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Great Alchemist

In Brief

Great Alchemist is a match three game with an un-timed and timed mode. Becomes very difficult from around level 12 onward.

Great Alchemist is a match three game with two modes a times mode and a continuous mode. The timed mode comprises of 30 levels. The boards look quite simple and relatively small, but once you get to around level 12 onward the levels are really hard to beat. I spent a good half hour on level 12 and 13 and still haven't been able to pass level 14. The reason; there are several crystal types represented by different shapes and colours. Along the right side of the board it tells you how many of each color you have to collect to end the level. A timer in the form of a bar with three skulls next to these crystals starts to empty. If you manage to complete the level before the bar passes any of the skulls you are awarded three skulls; as the bar empties this will change to two skulls, one skull and finally no skulls. If the bar reaches the bottom, the level ends and you have to start from the beginning of the level again. The first few levels are easy; (I completed the first level in a matter of seconds), and you can easily gain all three skulls for the next several levels; however, as you progress it gets increasingly difficult to score three, two or even one skull.

There are power ups that can aid you by either removing various crystals from the board or stopping the timer for a short time (around 10 seconds). The blue flask will destroy all the crystals in the vertical and horizontal column it is located in. The orange flask will destroy the eight crystals surrounding it (unless it is located along one of the edges) and the purple flask stops the timer for approximately 10 seconds. Once you pass the first few levels blocking squares are included (they look like green slime). You can get rid of these either by creating matches next to them or using either the blue or orange flasks; that is, so long as the blocking tile is within the bounds of the flasks destructive zone. There are two other flasks available, i.e. another blue flask (in the shape of a round bottomed chemistry flask) and multicoloured flask. These are indicated under the crystal counters. These two flasks are specific to the level free mode (at least as far as I got in the timed mode (i.e. level 14). The multicolored flask is used to destroy all the crystals of one colour randomly. The blue flask extends the life of the level by one minute. To be able to use either of these power ups, when one appears on the board, click on it and it will be transferred to the counter to be used at your leisure. The blue flask seemed rather pointless on the level free mode and would have been much more useful on the timed levels especially in the later levels where time is of the essence; maybe they do appear in later levels, but as mentioned in the conclusion, I spent two hours trying to pass level 14. and never saw either of these two flasks. Along the top of the board you can see your score, the timer and the level number. There are achievements available for various things such as unlocking the purple (Mandrake) flask

Conclusion

I quite enjoyed playing this until i got to level 12; which took me almost half an hour to win, then another half hour passing level 13. I then spent another 2 hours trying to get past level 14 with no success. I managed to almost complete the level several times, with only a few crystals needed, but each time failed at the last moment. In the end it became very frustrating. I may return to it occasionally just to see if I can progress, but at this time well over three hours of game play for me is quite enough. I usually only play arcade games as an intermission between more intensive AAA games.

If you are not into today's match three or the other game being given away today, then check out the following for some excellent freebies from Epic Games, Steam and Indie Gala.

There are now five games free over on Epic Games these include Paladins: Champions of the Realm Bundle, Drawful 2 (also still available free via Steam), World War Z, Figment and Tormentor x Punisher. Next week we will be getting Gone Home and Hob. Check Delenns threads over in the forums for details of more free games i.e the Steam games thread HERE (there are several i.e. 200 Mixed Juice, Acceleration of Suguri 2, 100 Orange Juice, Hellion, Martian Law, The Deed, Barro, UNI, Nephise Begins, Project Mercury and Between two Castles. Most are available free until 30th March, though I haven't physically checked them since the weekend) and the non Steam games HERE. Thanks for keeping me updated on those freebies Delenn; as always your help is very much appreciated. There's also more recent additions to the Indie Gala freebies and Developers Showcase (almost 70 games) that include 7,62 High Caliber (Real time tactical sim), Balan City (2D city building game) and Chronology (puzzle platformer) to name a few; you can find them and others in the showcase section HERE