to create it. To close the hints window, just click anywhere on it.

Button Wiki opens a browser and performs a search with Google on the currently selected element (the one you see on the top of the right side of the window).

Button More displays another window that allows you to do different things. You must close this window before you can do anything in the main window (including minimizing the main window).

Saves Tab: allows you to save and load the current progress (and the user settings such as language) to/from another file than the default. You can also reset your entire progress from this window, but that will bring you back to scratch. It is recommended that you save your progress to a file before resetting. You can load the file later, even with a later Alchemy version.

Language Tab: allows you to select the current language. When you select a new language, it takes effect immediately, but the More window closes automatically. However, since the two lists with the elements are sorted alphabetically, when you change the language the order of the elements in the list also changes.

Settings tab: allows to configure the behavior of the game.

Currently there are two available settings (also stored in the user settings file):

  • Combine only new: prevents you to make the same combination again, once you found it
  • Tap to combine: allows to combine elements by taping on the first and then on the second, instead of dragging them onto each other
  • Display timer: show a the total progress time, since the beginning of the game; the timer is only reset when you clear your entire progress and start from scratch

Cheats tab: display the list of all available elements (discovered or not).

Credits tab: displays a list with the names of those that helped translating Alchemy to other languages than English.

History

  • version 2.2.1, 2012.05.30
    • fixed problems with localized elements list and crash in language selection page
  • version 2.2, 2012.05.30
    • added 55 new elements (total is 555)
    • added translation to Serbian (Cyrillic and Latin) and Russian (Cyrillic)
    • corrected translations issues
    • added a splash screen
    • performance improvements
  • version 2.1, 2011.09.19
    • added 56 new elements (total is 500)
    • added translation to Polish and Bulgarian
    • button Wiki searches articles in the language selected in the game
    • added finish window
  • version 2.0.4 & 2.0.5, 2011.07.20
    • fixed problems with the Spanish translation
  • version 2.0.3, 2011.07.18
    • translated Alchemy to Spanish
  • version 2.0.2, 2011.07.04
    • added translation for Slovak and Indonesian
    • corrected some errors in the Czech translation
  • version 2.0.1, 2011.05.17
    • improved French and Dutch translation
  • version 2.0, 2011.05.05
    • modified layout to support lower resolutions (minimum is 1024×600)
    • added 44 new elements (total is 444)
    • translated to Hebrew, and added support for flow direction from right to left
    • added hints
  • version 1.7.5, 2011.02.09
    • translated Alchemy to Italian
  • version 1.7.4, 2011.02.08
    • translated Alchemy to German
  • version 1.7.3, 2011.01.18
    • translated Alchemy to Danish
  • version 1.7.2, 2010.12.28
    • fixed the display of total elapsed time
  • version 1.7.1, 2010.12.14
    • corrected the translation of some elements in French and Dutch
  • version 1.7, 2010.12.12
    • Alchemy is available in French
    • 20 new elements (total is 400)
    • display total progress time
  • version 1.6, 2010.11.30
    • Alchemy is available in Hungarian
    • changed some texts in the Czech translation
    • can delete some elements from the desktop by selecting them with the mouse while holding the CTRL key pressed and then pressing the Delete key
    • Fixed problems with terminal elements not marked as terminals (incorrectly announced for version 1.5).
  • version 1.5.2, 2010.11.23
    • fixed some problems with the translation to Czech
  • version 1.5.1, 2010.11.22
    • fixed some problems with the translation to Dutch
  • version 1.5, 2010.11.22
    • 30 new elements (total is 380).
    • Alchemy available in Czech and Portuguese.
    • Wiki button is back.
    • Added window More that allows you to:
      • save and load you current progress to/from another file than the default
      • reset your current progress
      • select the language
      • select user settings
      • see all the available elements
      • see credits
    • New features:
      • tap to combine allows to tap on elements to combine, instead of dragging them over each other
      • combine only new prevents you to make the same combination again and again
        Fixed problems with terminal elements not marked as terminals.
  • version 1.4, 2010.10.20
    • Alchemy available in Romanian and Dutch
    • elements live preview for drag and drop on the desktop area
  • version 1.3, 2010.10.06
    • 50 new elements (350 in total)
    • hints indicate new elements that can be discovered from existing elements
    • adding elements to desktop by double clicking on them in the non-terminals list
  • version 1.2, 2010.09.29
    • 40 new elements (300 in total)
    • application built both for x86 and x64 platforms
  • version 1.1, 2010.09.25
    • 50 new elements (260 in total)
    • fixed bug with non-terminal elements marked as terminals
  • version 1.0, 2010.09.20
    • initial release featuring 210 elements