Alchemy

A fast two-player abstract strategy stacking game with a theme and a twist

(Designer’s note: Alchemy was created as a simple game to thank the gamer community and fans of Symbol. Alchemy is played with one player’s basic set of pieces from Symbol, and thus provides a clever way to determine first player for a game of Symbol or can be played as a separate stand alone game for those who want a quick match that is easy to learn, almost impossible to solve, fun, and mathematically very interesting; though a new and unique game, Alchemy shares some ideas and mechanics with other stacking strategy games and members of the NIM family of games.)

The players represent dueling alchemists trying to make chemical reactions with the Aristotelian elements (earth, water, air, fire), and a fifth, unstable element of destruction. Alchemists want to create gold, but they never could figure out how to create gold, so instead the players are fighting over a single gold coin by alternating turns making new combinations of elements. When on a player’s turn no new combinations are possible, that player loses the round. The first player to win two rounds in a row wins the game.