Chemistry Games: Molecule Makers

Molecule makers appear to be the most common class of chemistry-related games on the Android.  There are a lot of games where the challenge is to build specific molecules.  These have a range of styles and difficulty levels, and it is a more informative pasttime than just answering quiz questions.

 



"Molecule - a chemistry puzzle" (by a.mighty.dish) is very stylish and combines molecule making with an attractive spatial puzzle.  You have to navigate the atoms together in the limited niches provided.  It has not been updated since 2018.


Chemistry Lab (by Monster Brain Educational Games) has a few different molecule maker levels.  The first mode is Classic where the atoms come dripping down the three tubes up above and you have to catch only the correct ones in the big beaker.  That's fun for a while.  

The next level (Covalent Bonds) has you draw the bonds between atoms to meet certain goals.  Aside from one goofy typo ("Carbon di Oxide") it has some learning potential.  Each correct answer gets you 5 more seconds, which really isn't much.  For some reason, the help button on this level shows a page crammed with electron configurations, which isn't going to help at all.



The next level (Molecule Maker) has a big round flask in the middle and lists 4 molecules at the bottom, and you drag atoms into the flask to complete the given substances.  It's okay.  But the shapeless mess of atoms in the flask just doesn't work for me.  If you're going to show a real molecule, I think you should show the real structure.  There is huge educational potential here, don't put false patterns in there.  Anyway, if you complete all 4 molecules you get a big Restart button to try another batch.  The selection is very limited, I'm only seeing 19 compounds listed on their Compounds page, and some of those have non-scientific names like washing soda, sand and gypsum, but why?


The same app has another level where you balance equations, which is good practice and takes some knowledge but it's still just a quiz.


"Organic Pop - Chemistry Game" (by Keewon Seo) starts simple but turns into a very tricky puzzle after about 10 levels.  You have to draw bonds to connect atoms in this grid full of dropping atoms.  Sometimes you have to make valid but unreal molecules to clear some space.  And you can long-tap a carbon atom to pull in its attached hydrogens to a single cell of the grid.  It has a good set of tutorial drawings, and gets borderline unplayable later on when it expects you to know the structure of nicotine and ibuprofen and other molecules off the top of your head and somehow render them in the grid where they are all squished and distorted.  I wonder how the program even recognizes the eventual matches.  This is definitely a puzzle, not a game with decision points.  And it goes off into Mensa territory, where puzzles are just not fun anymore.  This one gets my thumbs up for being a challenge and just solidly doing what it set out to do.  And it's still being actively developed.


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