Alchemia is difficult to classify as a game, because, well, it's not really. At least, not a video game. This software shows you a book that you can flip through, each page has a number of difficult cryptographic puzzles that you can solve. All of which could have been satisfied by putting the pages up on the web... so... why is someone trying to charge cash money for this on Steam? That's not okay... it's a disservice to actual game developers. Regardless of how curious the puzzles themselves might be... we have to put this in the context of the video game store it's being sold on, as a video game, when that's not what this is.
For starters, this has no gameplay loops and no real plot or anything, you just solve the puzzles and then you get an achievement (and you can just google it if you want the cheevo). Does this exist only to give people an achievement, then? Why isn't this just a webpage?
Alchemia didn't appeal much to the people who own a copy of the game, either. It has achievements, and they show us a very clear picture that the game didn't really capture any interest from gamers. The most commonly and easily attained achievement is for finishing the puzzles, trivial to get (just google), but less than 17 percent of players bothered to get that far before uninstalling the game. Hardly a success story, gamers just weren't all that interested in the game.
Alchemia is relatively cheap at $2 USD, but it's not worth it. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, this is impossible to recommend. If you're interested in cryptography and cipher style puzzles, there's hundreds of free ones on the web. Taking them and trying to make them into a paid product on Steam isn't okay.
