Boredworkers.com

Best to get this done before it gets buried by other stuff. Last week was a slow one in the office. It was a chore waiting for one process to finish in order to start on the next. I found myself with plenty of time in between. To fill in said spare time, I searched for and found Alchemy. On a side note, Popcap has revamped their site. While it looks nicer, it seems a little more cumbersome than before.

Alchemy (noun)

1. A medieval chemical philosophy having as its asserted aims the transmutation of base metals into gold, the discovery of the panacea, and the preparation of the elixir of longevity.
2. A seemingly magical power or process of transmuting: “He wondered by what alchemy it was changed, so that what sickened him one hour, maddened him with hunger the next” (Marjorie K. Rawlings).
   - Dictionary.com -

Most would automatically relate alchemy to the nonsense of changing lead to gold. And they wouldn’t be too far off the mark in the case of the game. The objective is to turn the playing board into gold. You do so by placing different coloured runes onto each of the squares that make up the board. Simple enough, but it’s not as easy as it sounds. The runes come in a variety of shapes and colours. A rune can only be placed next to another that is already on the board. To complicate matters, new runes that are placed must match the runes it touches either in terms of colour or shape.

Each board starts with a wild card block, which can be matched with any rune. Additional wild cards may appear throughout the game. A second power block is the skull block which blows up and removes a rune already placed on the board. The number of colours and shapes increase with each board that is cleared. Completing a line (vertical or horizontal) will remove all the runes on the line, providing you with more space to maneuver. If you get stuck or do not wish to place a rune, you can destroy it in the forge. Be careful though, as destroying runes in this manner will cause the forge to overheat, in which case the game is over. Placing a rune after destroying one will cause the forge to cool down (indicated by the red meter).

Ranks are awarded as you progress through the levels, based on the scores you achieve. They serve no purpose except as a tool to show off with. Scores are awarded as you place the runes on the board and when you completely convert the board to gold. The number of runes placed in a row without relying on the forge also influences the score.

You can play in either Strategy or Timed mode. The only difference between the two is that in timed mode, the forge will heat up over time. Placing a rune will cool it down. Each mode has three different levels of difficulty, Easy, Average, and Hard. With each increase in difficulty, the number of colours and shapes increase, the combination of runes become more difficult, and wild cards become rare.

Here are some tips that might help you along in the game. They should be obvious after a few rounds.

• You can either work with colours or shapes. Grouping them together makes it easier for you to place runes.
• You can still place a rune on an empty square if it is flanked by two runes of different shape and colour.
• It gets difficult to place a rune on an empty square if it is flanked by two runes of the same colour and a third of a different colour. You are limited to the colour of the pair of runes, and the shape of the third rune. The same goes for shape.
• It is impossible to place a rune on an empty square if it is surrounded by three or more runes of different shapes and colours. Don’t get into that situation.
• Clear rows when you get the chance. Grouping colours in a row is the fastest way to achieve this.
• Don’t be afraid to use the forge. Alternating between destroying a rune and placing one on the board will keep your board clear and your forge cool. This is useful towards the end, especially if you don’t particularly care about the score.

If you have more than an hour of free time to kill, go to Boredworkers.com’s GotW for the recommended downloads.

• Install the game.
• Uncompress the keygen archive.
• Start the game.
• Run keygen.exe.
• Click the ‘Generate’ button to generate the license key.
• Click the ‘Copy’ button to apply the generated key.
• Continue playing the game.

Disclaimer:
The author does not condone piracy. If you find that you enjoy the game after playing it for a bit, do purchase the license. Good work should be given its due.