Chemistry Games: Merge Elements

Here is a game that uses the chemical elements in a creative way and is not just another quiz.  Merge Elements by Scienchro is basically a "drop and match" game, so it's not groundbreaking, but it is very solidly coded and has its own kind of perks.  As you drop tiles, two matching tiles numbered N produce a tile numbered N+1.  Three matching tiles can produce an N+2 tile, and they can continue to drop and interact.  Side-by-side matching will favor the dropped tile, moving the merged result there, so you can pull a tile off a lower numbered tile by dropping a matching tile to the left or right of it.  As you discover new elements, you get coins.

While it does not have the silly fun of the irregularly shaped heads from the Pop Cats game that roll around and merge in between moves, a single drop here can still produce an unusual chain reaction of the tiles.  

You can use some of your earned coins to start the game at a higher atomic number. Note that only 12 different elements can fall at any time, so when you hit aluminum (13) you get a message that hydrogen (1) blocks will no longer be used, and existing H blocks disappear.

Sure, it could have been done with simple number tiles like so many other games, but what gave it a true chemistry feel for me was the way the achievements and leaderboards were setup.  The achievements had clever scientific names that feel authentic and appropriate to the theme.  The leaderboards rank you by score or by the highest element you discovered.  The highest right now is element 70, which feels impossible once you see how hard it is just to get up to sodium (11).

I like when a game has a smaller following than the mass-market games where the ranking will sometimes show over a million people on top of you.  Here, I think I got to number 28 in the rankings after just an hour, but I am still ages away from element 71.

It's simple, and it does what it needs to do.  I don't know if it is still being developed or if updates can be expected, but I like this one just the way it is.  I am so stuck on sodium, I just want to get to Mg.

12/4 update: I only play about one game before bed on a given day, since they can drag out for 20 minutes or more.  But I made it to phosphorus (15).