Chemistry Games: the Elements

The most basic part of chemistry is knowing the elements.  There are a lot of games that show elements or ask about elements, or talk about them.

First up is Atomas, which puts elements in a circle and has some odd logic to combine them.   I am showing a tutorial page because it helps illustrate the kind of moves available.


Next comes Chemistry Game (by Orange Unit) which is a neat slider puzzle with elements for tiles.  But neither of these needed to use actual elements ... they would not be any different if they used plain numbers instead.  In fact Orange Unit has the same game skinned with numbers and alphabets.


Periodic Table Battle (by Wipoo Chatwranon) is literally just choosing from two element names each round to shoot the alien/whatever, and it even had a typo in the very first element I saw, poor Hydrogne.  Sure, it's good to know the element symbols, and in a pinch you could easily confuse thallium and thulium.  But there is no "game" here, just repetition.  At least have a speed up or some other progression and a best time to beat.


The next one, Periodic Table Game, is more advanced.  It has multiple island groups, each with a variety of matches or multiple choice quizzes.  Match atomic numbers to elements, the types of elements (transition metal, halogen. etc), names, and more.  Sometimes you get one with a Yes/No to the match, or multiple choice out of 4 options, or a list of 9 to select at the bottom.


Note: I did not choose Yes here (duh), it just defaults to YES when the screen loads.



Island group #2 covers Properties of the Elements.  It has levels to match the valence values of an element (wow, that's not easy for most of middle of the periodic table). 

And the last island group asks whether or not certain compounds are soluble or not.  I assume the solubility is in H2O, boy that would be specialist knowledge if it switched to alcohol or ether or liquid oxygen as a solvent.  There are a lot more levels on the maps which would be unlocked with some payment.  99 cents a month, I think, but boo for trying to get attached to your money.  Just charge a few bucks once and play fair.

My main issue with this one is how little time they allow.  30 seconds to match up lists of valences on 6 atoms?  Still, I am curious what all the other pay-to-unlock options might be.

In any case, if the screen at the end of a level tells you how many correct answers you got, you just took a quiz, not played a game.


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