
Little Alchemy - peter_d_sherman
https://littlealchemy.com/
======
vinceguidry
This is an interesting kind of game. The drudgery of all the clicks and drags
make you long for a more efficient way to get to the payoff of seeing new
combinations. But the more efficient the mechanics are, the less of a game it
is and more of just a spreadsheet showing the combinations.

You need a way to make the actual discovery process fun. So you could build a
factorio-style pipeline that makes discovery more efficient over time. So that
way the mind stays engaged for longer. I wonder what minimal set of game
mechanics would fall out if you kept working on it.

~~~
ivm
The first Alchemy, DOS:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3NFBaYNhXo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3NFBaYNhXo)

I also made one back then in Flash (called "Alxemy"), it got quite popular.

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shlant
This was a cool little game and even after I gave up at 32 and checked here
([https://littlealchemyguide.com/](https://littlealchemyguide.com/)) for how
to make stuff, it still amused me.

I kept seeing Ice in the random hints, and I'm like HOW DO I MAKE ICE??

So I typed Ice into the guide and it gave me Cold + Water. Duh, but how do I
make Cold? Human + Rain. WTF?

So how do I make Human? I can't even make Plant! And this spiral started(I
chose a combo that I had at least one of):

Human = Earth + Life

Life = Energy + Swamp

Swamp = Grass + Mud

Grass = Earth + Plant

Plant = Earth + RAIN..... Facepalm.

The combinations are also an interesting look into the developers minds and
can be pretty funny. For example, Bird + Ocean = Seagull. Of course! Bird +
Earth? Ostrich. Haha

~~~
klipt
I like how life comes from a swamp which already has (plant) life in it. Very
recursive.

~~~
derimagia
I played this years ago, it's better to think of this separate from each
other. As in remove the context of previous ingredients when making new things

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avaer
Any chance of JSON recipe manifest?

Tangential: does anyone know a good (preferably open) dataset of crafting
recipes to use for game mechanics?

~~~
alexcasalboni
You can download these files:

\- resources:
[https://littlealchemy.com/resources/base.560.json](https://littlealchemy.com/resources/base.560.json)

\- names:
[https://littlealchemy.com/resources/en/names.560.json](https://littlealchemy.com/resources/en/names.560.json)

Then you can run this Python code to extract/merge into one single file:

    
    
      import json
    
      with open('res.json', 'r') as f, open('names.json', 'r') as ff:
          res = json.load(f)
          names = json.load(ff)
    
      for res_id, res_name in names.iteritems():
          print("%s:" % res_name)
          for id1, id2 in res[str(res_id)].get('parents', []):
              print("\t %s + %s" % (names[str(id1)], names[str(id2)]))
    
    

Expected output:

    
    
      glacier:
      	 ice + mountain
      cart:
      	 wheel + wood
      nerd:
      	 human + glasses
      doctor:
      	 human + hospital
      wagon:
      	 cart + horse
      newspaper:
      	 paper + paper
      paper:
      	 wood + pressure

~~~
minus7
I wanted to see it in graph form, so a wrote I did pretty much the same but
printed a dot code and piped that into dot. It was a disaster: A huge,
unreadable mess. Try yourself if you're feeling adventurous:

    
    
        import json
        
        with open('base.560.json') as f:
            base = json.load(f)
        
        with open('names.560.json') as f:
            names = json.load(f)
        
        print('digraph {')
        
        for elnum, name in names.items():
            print(f'e{elnum} [label="{name}"];')
        
        for elnum, body in base.items():
            for el1, el2 in body.get('parents', ()):
                print(f'e{el1} -> e{elnum};')
                print(f'e{el2} -> e{elnum};')
        
        print('}')
    
        # python3.6 code.py | dot -Tpng dot.png

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chris_st
There's a fun iOS game called GlyphQuest that works something like this --
there's a hexagonal grid of elements, and a monster. Connecting enough "like"
elements (and, later on, combinations of elements) causes attacks on the
monsters. Cute graphics, some nice leveling up mechanisms, well done.

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joshschreuder
There's a game on the app store called Doodle God with the same concept

Doodle God™ by JoyBits Ltd.
[https://appsto.re/au/HwWBw.i](https://appsto.re/au/HwWBw.i)

Doodle God™ Free by JoyBits Ltd.
[https://appsto.re/au/tNEDz.i](https://appsto.re/au/tNEDz.i)

Has IAPs and isn't the most fun game on the app store, but decent enough.

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groundCode
Somehow very swiftly ended up with an atomic bomb......

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futureisbright
I played this one on Android, years ago:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.zed_0xff.an...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.zed_0xff.android.alchemy)

The Reviews suggest that it has gotten worse…

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xiaoma
So it looks like earth is in the "C" slot. Why is it that when I type "C", a
text field appears and starts filtering out elements by name?

After seeing this happen, I tried typing out the whole word "earth" and
hitting enter. Nothing. I tried typing "?" for help. Still nothing... "/"
opens a find search box. By opening that and typing "fire", and then hitting
escape, I've got fire hilighted. So I hit enter... nothing. I hit space... now
the useless text field is there.

Not a fan of this game's onboarding!

~~~
dabber
Earth looks like it's in the "C" field because you have very few elements. The
more elects you create starting with "C" the less it looks like that.

Also it's possible the searching with "/" is part of your browser. I'm pretty
sure Firefox does that, less sure about others.

~~~
xiaoma
> _Earth looks like it 's in the "C" field because you have very few elements.
> The more elects you create starting with "C" the less it looks like that._

There's no way for a fresh visitor to know that! The game should have some
sort of basic instructions and at least consider the onboarding experience...
and I say this as some who has created web games that fail on this front.

Is any way to select things with the keyboard? I've got an somewhat injured
wrist and can't be doing hundreds of repeated click and drag motions via the
mouse or touchpad.

(Yes, the slash behavior defaulting to search is part of FF, but it's also
used to bring up keyboard shortcuts on Slack and many, many other sites)

Update: I see how the game works now. If it hadn't been on the front page of
HN, I definitely would have just gone through the steps in my comment above,
clicked on a couple of icons and bounced. Hope the feedback helps (assuming
the creator reads this and wants people not to bounce)

------
drc0
hints!

    
    
      function combRep(arr, l) {
        if (l === void 0) l = arr.length; // Length of the combinations
        var data = Array(l), // Used to store state
            results = [
            ]; // Array of results
        (function f(pos, start) { // Recursive function
          if (pos === l) { // End reached
            results.push(data.slice()); // Add a copy of data to results
            return;
          }
          for (var i = start; i < arr.length; ++i) {
            data[pos] = arr[i]; // Update data
            f(pos + 1, i); // Call f recursively
          }
        }) (0, 0); // Start at index 0
        return results; // Return results
      }
      var parents = [];
      for(b in bases.base) {
        if (bases.base[b].parents != undefined) {
          for (p of bases.base[b].parents) {
            parents[p.sort().join('-')] = b;
          }
        }
      }
    
      function gethints() {
        combinations = combRep([1, 2, 3, 4].concat(game.progress), 2);
        for (c of combinations) {
          let idx = c.sort().join('-');
          if (parents[idx] != undefined && game.progress.find((e, i, a) => parents[idx] == e) == undefined) {
            console.log(bases.names[c[0]], bases.names[c[1]]);      
          }
        }
      }

------
heheocoenev
I like the pyromania version "little inferno"

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rootlocus
Would've been cool if you could combine the egg and the chicken to create
paradox.

~~~
marmaduke
Did you get that far to have an egg and a chicken?

~~~
rootlocus
Yes, I got to around 50. Still feeling like a retard for not being able to
make a tree.

~~~
obituary_latte
I think tree is plant + time. Which kinda makes sense.

~~~
marmaduke
I later found googling can lead to any hint

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joeberon
I don't understand, this has been an extremely common game on Android for ever

~~~
lowtolerance
Honestly, I don't understand why not everyone knows about every single Android
app ever made.

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SAI_Peregrinus
Family + Atomic Bomb should produce Thread
([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/)).

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kpmah
I'm learning dutch, and this was a fun way to learn some words!

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aerovistae
unfortunately it stopped working for me after about 25; some kind of bug. i
could no longer drop new things onto the canvas; they were not "droppable."

clearing the canvas had no effect.

~~~
yorwba
This happened to me immediately after dropping the first two things on the
canvas. There was a message in the console from their drag-and-drop
implementation about some variable being undefined. It seems like they don't
handle long latencies gracefully; the assets took more than 2 minutes to
appear. (Before that, everything was just a boring beaker with some text.)

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wingerlang
Is the goal to just find all combinations? It should be explained.

~~~
arunaugustine
IMO Sometimes finding the goal is part of the fun. Minecraft similarly has no
end goal for the game, at least initially. The goal driven storyline was added
later I believe.

For me recognizing that the count on the left is simply new items I discover
out of possible 560 was part of the fun aspect of this surprisingly simple but
engaging game

~~~
Nullabillity
Minecraft still doesn't have a storyline. Unless you count the achievement
system, I guess. Or the separate point-and-click that has nothing to do with
the actual game.

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Exuma
I gave up at 18

~~~
felipellrocha
So do a lot of people. Graduation is a bitch

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sametmax
Why is that even on hacker news ?

If I want links to all those little games, I would have a FB account.

In what way is it a news ?

