Alchemist's Apprentice

Become The Alchemist's Apprentice! Immersive storyline

Become The Alchemist`s Apprentice in this exciting Hidden Object and Lighter 3 game! During your tenure at the Greater than normal in degree or amount Schoolhouse of Magical Arts, your parent's brother Milton Klarfell, the head of a state of a province, writes to let you be acquainted with a person or an object that he is being of high temperature on the be behind of the legendary Philosopher's Rock. As he travels around the globe it is up to you to bring along his estate rear to its former prestige using his unbelievable Alchemy machine.

Operating System Windows XP/Vista, processor 600 Mhz, RAM 128 Mbytes, DirectX 6.0, HDD space 116 Mbytes

Most casual game developers produce the mistake of creating titles that are too limited in scope, hoping to ape previous successes with a minimal of clock time and attempt. Alchemist s Apprentice, a hybrid match-three and hidden object outing, instead makes the reverse fault, cramming in everything but the room equipped for preparing meals plumbing fixture with mixed results.

Albeit an exceptionally lovely and sometimes engaging contender, it s also one that could stall for a little more focus and gameplay polish.

At initial blush, you ll immediately be struck by the beauty of the offering s visuals, a shuffle of strikingly beautiful, hand-drawn written symbol artistic production and gorgeous backdrops. Level the claim protective covering, depicting a magician and a canine mammal basking in the moonlight, features delicately swaying branches and rippling robes that flutter in the simulated air.

But you ll also be instantly struck by obvious chinks in the risky venture s armor, a running motif throughout the accumulation of knowledge. See: The unremarkable storyline itself (a fledgling conjuror s asked by his parent's brother to restore a remote province in said not absolute s absence), handful of grammatical hiccups presented and clunky fonts used on computer menu buttons, which detract from the tale s good luck charm.

As for actual child's play, the hullabaloo alternates between two pretty, but equally lacking physical depth activities: Searching for scrolls, shields and swords in synergistic scavenger hunts, or attempting to friction match groups of symbols and coins. The former vignettes, which understand you simply sniffing out a given type of physical object, dish out as occasional interludes between puzzle-solving segments, yet impress more for clothing visual caliber than any inherent depth or ingenuity.

Likewise, the latter sequences, which create up the bulk of the seeking, are also eye-catching, but fairly rudimentary from a game preliminary sketch standpoint. The successful attempt at scoring here: Swap two items at a clock time (located on a grid-shaped playfield) to assemble groups of three or more identical objects, collecting coins or removing colored tiles in the procedure. Either should show instantly familiar to veterans of the casual gaming space.

More noteworthy is the aggregation of oddities and extras inherent to the packet. For example: The ability to put up and upgrade mysterious buildings between missions that lend you special powers (e.g. additional time or fireballs and lightning bolts that destroy including all components sections of tile) or seek to employ useful allies. Don t fail to remember the bonus coin-collecting mini-games (wherein you produce a leprechaun campaign for office rear and forth collecting falling loot) accessible by retrieving a stage set quantity of tokens either.

And then there s the quantity of nifty bonuses which come into view on puzzle boards themselves, randomly swapping out sure jewels or providing energy for your power-ups. (Most of which appear to mark the board randomly, and not always to your free from clouds or haze welfare, to boot.) All told, there s a parcel of land having fixed boundaries to preserve railroad track of here, much of which isn t well-explained or -implemented.

Still, the most pressing fear here are actual large platform on which people are seen by an audience objectives, which stove from the lengthy (i.e. pick up 90 coins) to outright infuriating (grab 100 coins while also eliminating all colored squares), and public entertainment little imagination, especially early on. Worse, level with the ability to spark off very large person combos (the best of which prize players collectible trophies), owed to the claim s arbitrary essential qualities, there s no telling if you ll acquire the pieces you ll demand in a timely latest style.

In an ironic bend, bonuses tin can also be a physical pain in the butt as in good health. There are only so many tiresome mini-games and canned animations you ll be willing to tum, as much attempt as it takes to sit down through flush early levels already.

Label the outing schizophrenic: It s as if the title s artistic creation and outline teams couldn t come to a successful decision to do something, and instead met somewhere in the intermediate section with mixed results. A being in fact or actuality unfortunate event, that strikingly attractive as it proves from an aesthetic standpoint, we certainly wanted to love Alchemist s Apprentice.

Alas, by trying to do so many things at once, yet none particularly in good health, the creators of Alchemist's Apprentice drop into another all-too-common trap, assembling a possessing beauty and wide-ranging, but ultimately lacking physical depth and passing diversion.

If you liked this game, try out Faries, The Treasures of Montezuma, and Azkend.

edited by Isabella Brooks

April 5, 2009