Alchemyst

Alchemyst is a single-player, shareware, block moving puzzle game. Alchemy is about turning base metal into gold and that's the theme of this puzzle game, or rather turning blue/gray blocks to yellow ones. The game is entirely controlled by the mouse. The game area consists of a series of rows of blue/gray blocks, all the same size. There is one row of blocks at the top of the screen set apart from the rest and this contains some yellow blocks, clicking on this row causes the blocks within it to move one cell to the left with the left most cell 'wrapping round. The player shifts these blocks around until they are happy with the desired pattern, and they click on one of the other rows on the screen. This transfers the blocks from the top row to the selected row. If a yellow block replaces a blue/gray block this is a good move, if a yellow block replaces an existing yellow block the result is that the block reverts to a blue/gray block. The game's objective is to repeat this process until all the lower rows contain nothing but yellow blocks. The player can select different combinations of row size and height which affects the game's difficulty and the game records the highest score for each. There are optional sound effects and an in-game help file. The game is played against a photographic background. Standard registration cost $5, but the purchaser could pay $20 to have the game customized so that it played over a photograph they supplied with their registration fee.