Clinton Fitch, Gear Diary team member and owner of the eponymous Clinton Fitch (Dot) Com! has just written a comprehensive review on the Astraware game Alchemy.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with alchemy the science – or Alchemy the game, Clinton leads in with this: “While Astraware is making no claims to have discovered how to make alchemy work, their game by that name does, at least in a digital sense, allow you to turn iron into gold. Alchemy is a puzzle game by which you match different color and character runes in lines and turn them into gold. Sounds simple, right? Ah but it would not be a great game from Astraware if it were that simple! As you progress through each level – and gain mystical rankings of your “wizardry” – the characters and colors of the runes become more complex, making it increasingly more difficult to turn the entire playing field into gold. It is a fun, challenging and addictive game where you are required to think about rune placement and not just randomly place them in the field. A few wrong moves and you could find yourself woefully short of your dream: Fields of gold!”

Clinton explains gameplay like this:

As you begin playing, the playing field is divided up into squares with only the center square occupied by a stone. The stone – which are provided to you from time-to-time in game play – are color and shape neutral meaning you can place any color or shape next to them. The object is to complete lines of matching shape and/or color runes which will then turn them into gold. Once the entire board is turned to gold you advance to the next level of the game. Once a line of gold is completed, it can still have runes placed on it assuming there is a like shape or color next to it. It is not uncommon during game play to fill a line two or three times, especially at more advanced levels.

With each rune put into play and lines of gold completed, you earn points. The amount of points you earn will depend on the difficulty of the rune placement, the level at which you are playing and other factors. If you complete a line of gold for example and then complete it again, the points earned the second time are substantially less than the first time you completed it. The more points you earn the higher your “wizardry” ranking will be in the game.

Sometimes a good game is the perfect prescription to take your mind off the day’s cares. Be sure to check out Clinton’s review to see if you might want to try your hand at a bit of Alchemy.

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