The Puzzler's Stone

When I saw Alchemia pop up on Steam, I thought it might be a nice break from the brain-busting puzzles I was stuck on in Cypher.

Hahaha. Hah. Hahah.

Cypher's later puzzles don't tell you what the rules are; you're supposed to take the techniques you've learned so far, and think creatively about how they might apply. Alchemia starts there.

Even the structure of Alchemia isn't obvious at first, although I think I got that figured out.

What's really exciting about its puzzles is how they tie into out-of-game references -- or, to put it another way, how much weird detective-work I'm doing through Google searches. All of the puzzles have at least some tie-in to the "alchemy" theme, and most involve researching topics like Tycho Brahe or the location of Atlantis. It's clear that a whole ton of work went into planning out the game.

At the same time, the implementation quality is pretty cheap and simple. I'd kill for basic quality-of-life improvements like the ability to write notes in-game, or to copy the game's text for easier pasting into a search engine.

It's been hard for me to make progress in Alchemia, or even to know if I'm making progress. But it's the kind of challenge I really like getting lost in.

Progress: ???